Does anyone know the genius singer from Iceland called Björk? She’s really one of my absolute favorite singers.

In the end, what is rock & roll? Rage is at the heart of it. Some great rock & roll tends to have that, which is why the Who were such a great band.

Some great rock & roll tends to have that, which is why the Who were such a great band. Or Pearl Jam. Eddie has that rage.

At least in my head, the reference is to one of my favorite Dylan songs, “Señor Señor.” In that song, he meets an angel and he, like, goes on this ride with him. I have always imagined it is the angel of death.

Gavin Friday, one of my friends from Cedarwood Road [in Dublin], has written one of my favorite songs. It is called “The Last Song I’ll Ever Sing,” about this character in Dublin, back when we were growing up, called the Diceman, who died at 42, five years after he was diagnosed with HIV.

The band that I liked at Coachella was Cage the Elephant. Their commitment to the performance really blew so much of the other stuff away. They really did own it in a way that few other artists did.

Was David Bowie a big influence? Gigantic, the English Elvis. Bowie was much more responsible for the aesthetic of punk rock than he’s been given credit for, like, in fact, most interesting things in the Seventies and Eighties. I put his pictures up in my bedroom.

I remember John singing “Oh My Love.” It’s like a little hymn. It’s certainly a prayer of some kind — even if he was an atheist. “Oh, my love/For the first time in my life/My eyes can see/I see the wind/Oh, I see the trees/Everything is clear in our world.” For me it was like he was talking about the veil lifting off, the scales falling from the eyes. Seeing out the window with a new clarity that love brings you. I remember that feeling.

Imagine and Bob Dylan. “Blowin’ in the Wind” — all that stuff — and the folksy thing.

The Who: About age fifteen, that starts really connecting. In amongst the din and the noise, the power chords and the rage, there’s another voice. “Nobody knows what it’s like behind blue eyes . . . .” And the beginnings of what I would discover is one of the essential aspects for me — and why I’m drawn to a piece of music — which has something to do with the quest. The sense that there’s another world to be explored.

Bob Dylan at the same time. Listened to his acoustic albums. Then starting to think about playing those acoustic songs. My brother had a Beatles songbook — so trying to teach myself guitar, and him sort of helping.

When I was fourteen and lost my mother, I went back to Plastic Ono Band.

I really remember John Lennon’s Imagine. I guess I’m twelve; that’s one of my first albums. That really set fire to me. It was like he was whispering in your ear — his ideas of what’s possible. Different ways of seeing the world.

Then performers like Tom Jones. I’d see Tom Jones on Saturday night on a variety show — I must have been, like, eight years old — and he’s sweating, and he’s an animal, and he’s unrestrained. He’s singing with abandon. He has a big black voice, in a white guy.

What were the first rock & roll records that you heard? Age four. The Beatles — “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” I guess that’s 1964. I remember watching the Beatles with my brother on St. Stephen’s Day, the day after Christmas. The sense of a gang that they had about them, from just what I’ve been saying, you can tell that connected, as well as the melodic power, the haircuts and the sexuality. Which I was just probably processing.