Dirty Three - Ocean Songs
I lived in a little town called Denton in North Texas where all the indie bands filtered through. Dirty Three were one of those bands that were phenomenal. Still are. The greatest live rock band I've seen. They're one of those bands that are so romantic and painful to watch, so rich. It's hard to choose a record – Ocean Songs is a good place as any.

I first met Warren Ellis in 2001. He came to a Lift To Experience show and it was really great to meet him. 15 years ago I did a tour with them. We played all across Europe, it was for a month and I was playing this boot stomping stuff, angels versus devils performance stuff.

We get in the van and Warren asked, 'Hey Josh, do you play bass?' I'm like "Sure man, I can help you out I can play anything yeah" He said "Ok, I'll bring the bass along and you can fill out the low end on a couple of songs just to give it some diversity for this tour". He said "What about mandolin?" "Absolutely dude, I'm no stranger to it". I'm not a bass player; I'd never entirely touched a mandolin. So that night I'm Googling the way to record a mandolin, but I think he knew it was kind of with a wink. But I was just hustling to be able to play with my favourite band, and he's such a gentleman, they all are.

He actually got that beard from me, he's been fair enough to say in interviews. He looked over and thought you know, that's a pretty good look, I'm gonna grow a beard out. He's more handsome, he's got some nice white going on. He wears it well, he's an elegant, elegant man.