Dan Auerbach

You get to bring your own sound system when you play an arena, all the lights and visual stuff, which I think is really cool. There's something about those old arenas, where it feels larger than life.

Hip hop is the new rock n' roll, you know what I mean? And anybody who doesn't think that is just sort of living in the past. It's all just American music, really, when you get right down to it.

Bands from Akron have a sense of humor and don't tend to take themselves too seriously.

Bombino's a super modest guy, very nice. His whole crew is a bunch of characters and he's definitely the Grand Poobah. I don't think the other guys are that much younger than him, but he definitely feels like the wise man; you just sort of get that sense when you're around him. He doesn't say that much but he's humble and well-respected.

My mum's family would all get together, with guitars, harmonica, mandolins and upright bass and play old blues and folk songs. That was normal to me.

I started playing bluegrass with my family, so there were the G, C and D chords. I was playing a Martin acoustic because that's what Carter Stanley of the Stanley Brothers played. Then I got into the really raw blues of Hound Dog Taylor and started on electric guitar.

When I learned to play music, I was listening to blues music. And all the blues music I liked was super simple and stripped down. And then all the hip hop I liked was super simple and stripped down and we always heard that connection.

The modern video games kind of - they're too three dimensional.

Coming from a smaller place always made things feel more personal, which is really what it's all about.