UK rocker Sam Fender has long admired and imitated the War On Drugs’ approach to modernized heartland rock, and for new album People Watching, he went straight to the source, recruiting Drugs mastermind Adam Granduciel to work on several tracks, much like the Killers once did to impressive effect. It turns out Granduciel has kind things to say about Fender too.

A couple weeks back, to promote this fall’s Live Drugs Again, Guitar.com interviewed Granduecial about his favorite live albums. During the same chat, he spoke about his appreciation for Fender in comments published today.

Here’s Granduciel on the time Fender and his band spent recording with him in Los Angeles: “Sam and the boys came out in March for about five weeks. We worked on some stuff they’d already started, then we worked on some more stuff from the ground up. It was awesome. I’d never met Sam, but we’d communicated once or twice.” Granduciel elaborated, “I fell in love with him. He’s a savant. Which I wasn’t really prepared for. I didn’t realize how much of a musical savant he was.”

As for Granduciel’s favorite live albums: He picked Jimi Hendrix’s Band Of Gypsys, the Allman Brothers Band’s Live At Fillmore East, the Velvet Underground’s Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes, Neil Young And Crazy Horse’s Live Rust, Sonic Youth’s Live In Brooklyn 2011, and Bob Dylan’s The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert.