NICK GRIMSHAW: We didn't have MTV and you sort of had to do whatever your mum and dad wanted to do for fun. There was no other telly, but I had a radio in my bedroom where I'd listen to Radio 1.

The only time we'd listen to any other music was in the car and my dad had one of those six-CD changers in the boot. I think we had Bill Withers, Bob Marley, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Simon and Garfunkel… those were the five I remember.

We grew up in Oldham, north of Manchester and we’d go out for drives – but we wouldn’t really be going anywhere – so we'd just have a ride out somewhere. My mum and dad would be in the front and I'd be in the back.

My older siblings – they're 11 and 13 years older than me, so they'd never come on these rides, because they were 15 and 17 by the time this was happening, and I was about four, so I'd sit in the back of the car, and we'd just drive around and listen to stuff.

I can vividly remember being in the car and seeing the drystone walls and fields and sheep rolling by, and it being soundtracked by “America”. I remember thinking how Simon and Garfunkel were quite surrealist when I was a kid. I think I was quite drawn into the lyrics, because they're very abstract lyrics, like “I Am A Rock?” and I was like “What? He’s a rock?!” You take things very literal as a kid.

BEST FIT: “America” is a very melancholy song but there’s so much hope in it, and a yearning to escape

Yes, and it still touches me now. It wasn’t really a song we’d listened to in the house but it makes me really emotional when I hear it and think of those little rides out with my mum and dad when I was little.

I feel like kids growing up in the '80s and '90s probably got into a lot more music than they do now, because your parents were the gatekeepers to where you’d hear the music. Now you can listen to something from any era; your mum and dad are streaming thousands of songs from across every single year, whereas we only listened to five albums for the first ten years of my life, so you really attach yourself to those songs!

Were you getting different music from your sister compared to your brother?

Yeah she loved INXS and Simple Minds but I remember I lost her INXS tape – that album Kick? I borrowed it when I went away with my mum and dad and I borrowed her Walkman and I lost the tape on the plane. It was such a traumatic experience and I can remember the fear of telling her and her being gutted as if she'd never be able to get one again. I thought it was like some heirloom!

But it was your sister Jane who played you Mariah Carey, right?

Yeh and I remember vividly driving around in the summer of 94 or 95 and I was just turning 10 or 11 and Janes was insured on my dad's company car – a white saloon or a white rover –and we were listening to Mariah Carey and ODB’s remix of “Fantasy”. I can remember thinking I was the coolest person ever, and thinking I was way older than 10 or 11 and learning the ODB rap – I did the ODB bit and my sister would sing the Mariah bit.

Also when I was covering for Lauren, someone requested it for Cloudbusting because they said “Oh, it reminds me of Lauren. I know Lauren loves this” so I just have such good memories of that song, and it still sounds great. It's a great pop song!

Did the music video play a big part in your memories of this?

So creative, so brilliant, it was like nothing I'd ever seen. Even the concept of a music video I didn't get when I saw that: Why has this man got a fruit salad on his face?

I remember watching it at my Auntie Pat and Uncle Dave's house and I used to love going there; their house felt quite chic, because they had a black kitchen counter. I thought it was a bit like a posh house in Brookside. And they had MTV. I watched Peter Gabriel, and I was totally obsessed with him. To this day, I love that song and it’s probably been one of the most played songs in my life.

I think it unlocked something in my brain, thinking that you could be creative. I know it sounds stupid to say, but no one in my family worked in the creative industries, we didn't know anyone in that area that worked in creative. I think seeing an adult man create something with plasticine blew my mind, and I thought, “Oh, wow, okay, you can really do anything!”

You worked at MTV didn’t you?

I was desperate to move to London to come and work in radio and I applied for loads of radio jobs – and I didn't get any. So then I applied to work at MTV and I went and worked in the international creative department as an intern. They’d make all the visuals, MTV logos and the straps that went along the screen, and they'd make all the idents for the MTV awards, EMAS, VMAs, the movie awards.

I would assist the team of graphic designers and creatives; so they'd come up with a brief like, 'This year it should be all about green, and we're going to shoot it in Stockholm.' Then they’d go away and film it, the graphic designers would make it and I'd assist the two teams.

I loved it but I was really bad, so bad. I was so embarrassed about my behaviour there. I was so rubbish. I was 21, I'd moved to London and I didn’t know anyone. I'd never really had a nine to five, I'd never worked full time.

I'd been there about six months and my job was to dub the tapes - like copy the tapes. And one day my boss Bernie said “So, have you done the dubbing?” And I went, “What's dubbing?” And she was like, “What do you mean?” I went, “What's dubbing?” And she went, “You know, when you dub the tapes?” And I was like: “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about” and I'd been there for months. So bad, so bad.

When I DJ, I love starting with “Pull Up To The Bumper” because I love the sound – the cars, the beeping – and there’s such an atmosphere to it. And I like to think when I'm on a dance floor that you can embody that thing that Grace Jones has. So I always think that’s a good starting point for when I'm DJ'ing.

I love Grace Jones, and I've always loved Grace Jones. I've been trying to think about what song I should start the Breakfast Show with, because people keep asking.

I guess it's less dramatic on 6 because the whole show is music that you love, so maybe it’s less of a big, momentous occasion than it was on Radio 1, because there you’d play your song that you loved, and then you get into the playlist.

Are you a good DJ at parties?

I'm not good at mixing, but I'm really good at song selection. I always try and learn to mix, but I have to really concentrate to do it, and I just don't know if that's fun at a party. I don't know if anyone's coming to see me for mixing!

With one exception, most of the songs you’ve picked all came out before your career began. Do you think it’s harder for music to really take your breath away and cement itself to parts of your life in the same way when you’re a grown-up?

I definitely think hearing something you’ve never heard before is so exciting that it must imprint on you in a different way. So hearing New Order or “Smack My Bitch Up” for the first time…especially coming from listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Tina Turner with my mum and dad.

But stuff does still does excite me, and I still get obsessed with stuff for sure, and I can hear a song and play it over and over and over and over – and that's my personality for a week. I’m less gagged, but I’m still as excited.

Like me, you must get to hear a lot of things very early on, where the songs and artists are often untarnished by mass opinion or any consensus.

I was saying the other day that it’s one of the things I feel most lucky about in doing radio – in that, like you say, they’ve not been tarnished by something like a review or “I don't like it” or “Have you heard it?”

It’s the same when I get to see a film for work before it's out, and before you've seen the trailer and you go in to see it with zero expectations. But I also like it when someone plays something to you that they love in they way I’d hear stuff from my brother and my sister. I love it when someone comes along and says: “Oh my god! I love this! Have you heard this?”

I put Marie Davidson down because I thought I should have something I’m listening to at the moment, and I love her. And I’ve been pretending for the last couple of weeks that I’m Marie Davidson every time I work out, because it’s the only thing I can listen to.

Are you someone who actively listens to new stuff every single day or do you go back to the same old records?

A bit of both. We always listen to music from the moment we wake up, and really, ever since I was allowed to have a radio my room, I've listened to it when I'm walking the dogs, on the tube on the way here, on the way home from here, whilst I'm here at home, in bed.

At the weekends, I'll put records, on because there's time – I’m not going put a vinyl on at 5.15 on a Monday morning!

Do you buy a lot of records?

I kind of buy older stuff, or stuff that I’ve listened to already, although I did buy Eusexua the other day because I wanted to support Twigs as a statement of intent, as she’s doing something so interesting. I bought Madvillainy, oh and the Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra record [Promises]

But I do listen a lot; I'll get very into something and listen to it over and over and over, like one song consistently for three days and that's where I'm at with Marie Davidson at the moment. I've been listening to “Sexy Clown” over and over and then I just went through a Eusexua phase where I could only listen to “Drums of Death” by Twigs…

Twigs on her '90s Madonna trip is a wonderful thing isn’t it?

It sent me back to “Bedtime Story”. I remember when Chris Evans hosted the Brits and he introduced Madonna, who did “Bedtime Story”, by saying “Oh, it's my flatmate up next, here's Madonna.” And because I was young, I was like "Oh, my God, no way. Chris Evans lives with Madonna!” I fully believed it.

The song was maybe too Avant-garde for my age, but when I grew up, I realised how good it was, so I've been listening to “Drums of Death” and “Bedtime Story” on repeat, and now Marie Davidson's getting it too.