Musical Influences who influenced you to want to play an insturment

ever since the 5th grade i bought "Hybrid Theory" by Linkin Park and now i saw,met linkin park with my dad now i'm 13 and i got the album in 2006 and i met the band,saw them live in 2008 and they influenced me to become a musician i am a guitarist but some of my other influences are bassists who are your influences tell me the truth here are some of mine:
Flea
Tom Morello
Rick Nielson
Andy Summers
Kurt Cobain
Tim Commerford

My mom is a classicly trained pianist of over forty years, she sings as well. My grandmother also played the piano and sung, and my dad played the bass for a bit..so I guess it all started there for me. Both my dad an mom loved rock and roll and metal, and my first real interest came in the form of an album entitled Welcome to my Nightmare by Alice Cooper. When I was old enough to understand what music was and such I realy got into 80's heavy metal and thrash, with King Diamond leading the way for me. I didn;t get interested in becoming a musician until I turned 17. My influences include but are not limited to:

Kelly Schaffer
Paul Mavisdal
Chuck Schuldiner
Alex Skolnick and Eric Petersen
Jeff Waters
Jason Becker
Marty Friedman
Dave Mustaine
Ihsahn
Michael Akerfeldt
Trey Azagthoth
Ralph Santolla
Andy Larocque
Michael Denner
Pete Blakk
Hank Shermann
Ace Frehley
and the list goes on and on.

Well, way back in the mid-eighties, when I was about ten years old, the very first song that made me want to get into playing music was "Eye Of The Tiger" by Survivor. After listening to that album over and over, I decided to start a band with two of my cousins with whatever instruments happened to be lying around the house (a cheap no-named acoustic guitar, keyboard, and drum machine). We sounded horrible and did not last long... however, it was a start.

From then on I devoted myself to writing songs and learning open-position chords on the acoustic guitar to sing along with. Until I first saw Al Di Meola performing on late night TV in 1991. My jaw dropped :eek: and was totally blown away by his playing. I became an instant fan, started learning lead guitar, and tried learning his entire back catalogue... not an easy task.

So, those were my main two influences that really got me into it.

Some the same and some completely different to what i like and am influenced by at present:

Dave Mustaine
Marty Friedman
Kirk Hammet
Alex Skolnick
Jeff Waters
Randy Rhodes
James Murphy

Probably listened to Metallica the most at the time (back in the early 90's), followed closely by Megadeth, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Testament, Annihilator, Exodus, Death, Morbid Angel, Nocturnus, Possessed... and of course Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen, Richie Blackmore, Tony Iomi, Randy Rhodes - pretty varied stuff

Originally Posted by: Superhuman
Probably listened to Metallica the most at the time (back in the early 90's), followed closely by Megadeth, Slayer, Testament, Annihilator, Exodus, Death, Morbid Angel, Nocturnus, Possessed... and of course Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen, Richie Blackmore, Tony Iomi, Randy Rhodes - pretty varied stuff

I do not mean to get too far off topic here, but wow, Nocturnus... now, that is a band a have not listened to in a long time. I actually traded my copy of their [U]Thresholds[/U] album for a cheap classical guitar that fell apart on me. Bad trade. Anyway, I like your list of influences... great music! :)

Originally Posted by: MikeFairbrotherI do not mean to get too far off topic here, but wow, Nocturnus... now, that is a band a have not listened to in a long time. I actually traded my copy of their [U]Thresholds[/U] album for a cheap classical guitar that fell apart on me. Bad trade. Anyway, I like your list of influences... great music! :)

Nocturnus is still one of my favourite bands, its really wierd that Thresholds didn't become one of the biggest DM albums ever, it was way ahead of anything released at the time and still musically ahead of 99% of bands since - like a death metal version of Dream Theatre crossed with Symphony X. I liked The Key too but it was a few rungs down in terms of lyrical content, production, song structure, composition and over all guitar skills - but still a damn good album. Check out the mini realse after Thresholds (can't think of the name), production is worse than Thresholds but there are some good songs on it too.

Originally Posted by: SuperhumanNocturnus is still one of my favourite bands, its really wierd that Thresholds didn't become one of the biggest DM albums ever, it was way ahead of anything released at the time and still musically ahead of 99% of bands since - like a death metal version of Dream Theatre crossed with Symphony X. I liked The Key too but it was a few rungs down in terms of lyrical content, production, song structure, composition and over all guitar skills - but still a damn good album. Check out the mini realse after Thresholds (can't think of the name), production is worse than Thresholds but there are some good songs on it too.

Didn't John Oliva (Savatage) help produce those albums?

Pat Travers
Thin lizzy
Status Quo
Queen

Lots of family members play instruments, which I think influenced me more than famous players. Once I started to play guitar more seriously, I really took a liking to players who could play a good full-sounding rythym/lead like Stevie Ray Vaughan, but seeing as how I'm primarily an acoustic man I try to emulate players like Dave Matthews and James Taylor. While I get more energy from Dave's playing, I really admire the simplicity and beauty of James Taylor's songs. I don't think I'm ever going to play exactly like Dave or exactly like James, but I definitely want to be one of those players who says a lot with only a handful of notes.

To many to name...

That said:
When I started, it was BB King and Jimmy Page.

Then the 'Shred' Days:
George Lynch

Now:
Flippin' everyone. I stopped making rules and just love tasty playing.

...a very wide area of influences

Lincoln Brewster-he has that blues/jazz sound but adds a lot more to make it
shred-errific

Eric Johnson-the tone, the hyrbid picking, the emotion

Joe Pass-his idea of playing scales with no spaces gave me a lot more confidence to explore around the fretboard

AJ Minette (The Human Abstract)-this guy was trained in strictly classical music, and used many scales and techniques to get a really unique sound in the band

Paul Waggoner (Between the Buried and Me)-i look up to him because his formal training was to a minimum and he has created some amazing music which technically is difficult (odd time riffs, symmetric scales to other scales in those riffs), and has the ability to play many genres in one song and make it flow beautifully, his technique is amazing for someone who took a couple months of music lessons

Originally Posted by: Bryan ConnollyLots of family members play instruments, which I think influenced me more than famous players. Once I started to play guitar more seriously, I really took a liking to players who could play a good full-sounding rythym/lead like Stevie Ray Vaughan...

Hey Bryan,

Good to see you here. It must have been great growing up in a family environment where a lot of people played instruments. I did not have that and always felt ostracized playing guitar. SRV is one of my biggest influences too. Especially in his ability to play a full-sounding rhythm and lead. His MTV Unplugged acoustic performances just blew me away.

Lets see if I can remember all of them...
B.B. King
SRV
Billy Gibbons
Satch
Eric Sardinas
Marty Freidman
Buddy Guy
Tim Reynolds
Kirk Hammet
Glenn Thames (he was a kid I went to high school with, way back in the day)
Dan Weldon
Dave Matthews
Lyle Lovett
the list goes on....

One day I was just chilling and listening to some particularly heavy songs ( I think it was COB), and I misclicked and saw a vid of Rndy Rhoads playing live (nothing against him, I was just in the mood for REALLY heavy music). That's when it all locked in place for me.