i'm pretty influenced by vai as for the technique, i bend alot and dfive with the bar and slide in a vai-ish melodic style, and despite the fact that the only old school metal albums i have are 2 black sabbath i'm very influenced by that style, iron maiden, ac\dc, old metallica etc. it shows in my technique alot, quick bends, vibration etc.
petrucci influences me aswell with his divercity, those are really the main elements in my style, but i'm very influenced by just good compositions, and i really feel like all the other instruments are somehow relevant to my playing because of that..
if a song has only one guitar note but it would be composed well i'll be blown away and start playing it.
so i'm verry affected by bands like cradle of filth, marilyn manson, all sort of doom bands and such, and there're definetly bigger influences out there but i love the way it's composed, so that's also a part of me.
i love acoustic stuff too, the key to being a good distortion player is being a good acoustic player.
it's obviously not a necesity, but if you know how to play acoustic, then you really do know how to play guitar, it adds alot of touch and accent to your playing which in many guitarists often gets buried in the distortion.

[Edited by LordLuzifer on 08-24-2003 at 08:03 AM]