Who made you.....?

[VoodooChild24]

For me it was Eric Clapton when Wonderful tonight came out in the 80's. There was something to that lick.

 

[nigelpkay]

Rhodes, Rik Emmett, Malmsteen

I remember Rik Emmett was on a Much Music Power Hour special (Canadian TV) on guitarists back in the 80's, and I was excited to hear him talk about Malmsteen, and then he blows my mind by pulling out his guitar and playing an amazing Malmsteen run as an example. Then I later found out Yngwie opened for Triumph during a tour in 1986 and I missed it

 

[cnote]

Hetfield, because it sounded like something I could actually play but still sounded awesome. First song I learned was Seek & Destroy.

 

[JamesPeters]

You are going to laugh... Mick Jones. Jukebox Hero made me want to play guitar.

+1

Hey I was 10 years old, you can't blame me. I still like the damn song though. Lol.

Glad to know I am not the odd man out. I was a little older than you but not much - born in 1969. Later, it was ZZ Top and Jake E Lee. Bark At The Moon introduced me to Ozzy and then it was over. I was officially a metalhead.

I'm trying to think of the sequence of inspiration for me to play guitar...this is probably the first time I've thought about it in depth...

-Old-school radio-friendly classic rock when I was a kid in the 70s (including Foreigner and a few others, but that one song stuck in my head)
-KISS because they were super heroes, don't you know! (I was still a young kid...)
-Not much else for guitar interested me for a while (since in the 80s there was a lot of pop-rock synth stuff going on, and breakdancing, Michael Jackson, Prince, etc.) Keyboards filled a lot of space in a mix and seemed very up-front, so that made me get a Casio.
-VH's 1984 (at which point I rediscovered what that old VH I album was on my Mickey Mouse record player, and thought "oh these are the same guys?")
-Pop-based "hard rock" (Bon Jovi, ZZ Top, etc.)
-Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Whitesnake, Dio, etc.

Finally at 16, I decided playing a keyboard wasn't as awesome as playing guitar.

VH remained a favorite and to the surprise of most of my friends, 1984 was my favorite album (and still is). That includes the guitar tone (gasp!!! )

Metallica was under my radar since in Winnipeg most people painted them with a weird label: "satanist". "They sacrifice cats", you'd hear crap like that about them. Without Internet (and being not on the radio at the time at all), or having anyone's album to borrow/listen to, I couldn't tell what they sounded like. (Remember those days? Pretty soon the average forumite won't even know what the world was like without Youtube, lol!)

Then I got GNR's Appetite for Destruction. Loved it...for a week. Then decided I'd never listen to it again. A friend got AJFA as a joke (just released at the time), and told me "yeah I'll trade you, I hate this album..." and I traded. 30 seconds into Blackened and that was it for me! Then within a few short years:

-I bought all Metallica's other albums
-Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Exodus, The Accused, MOD/SOD, Black Flag, etc. etc. etc. (the binge was on for thrash, hardcore punk)
-Pantera (by accident because I was actually trying to find Sepultura albums), Sepultura
-Carcass, Napalm Death, Deicide, Brutal Truth, Morbid Angel, etc.

 

[david simpson]

Danny from the Partrige family.

 

[shredi knight]

 

[SpiderWars]

Danny from the Partrige family.

Laurie from the Partridge Family.

 

[Stinkbomb]

Probably will take shit for this but it was Mick Mars...followed by Alex Lifeson and Andy LaRocque

 

[DrewJD82]

Gilmour.

I was already a Floyd nut by the time I was 11, thanks to my dad. He took me to see them in '94 and though I had wanted to play drums before that (dad's a drummer) something about Gilmour's guitar making 60,000 people go apeshit, the way it sounded in the stadium, I just had to play guitar after that night. My entire life changed because of that concert.

After Gilmour I got into Eric Johnson and my uncle took me to the Boston G3 show to see him, along with Vai and Satch. I had heard Vai before that night, but after seeing him....that was it. I pretty much forgot about every other guitarist for a while after that. Vai hit me just as hard as Gilmour did.

 

[evhfan]

One guy made me want to play guitar...Gary Richrath...this was a few years before I ever heard of EVH

 

[Rock Bodom]

It wasn't actually a hard rock or metal player initially. Of all things, it was watching the movie "the Blues Brothers" which, obviously just a comedy, but had some seriously good musicians in it. In particular, Matt "Guitar" Murphy made the instrument look so cool to me.

I started taking lessons, got my first strat, started to get good, still wanting to just be a blues guy...and then I heard Metallica for the first time. It was all over, like instantly, I was totally a metal and hard rock guy after that. Lynch was my other big inspiration shortly thereafter.

 

[Drew]

One guy made me want to play guitar...Gary Richrath...this was a few years before I ever heard of EVH

In the mid 70's, Gary was extremely entertaining to see live. His stage presence and playing on that old Les Paul at that time left a big impression on me.

 

[steve_k]

Danny from the Partrige family.

 

[311boogieman]

Gary Richrath had good tone. So did Mick Mars obviously.


My friends and I used to jump off of couches and furniture with tennis rackets emulating KISS. So even though Ace was lead guitarist, I wanted to be Paul.

 

[Starman22]

One guy made me want to play guitar...Gary Richrath...this was a few years before I ever heard of EVH

This ^^^^^

 

[snowdog]

 

[PBGas]

I think it may have been some kind of combination of Tony Iommi, Glen Tipton, Van Halen, Angus Young and Dave Murray.

 

[rsm]

The Beatles

When I was a kid, my parents gave me a choice: piano or guitar lessons. As a kid, I thought The Beatles played guitar, so that's what I wanted.

In retrospect, I wish I'd picked piano.

 

[mctallica1]

I bet none of these guitarists thought back then that they would inspire players for decades to come.

I like Ace's quote: "If I had known I would be such an influence, I would have practiced more".

So true...on both points!

 

[mctallica1]

For me it was Eric Clapton when Wonderful tonight came out in the 80's. There was something to that lick.

That was our wedding song in 1991....still love the song, still married to my high school sweetheart