My cousin. No, seriously... I didn't even listen to rock/metal or anything like that back then. I didn't have any guitar heroes, any big bands, nothing. He's the reason I started playing the guitar. We were same age so I though I could pull it off too.
He taught me a few songs from Operation Ivy, The Vandals, some Rancid, Minor Threat, even some Jimi Hendrix songs that we both played half assed, etc.
Then he quit after playing for 3 years. I've kept going and going.
it was a close call between rik and ace for me...but i just wanted to look cool like ace, whereas i wanted to learn triumph "songs" and solos.
that tapping section at the end of shock me on the kiss alive II album was pre-VH1 (november 1977 versus VH I Recorded in 1977 and released in February 1978)
and i learned it on my ukelele when my sister's boyfriend left a guitar pick on the front porch and i instinctively started bouncing it high on the strings above the left hand to imitate the "sound" i was hearing, with no clue as to what i was doing technically.
fwiw kiss alive II went double platinum (2 million units)
and VH I went "diamond" (10 million copies sold)
I hate to say it but probably Kirk Hamster I was a big Metallica fan and that's what made me pick up guitar, then came the countless hours of f'ing up MOP and One
Alex Lifeson from Rush and Tom Johnston/Patrick Simmons/Jeff "Skunk" Baxter from the Doobie Brothers. First time I heard China Grove it kicked me in the tail (still love that tune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTCyO9MpGUM). My brother bought 2112 and it was all over for me!