Who Inspired you to start playing?

[Don Corleone]

Thought it would be interesting to see who made us all want to pick up the guitar in the first place.

For me it was Dave Murray from Iron Maiden. I remember getting the Maiden in England video (Seventh Son tour if you don't know) for Christmas when I was young. The moment for me was watching him play the solo from Prisoner. At the time I though that was the coolest thing I'd seen (living in the UK, I didn't discover Ed for another year or two)

[jslav06]

Honestly... for me it was actually Johnny Ramone, because I was really into punk and stuff. Then I saw my friend play in front of my middle school class and I was like, "Holy Shit! Everyone is diggin' him" So I decided I'm gonna start guitar. And I totally started for all the wrong reasons. Then I got into it. And those reasons eventually turned into the right reasons as I started listening to band that kicked guitar ass:
CVH
Black Sabbath
Ozzy
Led Zeppelin
Trans-Siberian Orchestra (they were actually the first band I played a kinda tough solo to.)
Ac/Dc(which actually doesn't thrill me anymore)
But now I'm pretty friggin' good at it. And I owe it all to Johnny Ramone, and a middle school buddy of mine.
Memories...

[Coyote]

Brian May. He made me wanna get a guitar.

The solo from "The Final Countdown" (and later that Eddie-guy) made me wanna practice more. As I learned to play the damn thing, I was jamming along to Scorpions, Deep Purple, Chuck Berry, Clapton, Hendrix, pretty much anything with a kickass solo...

[sammysucks65]

Run to the Hills, i loved maiden and the lead duo with smith and murray, much like priest, the british heavy metal invasion is my favorite breed of guitar playing.

the first time i could play run to the hills, i really felt proud haha. since then i have formed my own band and have a lot of fun with it (plus the ladies really dig it, trust me)

rock on

[jhale667]

For me it was all about EVH, as I imagine is the case with most people here. THEN I discovered Rhoads, Schenker, Gary Moore, Hendrix, Page and everyone else. But I remember my sister coming home with VH I and the instant 'Eruption' started I was like "What the fuck is THAT?!?!" Then once I saw his guitar---which was (still IS) one of the coolest things I'd ever seen, I was like "I MUST do this". Wasn't until later I found out that chicks dig it, too....

[jslav06]

The chicks do dig it... as I found out earlier this week.

[jhale667]

Originally posted by jslav06
The chicks do dig it... as I found out earlier this week.

You've only BEGUN to discover that, young man....

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Not to sound generic, but I freely admit Ace Frehley and Kiss inspired me 1st. I don't think at the time anyone looked cooler playing the guitar than Ace. Enter Edward Van Halen. VH just knocked my socks off. A friend of mine came over the house and said check this out. Eruption came roaring through the speakers and I was literally levitating off the floor. Ace who??? Kiss who?? I went to the store and picked up some guitar magazines to find out who this madman was. He was no madman he was a God among men. Shortly thereafter my same buddy introduced me to a tune called Flying High Again. Randy Rhoads also knocked me on my ass. I had an old reel to reel player and I would record all of my favorite VH and RR tunes and just sit down with my guitar for hours learning their riffs. Wore out quite a few tapes fast forwarding and rewinding.

[Nitro Express]

It was Ace Frehley for me. In grade school I thought KISS was the coolest.

[Dave's Bitch]

Slash.i heard the sweet child o mine solo and thought i wanna do that

[DLRdelight!]

For me it was none other than Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello. Just by listening to all the crazy sounds he got and bad ass riffs it made me want to play so bad. Later on Igt into Robby Krieger of the Doors and finally the greatest of all time, Eddie Van Halen. Today he is my greatest guitar idol

[sagebrush]

Well i play drums and guitar so drums Bill Word and guitar Tony iomi .

[bueno bob]

Top ten influences...in no order of importance...Jeff Pilson, John Alderete, Jaco Pastorius, John Wetton, Mark Adams, Ron Broder, Steve Harris, Ian Hill, Cliff Burton, and Dee Dee.

[Don Corleone]

Originally posted by bueno bob
Top ten influences...in no order of importance...Jeff Pilson, John Alderete, Jaco Pastorius, John Wetton, Mark Adams, Ron Broder, Steve Harris, Ian Hill, Cliff Burton, and Dee Dee.

But who is the one that made you want to pick an instrument?

[Diamondjimi]

Summer '78 , heard this guy . The rest is history !

[lesfunk]

Geezer Butler, Bob Daisley

[DrMaddVibe]

Jaco, McCartney, Maby, Simmons, Bootsy, Squire and Waters.

[sammysucks65]

i dont play bass but to me steve harris is the best bassist around

[Take 'Em]

1 of my cousins back in the 70s played in a garage band that made it all the way to headline the highschool prom, and he let me be the"roadie". I was 12 at the time. Picked up a garage sale guitar the next week.

Still remember how cool it was...

[bueno bob]

Originally posted by Don Corleone
But who is the one that made you want to pick an instrument?

Out of all of them?

lol...Bob Daisley...

[manwiththedogs]

Gene Simmons.
Later on, Mikey.
I`ll put Anthony`s ability to hold down a rock solid groove up against anybody.

[J-Axe]

Originally posted by manwiththedogs
I`ll put Anthony`s ability to hold down a rock solid groove up against anybody.

Couldn't agree more. Very underrated bassist. Even though he won bassist of the year many many times in different mag's and comp's.

First guitarist that made me WANT to play, was Brian Setzer. Then I learnt a whole bunch of Buddy Holly tunes. Then when I was about 9, I got into Richie Sambora, then Edward not long after.

My top influences nowadays are Eddie, Sambora, Albert Lee, J.Sykes, Knopfler, Satriani, Kotzen, Junior Brown, Setzer...

[Big Troubles]

Edward.

[mako_kimura]

Well, I grew up around music, so I have many influences. The first guitarists I ever heard was Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton at age 2. After that, I was exposed to Mick Mars, Phil Collen and Steve Clark, Prince, and Billy Gibbons(all between the ages of 2 to 5). My BIGGEST influence came to me when my dad bought the Essential Ozzy Osbourne. I heard the live Paranoid and was blown away. So overall, my main influence to make me play was the god himself, Randy Rhoads

[Matt White]

Ace made me want to play guitar..then it was EVH & Angus Young.....

[Don Corleone]

Originally posted by Matt White
..then it was EVH & Angus Young.....

Snap. After Dave Murray it was the same for me.

[Jimmy Jingles]

James Hetfield
Edward Van Halen
Stevie Ray Vaughan

[ELVIS]

For me, it was this guy several apartments down the road who had a guitar with a few strings on it, and he could play a few Rush songs along with the record...

I knew I could do that, and I could play a song the first day I had a guitar...

No particular famous person made me want to get a guitar...

[doctor roth]

Cool idea for a thread. Id have to say Jimi hendrix and SRV. Heard the SRV version of little wing and fell in love with the instrument. Id never heard the original of little winng at that point and that got me onto hendrix. Such a cool player. Along with EVH probably the most inovative player of all time. Both of em came onto the scene and changed the way people looke at playing forever

[Hardrock69]

Billy Gibbons followed by Ace Frehley....

[dvogel1570]

When I first heard the openning riff of Unchained.

My son asked me to come into his first grade music class and play.
You should have seen their faces when I played:
Dee
Diary of a Madman
Unchained
Feel Your Love Tonight
Eruption
Joan Crawford (the openning piano done in two-handed fashion).

They each got a pick and got to try my guitar. I got so many compliments from the parents. They said their kids were blown away and couldn't stop talking about it.

Someone's got to show the kids what's up.

[tjvhou812]

eddie van halen period

[guwapo_rocker]

For me it was Ace.......then I heard Page and then Eddie,

realized I sucked and switched to bass.

I still play both, and like to play around on the drums too.

[Matt White]

I'm with ya GR....ACE launched a MILLION young guitarist back in the mid-70's...

FUCK!!! IT'S LIKE PULLING TEETH TO GET A PIC POSTED TODAY!!!

[Loons The Great]

Jimmy Reed

[GAR]

There was this camp counselor guy I'll never forget named Tom Valeriano, who when I was 9 had a 12 string acoustic and played and sang Joan Baez "One Tin Soldier" perfectly. I wanted a guitar after that for sure, but didn't get one for another 4 years.

There was also this really old guy named Charlie who taught sunday school, played slide acoustic blues for the songs accompanied by the piano playing lady.

[Van Heflin]

PETE TOWNSHEND

then i started to break guitars and thrash everything and people started to not want to play with me.
look at the face on my avatar how the fuck can someone not want to play with that.

then i got a drum set and yes keith Moon inspired me to play so
i started to break my drum sets and that was costing me an arm and a leg.
then i got back on the guitar more seriously and jazz and fingerficking got me tamed.
then KISS ALIVE came out....now fire was coming out of my ass.
i was unstoppable....god i love guitars.
eddie was an influence too..so did blackmore and many other of these great so called classic rock players.

[DeadOrAlive]

Gotta be Edward and Slash.

And for bass, Duff McKagan and a bunch of other random dudes.

[Terry]

Ace Frehley.

Was kinda rankled by EVH's comments in 1997 towards Ace influencing people to wanna play, because that dudes licks and look were as cool as shit, and he was huge before most people knew who EVH even was.

Having said that, after picking up the guitar and then hearing what EVH was doing, I wanted to be able to play like EVH.

Problem was I became such an Eddie clone that it took years to break free of throwing Eddieisms in my playing. Once I got rid of the tremolo bar and kept my right hand off the fretboard for awhile, began to settle into my own style.

[ThrillsNSpills]

Jimmy Page.

Over the Hills and Far Away just affected me like I can't describe.
Hearing that on a good system from the acoustic part to the crashing of the drums and the electric guitar coming in and Plant singing real high like that was one of those life changing moments. I had to figure out every Zeppelin tune there was.
(in the wrong position half the time)
Then Rush, Sabbath, and finally VH, which was one of those Holy Shit moments. raised the bar a bit...ahhh sayyyyy