The bands/musicians that changed the way you thought about or played music

[M3CHK1LLA]

im pretty old school but these albums/artist were helpful to me...

 

[skeels]

Beethoven.
Buckethead.
Coltrane.
Rush.
Reign in Blood.
Ace of Base.

There might be some others in there....

 

[Floppystrings]

Burzum
Mayhem
Discordance Axis
NIN
Illuvium
Portal
KMFDM
Ulver

This song is 20 years old:

 

[MrRCJ]

Growing up everyone around me listened to rock/metal so I've been around it my whole life. One of my earliest memories is watching my step dad at the time play guitar and just being amazed watching him play some of the songs I knew. Around that time he gave me my first cassette, Cowboys From Hell.. Not long after that I got my first cd player and a couple CD's which were Countdown To Extincton and Blizzard Of Ozz. At age 9 I got my first guitar after seeing my cousin and his friends jamming to Sepultura, Soulfly and Slayer, Iron Maiden ect... He taught me power chords and the intro the South Of Heaven, but I just wasn't dedicated enough to keep practicing. I would play off and on but never enough to actually improve my playing..that went on for a couple years.

I didn't start playing regularly til I was around 15 or something. It wasn't until than that I started listening to guys like Paul Gilbert or bands like Dream Theater. Since than I've learned to like and appreciate alot of different music. Hearing guys like Guthrie Govan or Greg Howe has just changed the way I look at guitar. I can't really say what changed the way I look at music all I know is everything I've listened to up until now has influenced me in one way or another. I find it funny how after all these years I can still say Pantera is my favorite though.

 

[Ironbird666]

I listen to tons of music so this is pretty hard but I'll bite. I'll limit it to a handful of bands I feel have touched my playing the most and leave out the rest of the bands I also love because I could go on and on and on listing bands that have influenced me.

Slayer - Not the first thrash band I heard, but definitely my favorite and have had the biggest impact on my riffing/writing. Their use of dissonant, "evil" sounding harmonies and riffs really caught my ears as a kid and opened my eyes to the wide world of extreme metal. They also introduced me to real speed, before that it was Metallica, Megadeth, etc. From Slayer I discovered Kreator, Destruction, Sodom, etc, as well as early Death Metal. Huge band for me and I can hear Slayer in a lot of my writing.

Morbid Angel - Talking old school here guys, not the latest album. Churning riffs, crazy leads, chaos. Pure chaos. Not much more to say about them but those first few albums are some of my favorite of all time.

Dark Tranquillity - These guys are my favorite melodic death metal band. At The Gates are a very close second but for me, DT edges them out. There's something about the music and lyrics that sets them apart for me. A lot of the melodic ideas I throw into the music I write are influences (ie stolen) from Dark Tranquillity, especially the fast, tremolo picked harmony guitar lines. These guys are masters of their craft.

Emperor - Black metal is hands down the biggest influence on my riffing style. Everything I do has a slight blackened touch to it, I can't help it. Emperor had the most influence on me earlier on and I think the way they constructed riffs and songs has stuck with me the most to this day. Ihsahn and Samoth had a way of taking two riffs and combining them in a way that was very symphonic and chaotic, but at the same time beautiful. Well, I thought it was beautiful anyway. It made me re-approach the way I write music and I still write music for two guitars to this very day.

There are tons of progressive metal bands, jazz musicians, and more death/thrash/black artists that I like as well that have influenced me over the years. I don't even listen to the artists I mentioned above as much as I used to these days but they had a huge impact on who I am as a guitarist.

 

[morrowcosom]

Eyehategod/Electric Wizard- Slow is heavy.
Burzum- You can make some really personal music just playing what you hear in your head.
Polyrhythm videos on youtube- You can make rhythm as complicated as you want. I was sitting there for no apparent reason playing 11:17 to a metronome.
Playing Country music taught me to swing and loosen up my play a little.
Fredrik Thordendal- You can create otherwordly melodies with two hand tapping
Sevenstring.org- There are heavier chords than power chords.

 

[Adrenaline]

I got a Offspring and Nirvana mix tape when I was in 3rd grade and that started my music descovery. First CD I got was "we sold our soul for rock and roll" by sabbath.

Mudvayne got me to get a bass in highschool.

Machine Head is the drive behind my love for music and at the top of my list.

the rest in no order
At the gates
Trivium
Heaven Shall Burn
Tool
Soulfly/Sepultura
Mark Rizzos solo work
Primus
Iron Maiden
Metallica
Alice in Chains
Between The Buried and Me
Animals as Leaders
Deftones
Morbid Angel

These are what I or others hear in my music a lot.

 

[budda]

what are the bands/musicians that changed the way you thought about or played music? what song, video or album got you started? what band changed your musical direction? what keeps you excited & playin on now? discuss.

Is it weird that I consider this a tough question? I can't pinpoint too many things, but I'll give it a shot.

My first foray into music was whatever my parents had on (the radio, soca, R n' B). When Backstreet Boys were popular, I was right there with it. I own a spice girls tape, an aqua tape, and I'm pretty sure my first music purchase was Goo Goo Dolls "Dizzy Up The Girl". I still love that album, haven't seen that tape in years.

I started playing guitar when I was 11, going into grade 7. One of my best friends moved away the day after I got my guitar. I had two weeks of lessons at my grandparents before that time.

When I started learning guitar, I didn't have any musical goal that I was trying to reach, besides being able to play the damn thing. I had a girl that I was obsessed over, and I wanted to be able to play music that was reflective of "boy likes girl, girl doesn't like boy, boy sad" . Blink 182 was gaining popularity at the time, and Sum 41 and just gotten into things.

One of my friends was into punk rock like Rufio, No Use For A Name, Blink 182, and AFI (for example). He was one of the big influences in getting me into punk rock, and so my guitar lessons took a turn towards learning what was on MuchMusic as opposed to arpeggios and sweep picking. I could play what was on TV, and I was a happy camper. I knew enough about pop punk chord progressions and open chords to be able to catch onto songs and write simple stuff.

So early musical experiences: pop music, church music, guitar playing went into a pop punk direction.

A few years into my playing career, Linkin Park and "Hybrid Theory" came out. I was an angry teen, the music fit like a glove. Korn, Machine Head and Mudvayne joined the playlist as the rap got played less and less. I used to hate screaming in music, and now here I was listening to a ton of it! I was also playing Clarinet in high school music class. Korn had also introduced me to 7-strings, but I hadn't though anything of it at the time. Ibanez was not a brand I was after.

Then at one lesson, my teacher showed me Iron Maiden - The Trooper. My jaw hit the floor. It was so fast and yet so musical! I fell in love with the sheer speed of it, the galloping rhythms, and the furious bass lines in each song. I practiced the shit out of "The Trooper" and to this day do not know the solo . Between Iron Maiden and Linkin Park, the stage was set.

I knew I wanted to play fast, I knew I wanted to have melody, and I knew I wanted to play Master of Puppets. My neighbour had the album, and I tried to learn as much by ear as possible. I would spend a good chunk of time on MSN with WMP open, learning songs and riffs. I was also into bands like Alexisonfire, Arch Enemy, Amon Amarth and Lamb of God at this point. I was starting to really love musical elements that I used to avoid.

In grade 10 I had a tutor for French class, and she was a) foxy and b) into Opeth. Upon finding out we both liked metal, less time was spent on French and more time was spent on talking about bands. Opeth really expanded my mind to adding acoustic guitars and more dissonant parts with growls followed by clean vocals and softer melodies. I was intrigued that it was the same band creating all these different sounds. I also knew a drummer into metal, and my first band "DeathCharge" was formed. We never got into metal, and at most reached "hard rock". We had popularity due to collectively knowing most of the school (small town), and having a gorgeous vocalist. It was never the metal band that the drummer and myself intended to be.

I also still remember when I would stay up to watch MuchLoud, and "Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr" came on. I was blown away at this kid, singing and screaming, and playing exactly how I wanted to play. I bought "Ascendancy" pretty fast. It raised the bar for me, knowing someone a few years my senior was writing that material. I had also gotten into Unearth at this point, and it was Buz and Ken that made me want a 7-string guitar. Myspace had "The Oncoming Storm" tracks playing often .

The next "holy shit" moment came when my punk rock friends (oddly enough) came to me with this "Protest The Hero" band. I'd heard Dream Theatre already, and they did nothing for me. But "Kezia", that blew my mind even wider. It took Trivium up a notch for musicianship - and these guys were Canadian. I knew it would take a lot of practice to ever be that good, and my practice schedule was pretty non-existent. It still is, and I still haven't learned a whole song but I did give "bloodmeat" a pretty good run for its money.

I'd have to say my latest shift in "damn, that's how I want to play" has been the onset of After The Burial, Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya, and Bulb's stuff (not limited to Periphery). You know, the Sumerian crew . Again, people in my age group writing unique and heavy material. Another large influence has been The Black Dahlia Murder, AILD, ATG and Dark Tranquillity. I always loved the way a Em-C progression sounds, and Melodeath took that up a lot of notches.

I've been playing in a Rock band for over a year now - I didn't get to play much metal after SLUGEATER broke up. I've become much better at playing "pentatonic rock" as I call it. Arkham Dispatch music is primarily written by our vocalist, though our drummer has his own solo album and myself and the rhythm guitarist have written material as well. I knew this going in, but I was primary music writer in the other original bands I've been in, so sometimes I have to go "ok, we'll play this thing you wrote and that's that".

SLUGEATER has gotten back together. This is my metal baby, this is where I get to play really fast, chug, write dissonant sections, have breakdowns, and go for "weird". I'm proud to say I have my "crazy" outlet back - being the metal guy in a rock band gets lonely .

I don't know what my musical direction holds. I tried to get into jazz, I still don't practice enough, and I'm still nowhere near the level I would love to be. I'm in two bands I love, one full-time one part-time. Most of my close friends don't quite share my musical tastes - I hang out with the rock band, my punk rock friends and my metal friends. Can't get 'em all together though . I tried to get into Jazz, it didn't stick. I don't really try to check out new metal bands these days, just because there's so much of it since last time I was finding bands. It's a weird feeling!

TL, DR:

Blink 182, Iron Maiden, Protest The Hero and Bulb have been the guys that make me say "guitars can do whatnow?".

EDIT: Holy fuck, I wrote a novel

 

[M3CHK1LLA]

^ can i get the "cliff notes" on your post?

thx

 

[piggins411]

Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Guitar Hero led me to playing guitar. Then I did the whole classic rock thing. Moved on from there to Satch and Dream Theater. Then Dave Knudson from Minus the Bear changed the way I looked at a guitar while BTBAM showed me how prog could really sound. Now I'm big into everything, with emphasis song on punk-ish stuff, math rock, and progressive metal

 

[texshred777]

Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power album is the album that got me interested in playing guitar. I loved Dimebag's riffs and lead playing. I bought a cheap peavey Raptor, a guerrilla practice amp and a DOD death metal distortion pedal.

SRV was the reason I got serious about playing guitar. After that it was all about the Strat, blues and blues rock.

Reading guitar magazines I kept coming across the names Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. I bought Satriani's Crystal planet album one night and wow..it really opened my eyes. Still being into SRV I started adding a little more legato(and 7 note scales) to my lead playing, but kept it in the blues/blues rock realm. Fitting, as Satch really is more of a blues rock on crack type of player anyway.

My senior year I bought Vai's Passion and Warfare and his 7th song albums and my head nearly exploded. I had just gone through a horrific accident and was still trying to rehab my left arm/hand. I listened to those two albums almost nonstop and it was very powerful considering the "place" I was at. Due to nerve damage, I couldn't use my pinky at all and suddenly having facility with my pinky as more than something to chord with became priority number one. I started going to vai.com and reading all of his lessons/articles religiously. These were the days of dial up, but I'd read every scrap I could. I did everything it said(including the play one note for an hour lesson) and that's the point where I really become more of a musician, as opposed to a guitar player.

A year later I came across Dream Theater and again my playing goals evolved/changed.

So I guess I should say that Satch, Vai, Petrucci and SRV were the most important influences on me as a musician.

 

[M3CHK1LLA]

 

[ArtDecade]

Iron Maiden made me want to play, but it was Marty Friedman that wore out my fingers the most over the years.

 

[kerska]

Welp...

The first CD I ever owned was Bush's Sixteen Stone in the sixth grade. I used to air guitar with a hockey stick to that album, especially Machine Head and Little Things.

When I hit 8th grade someone gave me a copy of Life is Peachy by KoRn and that was a huge turning point. That album got me to buy a guitar and I learned the first 3 KoRn albums.

When I was a junior I heard Chimaira's Pass Out of Existence and that started to get me into the whole syncopation, Fear Factory type chugging riffs and I listened to a lot of that type of stuff.

Later that year I had a huge musical breakthrough and probably the most influences at one time. I had discovered Poison the Well and Zao and started to find a plethera of metalcore bands that we're incorporating the melodic stuff with metal. I had also heard Meshuggah's Future Breed Machine and bought the Chaosphere album and didn't understand a damn thing that was going with their style for a few months.

But junior and senior year were the years that shaped my musical influences and really started to teach me to be open minded to new music and I started to see influence can come from any type of music, metal or not.

 

[right_to_rage]

Dream Theater, Protest the Hero, Car_Bomb, Aphex Twin, Bulb/Periphery

 

[Oddkid]

The main influences on my playing are Randy, Adrian Smith and Slash... Possibly also Zakk Wylde. After the obligatory pop punk phase that all young teenagers went through in the early 2000's, I got heavily into Guns n Roses. That's what really made me want to play guitar, it was so flamboyant compared to the Offspring. Guns was a gateway to Maiden. More recently I've been getting more and more progressive, first getting into power metal(firewind), then melodic death metal (in flames) and now Opeth.

 

[carcass]

first musician that changed my way of thinking about music was King Diamond and Andy Laroque, whose guitar solos I admire to this day .. then, few years ago I was looking at Luc Lemay´s (Gorguts) myspace page and there I found a video of Krzysztof Penderecki´s music and that was the day my dissonant way started. so, here is the list of some musicians and composers that influenced me over the years:

Musicians (bands):
King Diamond & Andy Laroque (King Diamond)
Diego Sanchez (Disgorge)
Shawn Whitaker (Viral Load / Insidious Decrepancy)
Luc Lemay, Steeve Hurdle & Steve Cloutier (Gorguts)
Colin Mastron (Behold The Arctopus / Dysrhythmia)

Composers:
Johan Sebastian Bach
Krzysztof Penderecki
Brian Ferneyhough
Giacinto Scelsi
Elliott Carter

 

[Chromis]

In terms of musicality:

I used to listen to a lot of metal, then one day I heard my Dad listening to Vai's 'Hand on Heart'.

I didn't know guitars could express something so beautiful and it tore my heart in two.

In terms of technicality:

I'm with JayFraser here. Shawn Lane completed turned my world upside-down. I had no idea what was physically possible until I saw that man play his instrument.

From him I learned that our limits exist only in our minds.

C.

 

[breadtruck]

I have a really early memory of my dad playing System Of A Down records at home whilst I danced along. I guess they initially got me into rock/metal.

Then around the start of secondary school (age 11/12) I was into the rock that was popular at the time; such as Green Day and Sum 41 etc. When I got to 14/15 then I got more into the heavier side of rock with bands like Seether, Slipknot and Metallica.

As I went into college at age 16/17 then I started getting into metalcore bands such as Bullet For My Valentine, Killswitch Engage, Sonic Syndicate. A few years ago I didn't like growling in music and wouldn't listen to it, but here I was really getting into it. At first I prefered the choruses (because they usually had clean vocals and catchier melodies), but as time went on I developed a love for the heavier parts and the fast riffs. This developed onto deathcore and melodeath where screaming was used most of the time. I really loved Soilwork and Scar Symmetry.

In terms of picking up guitar, it was a pretty mixed influence really. I just wanted to play. However, nowadays it's mainly progressive/technical stuff that inspires me. I got into Protest the Hero a while ago and they've been my favourite band for a fair amount of time. I bought their tab books when I started getting ok at guitar, and that's when I got serious about practicing and getting better. I'm still learning some of their songs but I can play a few. One day I'll be able to play all of them

I still listen to most of those bands nowadays and listen to a bigger range of genres and styles, but I guess mainly what I dig these days is just metal. Whether it's technical or as bare-bones as it can be, I just love the genre at this point.

 

[Dunloper]

Let's see..

Steve Vai
Bjork
Paul Oakenfold's A Voyage Into Trance (Don't laugh)
Joe Satriani
Incubus (olderish)
Jeff Buckley
Silverchair
The Mars Volta
LTE
Alex Skolnick Trio
Protest The Hero
TTEOTD (malice only)
The Faceless
Explosions In The Sky
Necrophagist
Circa Survive
Bulb/Periphery
Animals As Leaders (honestly got really pissed the first time I heard them)

I've always felt these bands have had the most influence as far as what i write and encompasses all the aspects of the general sound i want to go for but honestly ALL, Vai, and the Faceless have the most apparent influence in my music as of lately. Steve Vai was and is one of the major driving forces behind the conception of most of my ideas. Joe Satriani's "Midnight" also struck a huge chord with me. I really wanted to incorporate that sound in like every song from when I heard it on.