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

[77smk77]

Seeing Kiss when I was 10 yars old still reminds me of how important a good live performance is.

As far as writing music. I grew up listening to alot of punk and hardcore. I remember getting the first Avenged Sevenfold album and having my mind blown by the guitar solo on the intro track of the album. I had never heard anything like that before.

 

[Ambit]

The musicians that have influenced me the most on a personal level and that have truly inspired something in me are MJK, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Petrucci, Ian Kenny, and Frank Zappa

 

[tm20]

Slipknot
Cannibal Corpse
All Shall Perish
Lamb of God
Pantera

most influential bands for me

 

[kn1feparty]

The musicians that have influenced me the most on a personal level and that have truly inspired something in me are MJK, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Petrucci, Ian Kenny, and Frank Zappa

+100000 for Zappa. A friend and former bassist of mine is a huge fan, and got me into Frank at a time when I was really struggling to find the inspiration to write music. Needless to say, his work has taught me to think way, way, way, way outside the box.

 

[ncfiala]

Ron Jarzombek

 

[fassaction]

This song was it for me...After I heard "Freedom", I started teaching myself how to play guitar. By the time I was 16 I was playing along with Rage's first album cover to cover almost every day of the week.

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

Ron Jarzombek

 

[nikos_tsakas]

Green Day was my first contact with rock/band music. Metallica, first contact with metal. Bullet for my Valentine was the first screming/growl band I ever listened to, and got me into the whole thing.

Then came DREAM F*CKIN' THEATER (My #1 favorite band to date) and changed the way I think about music, composition and it was also the first time songs started meaning so much to me. I then listened to Between the Buried and Me and Protest the Hero, who drastically changed the way I think about writing/composition.

Finally I got into Periphery, Born of Osiris, Meshuggah, After the Burial, Vildhjarta etc, thus joining the Djent/Prog Deathcore brotherly alliance.

Also I currently started listening to The Strokes and Death Cab for Cutie, discovering the amazing world that is indie rock.

 

[JoeJohn777]

The Human Abstract changed my life.

 

[samu]

Iron Maiden, Metallica, Children of Bodom and then Lamb of God and Dream Theater.

 

[TimTomTum]

Of course I had my heroes in my childhood, Rage Against The Machine really openend my mind for example. to see them live for one of their last concerts was awesome.
But really? DEVIN TOWNSEND. He totally changed everything for me about a year ago. This dude is fantastic, can't stop telling my friends about him. His approach is so unique

 

[Dayn]

It wasn't music. It was Steve Vai's writings. Particularly, Little Black Dots. He changed my whole outlook on and approach to music. I never felt so free to explore music as I did after reading what he had to say.

 

[M3CHK1LLA]

a diverse group of bands and musicians mentioned so far...

...keep'em comin, its been a quite a read.

 

[hairychris]

Metallica in '86. Master of Puppets to a 14 year-old who hadn't heard anything like that before was a life-changing experience.

 

[Beach]

Frank Zappa
Periphery,Tesseract,AAL,David davidson.
Guthrie Govan.

Guthrie Govan.

 

[landlocked]

Listening to Atoine Dvorjaks' ninth symphony was a major turning point in my early life. If the song i was listening to didn't have that same intesity, i wasnt interested. So needless to say i ingested a lot of orchestral music early on. Mahler, Holst, Mussorgsky, Bach, Bethoven, anything Ravel touched as far as scoring for orch. At the same time i was listening to the only rock station in my area which played strictly classic rock like Deep Purple, Cream, Hendrix etc. But then mind blowing turning point in my life came in form of seeing Tool live on there lateralus tour, i didnt even know who they were before that. Since its been Mastodon, High on Fire, Horse the Band, BTBAM, and on down the list.

 

[Nonservium]

Gojira - for showing me that pick scrapes can do so much more than annoying the cat
Ler LaLonde - for introducing me of guitar as support rather than main driving force
Les Claypool - his silliness completely undid everything I had thought and learned about music at the time. Pork Soda still just leaves me in awe to this day
Tool - showed me that emotional and spiritual intelligence has its place in everything, including music

 

[tacotiklah]

I grew up listening to classic rock and metal since I was still in diapers. One of my earliest memories is sitting in the passenger side of the car with my mom driving, and we'd sing along to AC/DC's Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. I was three at the time. Eventually she hooked up with a guy that loved metallica and he gave me my first cd when I was 10; ...And Justice For All. That was my introduction to metal and I played that burned cd to death. I listened to it as I was laying do to sleep every night and even then I just thought that there couldn't be anything as fast, angry, or heavy in the world ever. I'd sing along to Enter Sandman on the radio with my mom too. (this was a few years after the black album came out btw, so the song got even MORE playtime at that time than what you hear nowadays. /oldfart )

The song that made me wanna play guitar though was Ozzy's Crazy Train. I heard that single note intro riff and my thought was that was THE riff of all riffs. I had to know right away how to play that and how that heavy sound was made. The I heard the guitar solo and it sounded like a wall of sound. I HAD to know how this was done. I remember the first thing I ask when I was 17 and started playing was how the hell I play that intro riff. Then I discovered tapping and figured out the solo. I was in heaven!!!
I've gone through several "phases" since then that have been instrumental (pun intended) in improving my technique and musical chops. I went through a van halen phase where I loved playing the hell out of everything on the first and second van halen record. I also learned as much Black Sabbath and AC/DC tunes as possible and developed my rhythm chops a lot more. But I was mainly obsessed with soloing at the time since it's pretty much what most every young guitarist goes apeshit for. I was no exception. I'd stay up late and watch old Guns 'n' Roses videos to see how slash tore it up on Sweet Child of Mine, and even would spend time watching old Stevie Ray Vaughan dvds and watch the man play the holy living hell out of the blues. I was in awe.

Then I discovered Slayer. The need to play shitty atonal 32nd notes at 300bpm in a solo with mindless trem bar wankery fell upon me. (van halen kinda did this to me too, but this was worse...)
I learned every Slayer riff I could get my hands on and this went on for a while.

Then I discovered Cannibal Corpse. Slayer seemed like limp dicked pussies compared to these psychos. I couldn't even stand the vocals at first, but the riffs were SOOOO good to me. I couldn't even fathom how a human being could play anything like that and not destroy their hands in the process. Over time I discovered bands like Death, Atheist and Obituary and really fell in love with this sound known as Death metal. It was like metal was not metal enough, and therefore there had to be death metal.

The rest is history as they say.

 

[Fiction]

Haunted shores, Everything I play sounds like a slower rehashing of Marks riffing.

Unfortunately I haven't got the melodies down pact though

 

[InfinityCollision]

Pink Floyd has pretty much been an influence since birth. I grew up on 70s/80s rock with some jazz mixed in. A lot of the jazz musicians from the 40s-60s also fit here.

Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky both had a massive impact on my composing style before I ever picked up a guitar. My two favorite classical composers by far, and I've had the good fortune of having a lot of exposure to them and many other composers. Incredibly fun music to play and listen to.

UnderOath's Define the Great Line was one of my earliest forays into heavy music and opened my ears to heavier styles of music. Probably the best blind buy I've ever made.

Three turned me on to fingerstyle playing.

Russian Circle's Station introduced me to instrumental rock and a more minimalist style of composition. Campaign still blows me away to this day. Some of their other songs have also been very inspiring for their emotional impact.

Allan Holdsworth fundamentally changed how I approach the guitar and revived my interest in the instrument as a creative tool.

George van Eps was the first guitarist I ever heard that used a seven-string for more than just heavy downtuned riffing, and I've been determined to get one of my own ever since I first heard him.