Top 5 Guitarists Who Have Influenced You? :O

[s_k_mullins]

1. James Hetfield- Metallica was THE band who got me into heavy music when I was a kid, thanks to my dad who force fed me hard rock and heavy metal albums. Despite everyone's hate for the band, Metallica is still one of my favs, and Hetfield is still at the top of my list for rhythm guitarists.

2. Jerry Cantrell- besides Metallica, Alice in Chains was another band that I was exposed to as a kid. Jerry is still one of my favorite guitarists and vocalists. His style and tone have always been fucking superb to me! He definitely taught me that sometimes less is more, and that I don't always have to try to play as fast as possible. I loved his dark writing style and lyrics. He showed me that sometimes is nice to be laid back and simplistic in your playing, and not to be afraid of throwing in some mellow acoustics, or maybe even through some experimental "outside the box" kind of shit.

3. Dimebag Darrell- Yeah, I know a lot of people aren't fond of him here, and his tone may have been pretty shitty But the first time I heard Vulgar Display of Power, I knew I'd play fucking metal guitar for the rest of my life.. Big ass riffs and blazing solos, and Dimebag knew how to fucking groove as well!

4. Zakk Wylde- Another guy who doesn't get any respect around here, but he is another player that I was exposed to as a child. I remember hearing No Rest for the Wicked and No More Tears, and I loved the fucking riffs and solos that Zakk was doing. Plus, I was completely obsessed with pinch harmonics when I first started playing. It pissed me off tremendously that I couldn't get those squeals like he did . I admit, his stuff is getting pretty stale these days, but I still like the guy and I always give his new stuff a listen.

5. Munky and Head (Korn)- Around age 13 (around 1999), I started branching away from the "classic" stuff my dad was listening to (i.e. 80's era Metallica, Ozzy, and Megadeth). I know that the 80s stuff isn't that old, but to me at the time it was fucking ancient The first band that I found that really intrigued me was Korn. A friend at school loaned me a copy of Follow the Leader, and then I was fucking hooked. I loved the downtuned 7-strings, the bizarre riffs and sounds, and all the wacky sound effects that they were making with their enormous pedalboards. I promptly bought their older albums and couldn't wait for Issues to be released. I was always fascinated with their strange experimental style and sound, and they began to fuel my gas for 7-strings and effects pedals. Still love listening to their old albums (Issues and older), but their new stuff leaves me less than thrilled

 

[Itsmychapel]

I've played on and off, from 2004-2006, then i took a break to focus on my musical direction. then from 2008-present I've played consistently

2004-2006
1. EVH
2. Kirk Hammet, James Hetfeild
3. Tony Iommi
4. Slash
5. Mick Thompson

2008-present
1. Mark Heylmun, Chris Garza
2. Alex Wade, Ben Savage, Zach Householder
3. Marc Okubo
4. Lee McKinney

 

[dream-thief]

Back when I first started playing guitar, some 7 years years ago, I didn't have much interest in it, having just moved into the big city, and just jumped from a primary school with 7 pupils to a high school with over two thousand, I just wanted to play it to be 'cool'. Needless to say at that stage I wasn't concentrating much on what was going on, just getting some basic lessons from a (not exactyl amazing) tutor.

Upon my discovery of metal some years later (beyond Nu-Metal anyway) I started playing religiously, using two people as my main Idols - Jani Liimatainen, and John Petrucci. I gained most of my base techniques from these two (John Petrucci's ideas of melody and harmony, and a strict alternate picking regime, and Jani's speed and scalewanking techniques). From there my playing was fairly singletrack for a long time. After another epiphany some more years later that Power and Prog metal were not the only genre's on the planet, other more diverse influences started creeping in.

I started meeting other guitarists on a social level, and listening to their playing. For the last few years, I have always gained more listening to someone jam in person, or even talking to them, than I have gained from listening to album after album, and practising techniques of guitarists I've heard of but never met. The first of these was Daniel Stubbs, who gave me what I would call a kind of melodeath style, using a lot pedal notes and short 'du-du-dun' pseudo triplets.

The second was Stuart Howlette, A local SS.org-er who I recorded a demo with some time ago. He posted on this thread himself, so you can look at that to see what I got from him

More recently, Jeff Loomis has had a huge influnce on my playing, since I finally got round to listening to Nevermore properly, I can't find anyone whose riffing and aggresive lead style I like more.

I have many more influences on the composition front, I've always tended to spend more time and effort doing that over the last few years than playing.

That seemed like a bit of an essay, haha, but I thought i'd write something a bit different to everyone else, to give a bit of background on how they came together to shape my current style.

 

[DrewsifStalin]

1. All of Tesseract (Acle!)
2. Fredrik Thordendal
3. Dino Cazares
4. Marc Okubo
5. Misha Mansoor

Quite a surprising list, I know

 

[omgmjgg]

Layne Meylain - Danza
Josh Travis - when knives go skyward, the goddamn rodeo, and now Danza
Ben Weinman - DEP
Grant - Kissyface fashion faux pas
Guys from The number 12 looks like you
chris arp - psyopus

ya i did 6 too lol

 

[mrhankey87]

Jason Becker above all, for soloing. He was simply THE BEST.

 

[blister7321]

in order
mark tremonti
james hetfield
dime
alexi laiho
SRV
Santana
scar symmetry
trivium
snake sabo(skid row)

runners up(not in order)
dino
kse
loomis
lamb of god

 

[Gitte]

1. Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit)
2. Brian Head Welch (Korn)
3. Steph Carpenter (Deftones)
4. Adam D. (Killswitch Engage)
5. Drew Goddard & Mark Hosking (Karnivool)

 

[HeartCollector]

People who influenced me? As in not who i think is best, but who i think rubbed off the most on my playing?

hmm.

In order from most, to least influential

Paul Gilbert
Jani Liimatainen
Marty Friedman
Jeff Loomis
Muhammed suicmez

Paul Gilbert pretty much taught me to play. Plain and simple. His instructional DVDs are great. He taught me many licks and patterns that I use today. And "Get Out of My Yard" is a fucking great album.

I really don't even listen to any of Jani Liimatainen's music. I just saw some videos of him on youtube, and realized that he does a lot of stuff that I like. I am also capable of doing a lot of it, so I mimicked his style.

Marty Friedman is self explanitory.. haha. He has his way of making his solo's sound so new and innovative while maintaining a technical aspect. I think that is really cool, man. Megadeth is a perfect example of how much he stands out. Compared to the other unique guitarists megadeth has had (Notably Chris Poland and Chris Broderick) Marty still manages to stick out and kick ass in the process. "Lucretia" solo anyone?

A lot of the diminished stuff I play comes from Jeff Loomis. The way he uses arpeggios also made me think entirely different about utilizing sweeps in solos and stuff. Jeff is probably my favorite guitarist. Fun random fact: My friend's dad went to high school with Jeff Loomis. Fucking... nuts...

Muhammed Suicmez = Harmonic minor maniac. I wouldn't know shit about that beautiful scale if it weren't for necrophagist. I use it all the time now. My friend says he learned to play harmonic minor from Yngwie Malmsteen, but I never looked in to his stuff unfortunately.

 

[Harry]

Hmm interesting seeing how from my last post in this thread a year ago, how my playing has changed and the direction it's taken has changed too.

My list is more looking like this now

Joe Satriani (for the same reasons as listed the first time

2. Joe Duplantier: Just really inspired me to lift my game for rhythm guitar playing in a death metal and groove metal realm

3. Aaron Turner : Showing how a more minimalist style of playing could be artful too, but yet not at all lacking in skill.

4. Omar - Rodríguez-López: For really making me want to think outside the box a little and just "go for it"

5. Tom Morello : He was always a big influence of mine, but lately his influence has come back more strong in my playing.
From his groove, to his experimental approach, all highly influential on my own playing.

 

[Zugster]

To me Daron Malakian (SOAD) is very influential. He really understands how guitar cab be a precussion instrument.

 

[TheWreck]

-DimeBag
-Dan Mongrain (Martyr,Capharnaum)
-Miesko Talakcyk (Nasum)
-John Gallagher (Dying Fetus)
-Pat O'Brien (Cannibal Corpse)
-Fredrik and Marten (Meshuggah)

And the Guys in Cephalic Carnage, Dillinger Escape Plan, Ion Dissonnance, Opeth, Dimmu Borgir(Puritanical Era), Emperor, .....and alot of other guys and band....

 

[Louis Cypher]

Pretty unoriginal I guess but here's mine...
Eddie Van Halen - Reason I started in the first place, Eruption just changed my world
Randy Rhoads - other reason I begged for a guitar for Xmas off my folks, Blizzard of Oz
George Lynch - Massive influence, specially dynamics from slow to blazing legato runs, awesome player
John Sykes - Fcuking Still of the Night. Nuff said.
Nuno Bettencourt - The guy just is outstanding rhythm player, taught me to think outside the norm and play with and behind the beat. It's a Monster or Pornograffiti.....

Honorable mentions
Dimebag - same as everyone else am sure, This Love & Suicide Note pt1 & 2
J White Zombie - again just the awesomeness of the rhythm playing! All abtou the groove!
Head & Munky - changed the game totally
Richie Kotzen - not shred era Kotzen but blues era, Electric Joy, Bi Polar Blues
Trent Reznor - not so much in a pure guitar sense but in my feeble attempts at song writing the man just showed me the way. Downward spiral still the one cd I would save from a house fire
Jimmy Page - Black Dog & Since I been Loving You. listen and learn...

wow... how old school am I?? No pure shredders! haha!! g0d I am old! LOL!!

 

[Sjusovaren]

1: Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden) - My main-influence and the guy that made me want to play. Just so melodic and memorable, I love his playing.
2: Alex Skolnick (Testament, Alex Skolnick Trio) - One of my absolute favourite players, extremely memorable solos that are almost songs within songs as well as a great riff-writer plus I admire him for leaving something successful for what he wanted to do instead.
3: Dave Mustaine (Megadeth)
4: Marty Friedman (Megadeth, Cacophony, solo)
5: Dave Murray (Iron Maiden)

 

[Vicissitude27]

1. Joe Pass - jazz doesn't get any better
2. Guthrie Govan - he can play everything
3. Paul Waggoner - Btbam's genius
4. Omar Rodriguez Lopez - The Mars Volta
5. Tosin Abasi - if you don't know him, get off of 7string

 

[thraxil]

1. Angus Young. Not what I'm into these days, but AC/DC singlehandedly led me into metal and guitar.
2. Robert Fripp.
3. Dave Mustaine. Best right hand in the business.
4. Bill Steer.
5. Ihsahn.

 

[Gamma362]

James Hetfield
Kirk Hammett
Dave Mustaine
Jeff Loomis
Alex Skolnick
They all have influence on my rhythm playing since im not much of a lead player

 

[Winspear]

1. My friends uncle who could play popular movie themes on my demand - he was the reason I got my first guitar.

2. Another friend who had learned Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on guitar a year later He convinced me to pick up guitar again (it had sat under my bed for a year because I wasn't instantly as good as my friends uncle.) Somehow I wrote a simple single note riff the next day and played it on loop for around 10 hours. I was in love.

3. I spent a while playing Metallica pretty exclusively in a shitty teenage bedroom cover band. I wouldn't call Metallica influences though really. Perhaps I would if I had 6 spaces instead of 5. So this slot goes to John Petrucci when I fell in love with DT later on. This was the first time I had really payed attention to music and what a guitarist was playing.

4. I'd gone almost a year not playing much guitar after getting into World of Warcraft. When my main PC fried I was left on my laptop for 5 weeks with nothing to do except play guitar. That's when I found this forum and Bulb. I was instantly in love with guitar and music again, and uninstalled WoW the moment I got my PC back. My life as a whole completely changed for the better at this point, actually.

5. Tosin Abasi, when I found the Animals as Leaders album via this forum. He is now my favourite guitarist and has completely revolutionized my taste in music and playing style.

 

[machinehead91]

1) Dino Cazares - Enough said ;D
2) Alexi Laiho
3) Marten Hagstrom/Fredrik Thordendal
4)Mark Morton
5) Mick Thompson

 

[ittoa666]

1-Steve Vai
2-Mark Morton (The reason I use so much harmonic minor)
3-Paul Waggoner
4-Rob Barrett
5-Sami and Kirby from Himsa
6-Scott Hull

Extras-Paul Gilbert, George Lynch, Warren Demartini, Petrucci, Malmsteen, Ihsahn, Abbath, David Gilmour, Trey Azagthoth, Coheed and Cambria, SRV, Deron Miller, Michaeil Akerfeldt, the list just goes on.