Top 5 Guitarists Who Have Influenced You? :O

[Customisbetter]

Jack White
Matt Bellamy
Steffen Schackinger
Tom Morello
Paul Gilbert

 

[G_3_3_k_]

I can't really narrow it down to just five guys... There are things I take from each player that are very important. So I'll make five categories, and put the people in them that are the biggest influence on me.

Category 1: Rhythm

James Hetfield/Dave Mustaine: They started a genre, and without them, I'd probably be playing jazz (not that jazz is a bad thing).

Thordendal/Hagstrom: This speaks for itself.

Adam Jones: The culmination of the above influences for me adding that he knows that silence speaks as much as his notes. A novel concept in Metal.

Category 2: Atmospherics

The Edge: This guy has mastered FX so well he can strum lazily on one chord and the verse of a song comes out. My clean sounds are something I've ripped off of The Edge. HUGE influence on me.

Adam Jones: Also a master of FX, but also of doing weird things to the guitar in conjunction to creep you out.

Category 3: Leads

Petrucci: Sounds like he smoked a bunch of meth before recording, looks like he can bench press your car. Neither are true, but he really can shred. When studying chops is what I'm doing, there are at least a couple warm ups or leads of his that I'm looking at. His alternate picking is monstrous.

Vai: Great choice of scales. Injects a lot of rhythmic and chordal inflections into his solos. Usage of unusual emotional content for rock/metal music (humor). When I think of how I want a solo to make someone feel, I try to think of what Vai's approach would be.

Dave Navarro: He just simply burns live. Check out some vids if you haven't.

Gilmore: For me, he is to solos what Adam Jones is to rhythm.

Category 4: Note/Chord Choice

Satriani: He doesn't play as fast as Vai or Petrucci, but the way he voices his solos over his chord progressions gives you then sense of movement. There's a bit of wisdom in the way he shreds (if that makes any sense). And there's a certain amount of intent that he plays with that always draws me in. His melodies are haunting... And his solos sound like a melody sped WAY up. One of my absolute favorite guitar players.

Ian Thornley: Played in a band called Big Wreck in the late '90's. The band broke up in the early '00's and his new stuff is shite. I talked to him about it, and he said that he guessed that the Big Wreck stuff was too off the wall for some people, and he's fallen into the 'nickleback' style in order to survive. Really sad that good talent and song writing can't be appreciated. He's a bluesy guy, but his solos sing. He's also one of my favorite rock vocalists.

Eric Johnson: His chord voicings are delicious...

Category 5: Song Writing

The Edge: Just a master of simple catchy guitar stuff.

Matt Bellamy: Incredible song writer, drawing on countless influences. As far as writing goes I think he's a genius.

Johnny Greenwood: Radiohead writes some of the most haunting music ever. If you disagree, we aren't capable of being friends.

Robert Smith: The Cure's songs have always stuck with me. Another less is more kind of guy. Lots of jazzy chords in there if you're listening for it.

Brent Hinds/Bill Kelliher: Incredible metal masterpieces... Especially on Crack the Skye.

Adam Jones: Again... Tool is just bad ass. From the rhythms/riffs themselves to the arrangement of the songs... They never fail to blow me away.



Honorable mentions: Prince for being a pint sized badass. Trent Reznor for being the most metal piano player ever (Nails is one of my top two favorite bands ever), and my dad... Without him sitting around the house playing/singing Simon & Garfunkle songs when I was little I never would have thought about playing the guitar.

 

[nojyeloot]

• Thordendal
• Holdsworth
• Petrucci
• Godwin
• Gilbert

 

[straightshreddd]

This isn't in any order. I'm just listing by the ones that came to mind first.

1. Voice Gajic
2. Mario Camarena and Erik Hansel of Chon(big time)
3. Jeff Loomis
4. Marc Okubo of Veil of Maya
5. Brian Betz (My guitar teacher. You can find his playing on youtube and I believe he has albums on amazon or something.)

 

[AliceLG]

That's a very hard one … Right of the top of my head I'd have to say

1.- Dimebag Darrell
2.- Mårten Hagström
3.- Mikael Åkerfeldt
4.- Steven Wilson
5.- Björn Gelotte

But 5 years ago it would've been totally different, and it probably will 5 years from now

 

[MetalBuddah]

Currently....

1. John Petrucci
2. Frederik Thordendal
3. Misha Mansoor (Bulb)
4. Keith Merrow
5. Kirk Hammett

 

[G_3_3_k_]

Good call on Steve Wilson...

 

[Black_tear]

Thaeon, i could relate a lot with your post, everything you wrote makes sense (to me, at least).
I never saw Dave Navarro live though, not even a video of him palying live (have to check that out) mainly because the ones i saw didn't cause a good impression on me.

 

[nnmore]

That's a tough one, but if I had to choose, I'd say the following:

Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) - the guy that made me want to play guitar in the first place, mainly the guitar solos in Windowpane, but total inspiration.

Jonas Kjellgren & Per Nilsson (Scar Symmetry) - These two guys are just amazing at song writing and riff crafting, their solos continually blow my mind.

Bulb - Made "crazy" riffing melodic in a way that I could finally understand, really great player (obviously).

Scott Henderson - Amazing player, need I say more?

Daniel Gildenlöw & Johan Hallgren (Pain of Salvation) - weird patterns, odd riffs, totally left-field = amazing.

 

[Kairos]

Methinks I'll join in. They're in the order that I listened to them in my musical Journey

1. Randy Rhoads: The first guitarist I ever admired. He played so fast (that's all I used to care about) and his neoclassical style was so great. But the deal sealer was that he still managed to play with SO much emotion.

2. Buckethead: He was also super tech but had equally many (if not more) melodic pieces. He sounded like a robot on a rampage, or breaking down, or crying and I just love it!

3. Brian May: He just has it together. A homemade guitar, a recognizable sound, a consistent style, a tasteful and melodic ear, just everything. I still listen to Queen an a regular basis.

4. Frank Zappa: Frank is criminally underrated. His ability to write anything from a bunch of quick melody's (Peaches En Regalia) to a long vast solo (Watermelon In Easter Hay) blows my mind. Everything he did was wonderful and I love listening to just about anything from his colossal library.

5: Tosin Abasi: Just a beautiful mix of metal, jazz, classical, technique, 8-string guitars, originality, and songwriting ability. One of the newest guitarists I've been listening to and I'm itching for more (not like I'm even close to discovering everything of AAL's debut).

Honorable mentions:
Guthrie Govan: probably the best guitarist in the world imho.
Jeff Beck: Fantastic feel/melody.
The Meshuggah Guys:
Tom Qualyle: Hybrid picked fusion. Yeaaah.
Dave Fiuczynski: An interesting Guitarist.
Django Reinhardt: The master. So innovative.
Devin Townsend: Great Guitarist.

 

[paintkilz]

Tosin Abasi, Stephen Carpenter, Chris Bradley, Josh Travis, Marc Okubo

 

[UGH]

Tony Iommi
Glen Buxton
Randy Rhoads
Chris Poland
Jon LeVasseur

 

[Asrial]

Just in random order:

Steve Vai
James Schaffer
Devin Townsend
John Petrucci
Buckethead

 

[TheSilentWater]

Al Di Meola/John Mclaughlin/Paco De Lucia- Upon hearing Friday Night in San Fransisco, I found some of the most passionate virtuosity and admirable technique I've ever heard. This in part caused me to forsake sweep picking, focus on strict alternate picking, and I now practice and play on a steel-string acoustic.

Allan Holdsworth- First, legato. He's one of the big reasons that I work so much on my legato technique. His stretches have inspired me to work on my own reach. His unusual chord voicings have had a profound impact upon me, as I now constantly toy and compose with unusual chords, and unusual voicings of chords. His use of unorthodox and extremely varied tonalities is something I admire very much. His vibrato is one of the few guitarists vibrato that I wish to emulate, and I'm currently working a bit on developing control over it with the side-to-side technique that he (and classical musicians) uses. An absolute master of the instrument.

Jon Schaffer- His fast, percussive picking style is something I've enjoyed since shortly after first picking up the guitar. Even after being introduced to jaw-dropping virtuosos, Schaffers picking hand still impresses me.

Martin Hagstrom/Fredrik Thorendal- Made me think differently about what you can do with meter, taking 4/4 and cloaking it. Their music is unique, and the long, intricate passages of I especially intrigue me.

Michael Angelo Batio- Changed how I thought about clarity and speed. Perhaps my biggest drive to technical perfection is my admiration of how staggering even a simpler scale run becomes with such clarity.

This list generally deals more with technique than composition, although most in this list did influence my composition as well, but that list would be much longer and would go far beyond guitarists.

Friday Night in San Francisco is an amazing album.
Most of mine have already been mentioned in this thread. Although one that I will add is Steven Wilson, just because of his genius songwriting and producing, even if he's not particularly technically proficient.

 

[Cabinet]

Hm...

In no particular order
1. Buckethead
2. Paul Gilbert
3. Muhammed Suicmez
4. Misha Mansoor
5. I don't know what to put.

I haven't listened to that many solo artists, and not a lot of them have really left a mark on me except for these few. Paul Gilbert got me into exploring string skipping and massive hand stretches, I occasionally borrow licks from Buckethead, Necrophagist sounds just awesome to me, and Misha/Periphery have written some really cool guitar licks and have made me play around with a lot of intervals, particularly 4ths.

It's really hard for me to say they have all heavily influenced me though, I usually just take tiny things I hear in the riffing, evaluate the theory behind it and then try to use that bit of theory to make something that sounds better to me. Just the whole influence term seems foggy to me, it just seems so vague.

 

[Crometeef]

man, there's too many to list. if i didn't have a blistering headache from this flu, i'd go into more detail. but to sum it up, i feel Mikael Åkerfeldt and Paul Waggoner have had a huge impact on the way i try to play leads. minus Waggoners sweeps and extensive technical wankery every now and then, i find the slow, bluesy feel to their leads very inspiring. i love death metal but it's hard to keep up with necrophagist solos (although i'm a huge fan)

as far as rhythm, the boys from dark tranquility have been influencing me for years. Paul Masvidal, Buckethead, Devin Townsend (such a dynamic sound with an awesome tuning i find myself playing in all the time), Petrucci, Michael Keene, Peter Wichers, Adam Jones, Dan and Pin done a lot for me in just 2 albums(Sikth). Steven Wilson is very underrated imo, and a big influence on me. He can cover multiple styles and his acoustic passages are ace. He also possesses the ability to sound completely discordant and eerie with riffs off In Absentia(i.e. the leads in wedding nails). Chimp Spanner and Misha also changed the way i look at a lot of rhythm passages, mainly in a low tuning or on a 7. Eric Johnson's one to make me feel terrible about not only my phrasing and overall playing, but my tone as well. also i'm obsessed with Guthrie Govan. i'd love to just sit and drink coffee with this guy. you can tell he's a genuinely nice guy and is a musical genius imo.

 

[Seventary]

James Hetfield
Jesper Strömblad
Michael Åkerfeldt
Adrian Smith
Michael Amott

 

[ttiwguitar]

Alex Lifeson - Rush was the band that made me really get into music in a serious way. Still my favorite guitarist.

Mikael Akerfeldt - In the same way Rush got me into music, Opeth got me into real metal. Such a great overall player and songwriter. Writes the best solos in metal, and his fingerpicking stuff is really underrated in my opinion.

John Petrucci - Blew my preteen mind. I'd never heard anyone play guitar like that before. I still prefer the 90's stuff though.

Paul Gilbert - This is more recent, but he has such great feel and an effortless playing style. Most "shredders" bore me, but he has a great sense of melody.

Adam Jones - Another more recent one. Understated, even simple sometimes, but he plays guitar in one of the best bands of the last twenty years and knows exactly what to play and what not to play.

 

[gui94]

1 - Paul Masvidal
2 - Paul Masvidal
3 - Paul Masvidal
4 - Paul Masvidal
5 - Paul Masvidal

 

[7thdimension]

1) Chuck Schuldiner
2) Buckethead
3) Francesco Tarrega (gotta check spelling)
4) Mohamed Suicmez
5) Randy Rhoads

Yyyyesirr lol