What was your inspiration for first picking up a guitar?

[Don Vito]

Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

 

[flow]

My mother is a professional singer, and there was always an acoustic guitar laying around. She started teaching me basic chords, and song structure when I was 8. When I was 12 I met my rebellious cousin who learned megadeth and metallica covers on his electric guitar, and I thought it was the coolest thing i'd ever seen. My parents bought me my first electric that year, and 12 years later, here I am!

 

[spawnofthesith]

Pop punk

 

[Anant Naag]

as bad as it might sound

Korn

 

[AEOXIS]

Watched Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad

 

[jwade]

My dad was watching music videos late one night and I came upstairs and sat with him for awhile. I remember seeing Michael Jackson's video for Bad, some Cyndi Lauper video, and then three in a row that blew my mind and made me want a guitar: The Beach Boys & Kiss & AC/DC. I was probably 4, maybe 5.

From that point on, I would pick up at tennis/badminton raquet/ukelele that I came across, and start strumming and jumping around.

They got me a little starter guitar pretty soon after that, and by the time I was 13, I had a proper full-size acoustic and a Telecaster and a bass amp.

It was all downhill from there.

 

[Furtive Glance]

Linkin Park... lulz.

 

[Hyacinth]

My dad and older brother are drummers my brother stopped playing though. So music was always around me. When I was 10 my parents bought me a strat style starter and a little practice amp for Christmas. I sold it at a yardsale when I was 13. Then in highschool Coheed and Cambria released Good Apollo 1 and When I heard Welcome Home I knew I had to learn to play. My girlfriend at the time's dad had another one of those strat style cheapies and that same practice amp. He gave it to me and I started playing. What made me get serious was a mix between a few friends who play (who I've now surpassed) and The Human Abstract. Now I'm in talks with AJ Minette about becoming his student haha

 

[Grand Moff Tim]

My friend's uncle left an acoustic at his house, and we had fuck all else to do. It was either learn to play guitar, or play Donkey Kong Country on SNES.
























...So once we beat Donkey Kong Country, we picked up the guitar.

 

[cronux]

...in my teens i was heavily into basketball, one summer's day i was shooting some hoops and a school friend of mine came to play. played/talked for a while, went to his apartment and he took out his ltd explorer and started playing the intro of Metallica's Enter Sandman. he showed me how he does it and I tried to play it but I sucked...

...when i came home that day I took my fathers old acoustic and never looked back

 

[nostealbucket]

My uncle bought an acoustic for me on my 9th birthday. I absolutely hated playing guitar. But as soon as I turned 13, I started playing guitar hero, which I played more than actully playing an instrument. I got out of that simply because I heard you can get pussy with a guitar. That's a lie. But by then, I was fat and I had few friends, so I was forced to like playing music, since I thought I couldn't do anything else.

 

[CrownofWorms]

Tom Morello........Then Jimmy Page........then Dave Mustaine.

 

[AfterTheBurial8]

Drake and Josh? Guitar Hero? Christ I'm only 21 and they seem like ridiculous reasons for starting!

My parents played me a lot of music when I was young, it was always around and I'm very thankful for that.

Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton were on lots, and I used to love the sound of the guitar. My mum used to listen to tons of Dire Straits and I've been in love with Mark Knopfler's playing since.

That's when I took up playing acoustic guitar.

Then came along Pearl Jam, Nirvana, The Offspring and I wanted to play electric, like RIGHT NOW!

Got a lot of inspiration from The White Stripes, Red Hot Chili Peppers and the older bands (Metallica, Maiden, Sabbath etc) and all the artists mentioned previously.

Then the music got heavier and faster and I'm where I'm at now, listening to pure and utter filth!

 

[Mexi]

inspiration was probably listening to my parents' old music albums growing up. fleetwood mac, foreigner and the eagles were definitely memorable growing up. "hotel california", particularly, was huge in cementing just how good guitars can sound together.

 

[Konfyouzd]

the 80s... nuff said...

 

[InfinityCollision]

Drake and Josh? Guitar Hero? Christ I'm only 21 and they seem like ridiculous reasons for starting!

I'm 22 and Guitar Hero probably had a hand in my decision to pick up the guitar. It's really not that uncommon a story and a lot of bands/musicians are very supportive of GH/Rock Band for precisely that reason. Check out the Rock Band version of Ziltoid for instance, there's a lot of commentary on the matter mixed into the songs to replace the original coffee "plot".

 

[Breakdown]

Elvis Presley, I just though he looked cool. The players that inspired me to actually learn the thing were Randy Rhoads and Dimebag Darrell

 

[Don Vito]

Drake and Josh? Guitar Hero? Christ I'm only 21 and they seem like ridiculous reasons for starting!

um why? Guitar Hero introduced me to guitar based music that I actually liked(Black Sabbath, White Zombie, ect...). Before GH, I only knew about 80's hair bands that my mom listened to, and I didn't really pick up on that stuff.

 

[TelegramSam]

Eric Clapton actually. Then Randy Rhoads.

 

[Vhyle]

Jeez, all you young bucks, starting off playing guitar because of Guitar Hero. You damn kids and yer vidya games!