[420n7strings]

Well...for me...when I was about 6-8, my cousins decided that my hippie mother's influence on me was getting out of hand and they needed to toughen me up (absent padre)...so...being the righteous Swedes they were, they made me headbang my long, hippie locks to Mayhem, In Flames and At the Gates until I puked...LITERALLY! thus, a metalhead was born and I've never been able to stomach anything lighter than In Flames.

[budda]

nice. i only heard of at the gates last year, which sucks cuz i've liked the style since gr 11 lol.

I THINK it was when my guitar teacher decided to show me "the trooper" by iron maiden, and taught me most of the song. from then on, I've been hooked triplets, tasteful leads, and the ability to play really realy fast on command (overuse of speed for the epic lose!).

from there on it was metallica and nu metal, then arch enemy amon amarth and lamb of god, splitting it into melodic death metal and american metal, then who knows what else.

somehow I've ended up at considering most death metal too light for me when I'm in a really bad mood .

Props to Colin for getting me hooked on heavier stuff lol. THAT SAID i still respect, enjoy listening to, and playing other styles of music.

[bostjan]

Metallica got me into metal. When they started sucking, I had to start listening to other bands, and was much impressed by the likes of Fear Factory, Symphony X, Death, Entombed, etc.

I would say that the older I get, the more ecclectic my tastes grow, but I still have a soft spot for music like the stuff I listened to in high school and college.

[420n7strings]

Originally Posted by budda

i still respect, enjoy listening to, and playing other styles of music.

Oh I totally do too, it's just not really my thing. Knowing a lot of people in the music department here has really made me appreciate virtually every style of music...but I would say I can appreciate them without genuinely liking them.

Classical and metal is really all that's ever appealed to me...not sure why seeing as I never stick to one area of interest in other activities.

[Desecrated]

I listened to vegan hardcore as a teenager, and in collage a friend of mine gave me a mixtape of blackmetal and I fell in love with it.

[Shannon]

My parents raised me on 70s classic hard rock (borderline metal), so I was already loving the heavy stuff at an early age. The first band that really sent me over the edge was Iron Maiden. My oldest cousin turned me onto them, then he surprised me with a ticket to Iron Maiden on their 1985 Powerslave tour! I was 10 years old!

I've been in the metal trenches ever since.

[eon_shift]

my dad gave me a cradle of filth cd in Gr. 5 and I havent looked back to pop music since.

[Michael]

Listening to Punk/Hardcore like AFI, Sick Of It All and Pennywise drove me into it. Then I started listening to Slayer, Pantera, Symphony X, Meshuggah, Dream Theater, Nevermore and stuff like that.

[Xaios]

There are two sources to cite in my metal upbringing. Firstly, I grew up on Metallica (among other things). Even in elementary school, there was many an "Enter Sandman" to be heard from me and a couple buddies. We also lacked musical pretentions at that point in life, so we always thought the Black album was awesome. Frankly, I still enjoy it, haters be damned.

Having said that, I really wasn't a metalhead until high school, when I started getting into Tool. This was right around when Lateralus came out, and I loved that album. That's what got me into the more riff oriented metal, and, combined with jazz band classes, taught me real dynamics.

[budda]

Originally Posted by 420n7strings

Oh I totally do too, it's just not really my thing. Knowing a lot of people in the music department here has really made me appreciate virtually every style of music...but I would say I can appreciate them without genuinely liking them.

Classical and metal is really all that's ever appealed to me...not sure why seeing as I never stick to one area of interest in other activities.

yeah man, it's weird. I find myself buying more metal albums often, and rock/punk stuff less. that said, i do need the new city and colour CD, i need to buy some goo goo dolls cd's, i need to get the tea party stuff from aaron, and I need to investigate 65 Days (Good electronica - im not usually an electronica guy at all, blame Bulb)

the only way to survive is diversity . I consider myself a musician as much as a guitarist lol, im sure most of the guys here are the same.