# Most impactful guitarist on you



## HungryGuitarStudent (Jul 10, 2020)

Who is the guitarist that has had the most impact on you, and why? I’m interested to read your stories, not just a list of names and bullet point reasons (for ex., Kirk Hammett: whah).

For me, without a doubt that guitarist would be Per Nilsson. 

Like a lot of you I guess, I started playing guitar casually as a teenager attempting to learn riffs and licks by Alex Skolnick, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and John Petrucci (and Pat Metheny). 

At that time, my motivation to make a career in music was high. However, the conservative thinking of my family pushed me towards a safer career (research scientist in mathematics). Frustrated and kinda sad, I stopped playing guitar after 3 years and never picked it up since, except for the occasional drunken fireside singing with friends.

Fast forward to 2015, when during a lunch break at work my cousin made me listen to a YT video of some Swedish guitarist. From this single video, his phrasing and note choice woke up something that had been dormant ever since I quit the guitar. A week later, I bought a new guitar (Ibanez Jem 77fp) and re-started playing by trying to figure out Per Nilsson solos and improvisations by ear. Since then, I’ve basically be trying to cram as many hours of guitar play I can in my work week. To the point where I’m considering (or rather, hoping) to convert this serious hobby into something more. I’m definitely not there yet and have a lot of work to do.

Often times when I have a motivation slump, I’ll find something that Per has recently done that’ll bring back the fire.

Case in point, here’s something that woke up my motivation this week: a small excerpt of parts Per recently recorded for a Darby Todd album. I’ll stop rambling and start reading your stories


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## Mboogie7 (Jul 10, 2020)

For me it’s James Hetfield and then later on, Angel Vivaldi.

My first memories as a child are of my dad playing the Black Album just loud enough to the point where I wouldn’t get hearing damage. I loved the groove (remember I’m 3 years old at this point) and it was dope that my dad and I were bonding over it.

fast forward 11 years and I have my first guitar and begin trying to learn the instrument. I remember actually looking at what Metallica was doing once I felt fairly confident I could learn there shit, and I was just blown away. 

James just has this insanely raw, aggressive and yet Uber tight command on the guitar and it’s the coolest thing ever. 

Angel Vivaldi - I discovered him maybe 5 years ago or so and just remember thinking “this is the music I’ve heard in my head all my life”. I’ve been enthralled with his music ever since and am always deeply inspired by his command and approach to the guitar. Also, he’s a dope soul and super cool in person and his shows are great.


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## vilk (Jul 10, 2020)

When I first started? Billie Joe Armstrong. Green Day was a big part of how I started to learn guitar.

Just a little bit later though it flipped to Ihsahn. Emperor was a big deal to me and my buddies who then started up a black metal band. I wrote a looooot of tremolo pick riffs trying to make my own I Am The Black Wizards, which I considered the king of all tremolo picking riffs.

Then probably Marc Okubo. As a trve elitist black metal teen, I despised any band that would dare to play the ultimate symbol of _poseur: _the open note breakdown. But I couldn't stop myself from being captured by The Common Man's Collapse. Iirc I made sure not to tell my bandmates that I was listening to it  man, being a teenager was weird.

Finally, when it comes to the most recent music I've written (which is a few years old now I guess), there's still some lingering Okubo, but another big influence on me is the band Martyrdod and their guitarist Mikael Kjellman. If you're not familiar, he's the king of making a punk riff be metal, and making an atmosphere that is simultaneously aggressive and emotional (though I wonder how dudeman himself would feel about being told that his riffs are emotional lol). Coincidentally, @HungryGuitarStudent , Per Nilsson was the bassist for Martyrdod for their second album, In Extremis.


Ironically, the genres I listen to the most (as well as the band that I'm in) are doom / stoner type stuff, and I can't write that at all. I play covers of other peoples songs and riffs, but I've never written my own.


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## Ralyks (Jul 10, 2020)

Petrucci. Made me realize you can mix almost whatever style you want and make it work.


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## BenjaminW (Jul 10, 2020)

The most impactful guitarists on me are John Lennon and Randy Rhoads.

I started playing guitar when I was 10 and during that time, I was into the Beatles (I still am) and was just blown away by John and the rest of the guys. What stood out to me from John was that whenever I watched live performances of the Beatles, he always appeared to stand out on his own and essentially be the leader of the Beatles. That eventually prompted me to start playing guitar because I wanted to learn every Beatles song on guitar. Luckily, I've stayed with it ever since and without John, I wouldn't be where I am now.

A year into my guitar playing, I came across a WatchMojo video on the Top 10 Band Guitarists, and Randy Rhoads was ranked #10 in that video (I shit you not, this is how I got into Randy Rhoads). I don't remember being impressed initially, but I think what got me to really check him out was hearing that he died at a young age and also how influential he was on metal. Watching him tear it up whether it be through a riff or a solo, was like watching the Beatles when I was younger, but on steroids. He could shred, he could play really kickass riffs, and just totally reinvented my perception of guitarists at the time. 

In short, John Lennon got me to play the guitar, but Randy Rhoads really redefined how to approach the guitar for me.


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## budda (Jul 10, 2020)

I don't actually know.


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## jaxadam (Jul 10, 2020)

Randy Rhoads
Yngwie Malmsteen
Jason Becker
Marty Friedman
Paul Gilbert
Vinnie Moore
Tony Macalpine

Or I should just say anything Mike Varney and Shrapnel records.


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## USMarine75 (Jul 10, 2020)

Many since I've been playing 30+ years... so I couldn't pick one.

EVH, Hendrix, and Satriani were why I started playing guitar around 1987. Then I discovered Becker, Marty, and Shrapnel Records around 1989 and it's what kept me playing.

But, when it comes to my playing and who I rip off:
Rhythm: EVH, Ty Tabor, and Jerry Cantrell
Lead:

EVH - 2 and 3 NPS scalar runs, tapping, bends
PG - string skipping (I use this A LOT) and stretches
Kotzen - since I mostly play without a pick for last 5 years (e.g. 2 string patterns, sliding into notes, etc)
Friedman and Beck - bending or trem from outside notes into target tones
Becker - sweep arpeggios, trem usage with lead lines and chords, scalar patterns
Vinnie Moore - Mind's Eye was one of the most impactful albums on my playing

tl;dr I'm unoriginal and steal a lot from others lol


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## wheresthefbomb (Jul 10, 2020)

I'm going to go with Neil Young, because I don't listen to a whole terrible lot of this stuff on my own but he's a major and obvious influence on many of my favorite artists and styles today. His folky singer/songwriter stuff is cool but my favorite Neil Young is electric and turned up. I vaguely enjoyed him as a teen but never really put much more thought or exploration into his music, until someone showed me this:



Holy fuzz tone!

My next big moment with his music came when I heard Built to Spill's epic 20-minute version of Cortez the Killer, only to discover it was a cover. I was once again blown away, I didn't know he did anything like that. As a big fan of Earth and spaghetti western, this style _really_ resonated with me.



Speaking of Spaghetti Western, what really tied the whole Neil Young situation together for me was one experience that I had three separate times. Over two years, three different people asked me after seeing me perform if I'd seen the movie Dead Man. I still haven't but the soundtrack has become another instant favorite piece of music. There's a really beautiful marriage between amplifier worship and emotive flow-of-consciousness playing that speaks directly to my soul.



I'd listen to that amp feedback all afternoon.

It's nice that he plays so well too I guess


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## Steinmetzify (Jul 10, 2020)

There’s no way I could do just one. Music has been an evolution for me, and there were a shit ton of inspirations along the way.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jul 10, 2020)

My dad is/was a very good classical/flamenco player and I'd spent most of my childhood listening to guitar centric music with him, so it made sense to me that I should learn guitar. My dad showed me an E chord, threw some old books he learned on at me and told me to get to practicing. I spent years and years learning classical guitar/flamenco on my own, largely because the towns we moved to didn't have any classical or flamenco teachers.

My biggest influence was Paco De Lucia.
He had the perfect blend of insane technique, speed and the ability to write delicate, yet catchy melodies. I must have spent hours every day just blaring his duo album with Al DiMeola. DiMeola was cool, but Paco had such unique phrasing and always seemed to outshine him on that album.
I spent a lot of time trying to emulate Paco's speed/aggression with his picking and rasgueado/golpe. I never managed to get close to his phrasing since I was stuck in the classical mindset of building technique first, and then pursuing less concrete aspects of playing like "phrasing".

As I went deeper down the flamenco rabbit hole I found nouveau flamenco and got super into guys like Ottmar Liebert and Jesse Cook/Ben Woods, who showed me that blending flamenco with other genres like metal or jazz (when done well) can sound phenomenal. They gave me a ton of ideas about how to blend genres, which led to me trying to hook nylon string guitars up to high gain amps, fuzzes and other stuff.

Once I finally switched to electric it was a big adjustment for me to play with a pick. I actually started on electric bass since my finger picking translated better to that instrument before finally cracking down and learning to actually pick. I watched Petrucci's old instructional and listened to Steve Vai/Satriani incessantly. I also basically locked myself in my room for a whole summer learning how to alternate pick half decently.

In terms of my writing nowadays:
my abuse of jangly/open chords and chicken picking weird angular riffs- listening to wayyy too much Mastodon and Baroness when I was in high school
my overuse of certain two finger power chords - Gojira/ Morbid Angel/Lamb of God
harp harmonics - Lenny Breau
using pinch harmonics as accents in riffs - Zakk Wylde/ Warren DeMartini/EVH
sprinkling of tapping the octave note or using it for counterpoint - Mattias Eklundh

There's a bunch more guys that I've nicked ideas from but let's just say the kind of crap I write is all over the place thematically and stylistically.


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## Werecow (Jul 10, 2020)

I know it's a cliche but Hetfield. I had learnt acoustic folk guitar at junior school from age 8-11. My next school didn't have any kind of guitar lessons at all. After 3 or 4 years of never touching a guitar, discovering Metallica had me playing playing along to Ride The Lightning (the song), For Whom The Bell Tolls, and others off that album on my cheap crappy old acoustic guitar for a year or more before i could get my first electric. He basically got me playing guitar again.


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## prlgmnr (Jul 10, 2020)

First made me think guitar was cool when I was 10-12ish: Hendrix, Page, Morello (my parents listened to Rage Against the Machine, this was a bonus)
Got me to think guitar was cool again when I was 16-18: Hetfield, Hammett, Cazares, Vogg, Bjorler
Convinced me that shredding wasn't just dumb: Guthrie
Got me into jazz: Burrell
Appreciated much later in life (like, 30+): EVH

Would most like to play like: Chris Poland for lead, Vogg for metal riffing, EVH for general rhythm feel. David Grier on acoustic.

Can't stand: Petrucci*

*I'm not saying this to rag on Petrucci so much as because who you _dont_ want to sound like can shape your sound/approach as much as who you do.


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## akinari (Jul 10, 2020)

It's really tough to pin down one singular person that's had the most impact on me as a player, but I can name a couple.

The first one that comes to mind is Deron Miller, from CKY and Foreign Objects. When I first heard his riffs as a kid, it was pretty mind blowing. A lot of the songs were pretty poppy, but the guitar work was 98% single notes, with this super fat guitar sound I'd never heard - a sound just completely sucked me in. It sounded like a jet engine playing super hooky riffs and I was like, "wow, you can make a guitar sound like that?!" 

Eventually I figured out it was just an octave pedal that was doubling everything, but knowing that never took the magic away for me. Every few years I revisit the catalogue and reconnect to that initial burst of inspiration and interest that made me want to play guitar in the first place. I don't play like him, or write songs that sound like his, but the impact his music had on me as a kid is pretty important.

So after playing guitar for a year or 2 or I discovered Discordance Axis and their guitarist, Rob Marton. I was always looking for heavier and heavier music and one summer morning, thanks to Kazaa, I discovered Pig Destroyer, Napalm Death and Carcass. I remember hearing "Breed to Breathe" by ND (yes it's from one of their poser records, I don't care ) and immediately falling in love with it. The aggression, the industrial strength guitar and bass tones, the unexpected melodies in the middle and outro sections - I was hooked. 

So around this time, Discordance Axis had just recently split up, and I see a few people talking on forums about how they're one of the best grind bands ever, so I tracked down a copy of their Jouhou album and it pretty much changed my whole take on music. I listened to that record probably every day for a year and a half. The more I listened to it, the more I began to appreciate it. I knew from the first listen it was something special, but as I began to find more heavy bands to compare it to, it was like "yeah, this guy is doing something different." These guys were playing fast, but it was more than that. He wasn't using the guitar as a noise generator, playing flurries of indistinct garbage (well, after their first album), or a bunch of boring chuggy breakdown riffs alternating between pointless and irritating high pitched minor seconds like a lot of guys in early 2000s bands were doing - he was writing songs and actually putting himself into the material. He used a lot of dissonant chords, but he was using them as a way to propel the music and give it a sense of forward motion and development, not just cramming a bunch of unrelated ideas into LOL QUIRKY xD tight pants "technical" scenester sound collages. It's a lot harder to explain the way Rob impacted me, but I guess the easiest way to quantify it is that his music taught me that you can marry speed, technicality or business, melody, dissonance, emotion and mood in ways that a lot of people in "extreme music" subgenres don't always bother putting in the effort to. I woodshedded in my bedroom to all of their records for probably 3 or 4 years as a teenager, and without them, I probably wouldn't have the limited chops I still have today.

After that, it was Justin Broadrick from Godflesh, particularly his playing on the Selfless and Streetcleaner records. He taught me about space, letting songs breathe and meander for effect, using open strings to play off of or against your chord progressions, and the power and usefulness of repetition and simple riffs. So although I don't have as much to say about his playing in comparison to the other two players I named, his influence on me really cannot go understated.


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## Frostbite (Jul 10, 2020)

Hetfield is an easy one. Metallica riffs were what I learned first that I would consider challenging back in the day due to all the downpicking and I still think down picking is a strong point for me because of that. 

The dudes from August Burns Red are another set since when I mess around half my riffs still use techniques I picked up from learning their songs.

Outside of that, I'm living up to my motto under my profile pic but the dudes in Periphery really make me want to play guitar. Every time I pick up a seven I sound like a Periphery knock off but I'm fine with that since I love the style. Periphery as a whole brought me back to really playing guitar and restarted my love for guitar that really started to die off after a few years


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## Dyingsea (Jul 10, 2020)

Shawn Lane and Vicente Amigo... names speak for themselves honestly.


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## HungryGuitarStudent (Jul 10, 2020)

Dyingsea said:


> Shawn Lane and Vicente Amigo... names speak for themselves honestly.



These guys are beasts, but to some their music doesn’t do anything, so why did they have an impact on you ?


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## wheresthefbomb (Jul 10, 2020)

akinari said:


> After that, it was Justin Broadrick from Godflesh, particularly his playing on the Selfless and Streetcleaner records. He taught me about space, letting songs breathe and meander for effect, using open strings to play off of or against your chord progressions, and the power and usefulness of repetition and simple riffs. So although I don't have as much to say about his playing in comparison to the other two players I named, his influence on me really cannot go understated.



+1

I'm more of a Jesu guy but either way, Broadrick is a true master of pacing and atmosphere.


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## Aewrik (Jul 10, 2020)

If I can only name one, it would have to be Petrucci.

It wasn't until I heard the outro for Universal Mind (the circus part) when there was a guy that wasn't just fast, you could actually hear he was a good player and it stood out from the other instruments. I didn't know it was John Petrucci at the time and had never heard Dream Theater before, but fast forward probably a year and I borrowed Scenes from a Memory by the Satriani dude at school (I myself was a Vai guy), and was completely blown away by the riff in the middle of Strange Déjà Vu. The Fatal Tragedy solo floored me completely. It was fast sure, but most of all it was so incredibly articulate all the while. Getting to Home after Beyond This Life sealed it (Home) as my favorite solo of all time. It still is today.

While my guitar teacher had emphasized the importance of articulation and right hand technique before (even mentioned Petrucci as an example, though I was on a 56k dial-up at the time and had forgotten it by the time I had access to faster internet), it wasn't until I heard the exquisite tones of Metropolis pt. 2 I truly understood the difference between a fast player and a virtuoso. It was something I never appreciated playing Vai or Johnson, because their articulations felt more like embellishments; with Petrucci it's the basic technique/articulation that stands out, not the harmonics, tapping, sweeping, etc. . In fact, beyond his picking technique, he wouldn't have made it past MAB if he wasn't such an good musician (even though he can do all the shreds, not just alternate picking).

Edit: I can't find a good wording to make it seem less "hurr durr, sanic gotta go fast", but compared to the other giants, even Yngwie, there was just something special with him. Like he wasn't flying across the strings, but actually pulled some weight into the notes he played. I guess in a way, he was the guitar bear before bulking up for his autumn years.


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## zappatton2 (Jul 10, 2020)

I never so much as noticed a guitar solo until I first heard Sweet Child O Mine. Slash pretty much got me into playing guitar and listening to guitar-based music. Before him, I was all into Paula Abdul, George Michael and Milli Vanilli (yeah, I'll admit it).


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## lewis (Jul 10, 2020)

Willie Adler/Mark Morton - (Lamb of God)
Rob Arnold/Matt Devries - (Chimaira)
Rob Flynn/Phil Demmel - (Machine Head)
Josh Middleton - (Sylosis/Architects)
Timfy James/Carl Ayers - (Heart of a Coward/Hacktivist/Purge)
Justin Lowe/Trent Hafdahl - (After the Burial)

and then for Bass:

Nolly - (Periphery! duh)
Brian Krahe - (Krosis)
Jacob Umansky - (Intervals)


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## Dayn (Jul 10, 2020)

Steve Vai. I read his Little Black Dots series and my mind was blown. From that point on, I never thought of guitar as 'guitar' ever again. I only thought of it as a way to make whatever sounds I wanted, however I wanted.


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## fps (Jul 11, 2020)

Metallica will continue to be the standard for years and years of entry level to guitar. Not just because they’re awesome and Hetfield’s right hand is insane, but because the songs are in standard tuning. Kids getting into guitar aren’t going to want to retune everything let alone set up for a retune.


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## Avedas (Jul 11, 2020)

Petrucci is #1 for sure.

Alex Lifeson was my main influence to pick up guitar in the first place, and discovering Dream Theater was a completely natural progression following Rush.

Petrucci inspired me to take everything to the next level, and he still does. He's an apex player with a definitive style who does whatever the hell he wants, even when DT flops a bit, and he comes out as perfectly positive all the time.


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## broj15 (Jul 11, 2020)

Kurt Ballou (converge), Jamie Behar (Off Minor), Ian Mackaye & Guy Picciotto (fugazi), and Sven Haertig (Louise Cyphre, Republic Of Dreams).

Kurt made me realize that playing heavy riffs & playing with emotion go hand in hand, and that sometimes the simplest riff can still be the best riffs, and there's alot more to technical skill then how many notes you can cram into a measure.
Jamie Behar is one of the most diverse guitarists, in that he can seamlessly transition between the dynamics of loud & soft, chaotic & composed, and locking into a groove with the rhythm section while managing to stand out.
Ian & Guy are less inspirations on guitar playing and more inspiring in terms of live performance (always put forward 100% even at the smallest shows and make every performance a unique experience) as well as the ethics of how a band should operate.
And Sven Haertig is just a monster. Between ROD & Louise Cyphre I don't think I've ever heard a riff from him that didn't make me say "what the fuck". The only way I can describe his playing is it feels like having your head shoved into a blast furnace. Chaotic but clearly composed & calculated and covering a vast range of dissonance to the point of being grating & some of the prettiest, sweetest chords I've ever heard in a hardcore/grindcore context.


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## mpexus (Jul 11, 2020)

Hard to pinpoint one so I will go by memory and discovering timetable sort of:

- Dave Murray and Adrian Smith, although Smith is the better player to me Dave has something extra that I prefer and he is still my fav Maiden member.
- Satriani
- EVH
- Tony Macalpine... first time I heard him I was blown away
- James and Kirk, yes and Kirk. Kirk was refreshing back then even if now it seems a Trend to talk shit about him
- Dave Mustaine
- Alex Skolnik... he made me buy my first Ibanez 
- Chuck Schuldiner
- Tommy T. Baron (Coroner). I knew them barely but after watching them Live in Toronto I had to hear everything he recorded. To me with Mustaine he put more Tech guitar playing into another level.
- Dimebag
This are probably the top ones that shaped my Likings. Later of course I have found others in most variety of styles and keep discovering new ones every year.


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## sirbuh (Jul 11, 2020)

Trey Azagtoth and Joe Satriani; the former brings in EVH and Jason Becker.

TA - got into MA just before C was released. His rhythm playing and ability to keep atonal soloing from going down the Kerry King crapper was a revelation
JS- Easy to get tabs for his songs during the pre internet dark days; was sometimes challenging and generally interesting, could find some riffs for good practice 
EVH- rhythm playing was deceptive 
JB- he just went for it: exhilarating


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## AdenM (Jul 11, 2020)

Jade Puget - When I started listening to punk in middle school, I really admired Jade Puget's sense of melody and ability to make a single guitar sound extremely full. 
Alexi Laiho - Also middle school, first lead guitar player I got into. I liked the mix of melody and technicality in his playing.
Marc Okubo - Id and TCMC were huge for me in high school. The mix of more traditional metal styles with what was popular at the time in his playing + the sheer technicality did it for me.
Nick Depirro - First player who made me want to use effects like whammy, delay, wah in their own right. I hadn't heard anyone play a single lead guitar against a bass/drum section prior to Night Verses, was really impactful on my songwriting.
Robin Staps - Pelagial by The Ocean is a god tier album for me, I think Robin is a great songwriter.

Currently:
Kurt Ballou - The producer/songwriter/gear nerd ethos he has makes him one of my favorite engineers and players as well. Great mix of melody and technicality in his playing. 
Nolly - Same reason as Kurt, really. 
Marc Holcomb - Melody, technicality. I also like that there seems to be a good amount of black/death metal influence in his playing, but that he doesn't wear it on his sleeve.
Will Putney - END and FFAA are great bands!


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## Rosal76 (Jul 11, 2020)

sirbuh said:


> TA - got into MA just before C was released. His rhythm playing and ability to keep atonal soloing from going down the Kerry King crapper was a revelation



I love Trey's guitar soloing. I learned the solos to Dominate, Where the slime live, and Rapture..., and then I saw the guitar tablature for Chapel of ghouls and the wheels on my car came off real quick!!! LOL. I'm trying to make time to where I can spend some time to cover the solos in that song.


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## Shawn (Jul 11, 2020)

It was Kirk Hammett at first then I got into thrash which led me to death metal (Chuck Schuldiner, James Murphy, Terrance Hobbs, Trey Azagthoth, etc) while listening to Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Tony Macalpine, Holdsworth, etc. (too many to list).

I’d have to say Satriani had the biggest though as far as sense of melodies and such but I really loved Eric Johnson because of how hard his stuff was to play and it challenged me a lot. So those two the most.


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## Forkface (Jul 12, 2020)

Its definitely a timeline-ish process to be sure...
when i started playing, it was Angus Young and Hetfield.
As i started going heavier, probably Brad Delson (Linkin Park) along with Head and Munky.
Peak of the heaviness, definitely Brian Eschbach (TBDM), and also Muhammed Suiçmez and Michael Keene (although i knew that Necrophagist and The faceless were beyond my skills)
Eventually things started rolling downhill heavy-wise, and where i heard Guthrie, my whole guitar-ing world was flipped upside down.
Currently, i feel SRV and John Mayer have shaped my relatively recent approach to guitar towards the direction is going now.

BUT, if i had to pick ONE guy,* Paco de Lucia. *listening for the first time was lifechanging. and every time i put him on, its chills and memories all over. literally reignites my love and passion for the instrument. Prime example of taking something you like, and pushing it to the outmost boundaries of what is possible. Very similar to Guthrie in a sense, but since i heard Paco much younger, he def. takes the cake.
Every time i feel like not playing guitar anymore, one song from him and legit shoves that feeling back in the trash where it belongs.


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## USMarine75 (Jul 12, 2020)

sirbuh said:


> Trey Azagtoth and Joe Satriani; the former brings in EVH and Jason Becker.
> 
> TA - got into MA just before C was released. His rhythm playing and ability to keep atonal soloing from going down the Kerry King crapper was a revelation
> JS- Easy to get tabs for his songs during the pre internet dark days; was sometimes challenging and generally interesting, could find some riffs for good practice
> ...



EVH's rhythm playing is massively underrated. As is Michael Anthony's bass playing (and backup vocals) to keep the consistent rhythm underneath which EVH could embellish and play melody lines, since they only have one guitarist.


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## CerealKiller (Jul 12, 2020)

As a 90's/early 2000's kid, SOAD and Korn got me interested in learning an instrument, because it was better than most other stuff I heard on the radio or MTV, but it wasn't until a friend showed me Black Sabbath that I knew guitar was the coolest thing in the world. Out went Nu Metal, and in came Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, KISS, Led Zeppelin, and Motörhead. This spiralled further, and I discovered Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Joe Satriani, and the one that for sure has had the most impact on my playing, Paul Gilbert. I liked his humor, and that he didn't seem to take himself too seriously, and of course his playing was out of this world. The pure aggression in his early days picking, coupled with recognizable melodies and actual rock'n'roll songs. I'm still trying to get his picking down at the Racer X speeds, but it's always just 5-10 bpm too fast for me.

I would say Shawn Lane had a big impact as well, with big stretches over wide intervals, string skipping, odd groupings and hammer-ons-from-nowhere. 
Joe Haley from Psycroptic also made me aware how terrible my rhythm playing was, so he had a big impact on how I approach rhythm guitars.
Guthrie Govan opened the can of fusion for me, I went to a weekend of lessons with him, and he just blew me away. I'm happy I recorded it, because there's material for a lifetime in there.

More recently, Tosin Abasi has been a big influence, maybe not so much directly on my playing, because I cannot be bothered to learn his insane shit, but he is inspiring me to explore and expand on my own ideas. Out of laziness and hammer-on-from-nowhere-ness, I was already doing a lot of 'selective picking', but it is very cool to see him apply it to really interesting music.
I could write forever about guitar players, but other honorable mentions are Greg Howe, Eric Johnson, Randy Rhoads, Mattias Eklundh, Ritchie Blackmore, Allan Holdsworth, Yngwie, Michael Lee Firkins, Bumblefoot.


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## Blytheryn (Jul 12, 2020)

Started off playing guitar in music class in 8th grade. I gravitated towards it because I grew up listening to green day and I thought it was cool to be able to play that stuff. One day my classmate showed Follow the Reaper by Children of Bodom on his shitty Sony Ericsson music phone and it blew my mind. I had no idea that the guitar could be played like that. I spent hours and hours a day from then on trying to play like Alexi Laiho. Just the mix of shred, punk and thrash from those early albums really combines everything I love about the guitar. I got the chance to play and hang out with the guys from Bodom on more than one occasion over the last few years, and on a personal level they're also the coolest guys. Overall just a band and guitarist who have had an immense impact on me.

Beyond that I enjoy guys like Mick Thomson and Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein for their no nonsense approach and stage presence.


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## The Mirror (Jul 12, 2020)

Petrucci: Early on. I learned a lot from trying to play DT songs.
Devin Townsend: Not in any way on terms of songwriting or phrasing, but 90% of what I write these days is in Open C thanks to him. I consider Open C to be the definitive best tuning for what I want to do.
Joe Duplantier: Very recently. I learned From Mars to Sirius over the last weeks since I wanted to tighten my rhythm work for the next recording process and decided to learn the whole album entirely by the fact that I never listened to Gojira before and heard that they focus solely on riffs and melody (meaning no fancy leads and solos).

Right now I am at the strange point that I can play more than half of Gojira's catalogue but I never listened to their music aside from trying to learn the tracks.

Joe is a master in termy of simplicity and effectiveness and especially pinch harmonics (the fuck is the Magma title track?) and melodic tapping.

It certainly did what it should. My rhythm got much better and I might have a new 2nd favourite band, which is quite extraordinary since Devin is the only musician I really listened to over the last 3 years.

Maybe I'll even just put on a Gojira record in the future.


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## DrakkarTyrannis (Jul 12, 2020)

There are a few.

Fallon Bowman of Kittie was who got me into guitar in the first place and to this day, her guitar tone on their first album is sacred to me.

James Hetfield turned me into a chug monkey and rhythm guitar became my biggest love. Listening to Metallica always gets me in a guitar playing mood.

Prince is a huge influence. His tone was great and the way he could make a guitar just scream is amazing to me. I'm not much of a lead player but he is the sole influence for any leads.

Trent Reznor taught me how to use the guitar as a noise tool instead of the standard musical instrument. It opened up a world of possibilities for me.

Infernus of Gorgoroth is a big influence because I love black metal guitar styles. He's got quite a few tricks that make the guitars in his music interesting.

I couldn't just choose one of them because as my playing focus changed and the style of music I did changed, I began valuing them all in different ways. My playing style and mentality is an amalgamation of everything I took from the 5 of them.


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## DrakkarTyrannis (Jul 12, 2020)

Blytheryn said:


> Started off playing guitar in music class in 8th grade. I gravitated towards it because I grew up listening to green day and I thought it was cool to be able to play that stuff. One day my classmate showed Follow the Reaper by Children of Bodom on his shitty Sony Ericsson music phone and it blew my mind. I had no idea that the guitar could be played like that. I spent hours and hours a day from then on trying to play like Alexi Laiho. Just the mix of shred, punk and thrash from those early albums really combines everything I love about the guitar. I got the chance to play and hang out with the guys from Bodom on more than one occasion over the last few years, and on a personal level they're also the coolest guys. Overall just a band and guitarist who have had an immense impact on me.
> 
> Beyond that I enjoy guys like Mick Thomson and Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein for their no nonsense approach and stage presence.



I love Doyle. He's one of the most down to Earth motherfuckers ever and a guitar legend in his own right.


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## Blytheryn (Jul 12, 2020)

DrakkarTyrannis said:


> I love Doyle. He's one of the most down to Earth motherfuckers ever and a guitar legend in his own right.



Absolutely. I just love watching him play. Especially those shows in the mid to late 90’s.


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## Merrekof (Jul 12, 2020)

Brian Welch. He made me pick up the guitar and learn some riffs. Can't say why, but I thought he was the coolest guy ever when I was in my teens. 

After I played guitar a few years, I heard Ihsahn with Emperor. That guy still is a big example for me to this day.


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## aesthyrian (Jul 12, 2020)

Dimebag

he was just so damn cool when I was a kid. He looked cool, talked cool, had a cool shaped guitar with all sorts of cool finishes and his playing.. well duh. This isn't meant as a insult but Dimebag was like an eternal child, which is probably why he resonated with me so well at a young age. He acted like a child in many ways, and certainly dressed like one haha. He was a "cool" adult to me because he showed me that you don't have to grow up and be "boring". Growing up in the 90's, Dimebag was really the man, he was all over the place and I feel pretty lucky for such a unique character to have broken into the mainstream enough for me to become aware of him at a fairly young age.


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## Rosal76 (Jul 12, 2020)

Forkface said:


> and also Muhammed Suiçmez and Michael Keene (although i knew that Necrophagist and The faceless were beyond my skills)



Do yourself a favor. Learn some Necrophagist material. It is ridiculously fun. It's very, very difficult at first but it's so rewarding when you finally nail that riff/solo/whole song that you like from them.


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## Science_Penguin (Jul 12, 2020)

I think I owe a good deal of how I approach guitar to Eddie Van Halen specifically. In everything from tone to songwriting to soloing, there's a bit of me trying to emulate him somewhere. It's probably just because I was exposed to him at an early age, and subsequently he became the first big name I ever heard in Rock guitar, but even after veering way off into far different forms of music than Van Halen I still keep coming back to his techniques when trying to write my own music. 

For starters, I'm a nut for single coils and I point the blame for that squarely at Eddie. He never used them of course, but because of him, my ideal guitar tone has always been crisp, bright, and clean. In my quest to achieve that, I discovered Strat pickups and... that's just been a ride into obsession that never really ends.

Musically, I've always tried to approach riff writing and chord voicings in a way similar to what I hear in Van Halen tunes. Not copying the style exactly (or I try not to) but generally, my benchmark is something along the lines of "How can I make this as interesting as Ain't Talkin' Bout Love, or as fun to play as Panama?" And, do I even need to mention the solos? I don't care about being the best shredder of all time, I just want to be THAT good.

Hell, I even copied Eddie's picking technique. Ever since I was a beginner, and even after years of doing it "correctly" I always wanted to hold the pick with my middle finger, copying his technique helped me do that in a way that was still efficient.


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## rikwebb (Jul 13, 2020)

USMarine75 said:


> EVH's rhythm playing is massively underrated. As is Michael Anthony's bass playing (and backup vocals) to keep the consistent rhythm underneath which EVH could embellish and play melody lines, since they only have one guitarist.



I Love Michael Anthony's backup vocals so much.


Guitar wise for me i grew up with my parents playing a lot of AC/DC, Def Leppard, Van Halen, so Angus/Malcom and EVH were already early influences for me, then i remember the black album coming out when i was 5 even though i'd already heard Metallica due to my dad having Master and Justice and that stuck with me too riff wise so Hetfield was the next one. 

High school was Wes Borland just due to his playing was different to others in the genre at the time, also really got into Alice in Chains at the same time so Jerry Cantrell was another one, especially his riffs.


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## fps (Jul 13, 2020)

Dayn said:


> Steve Vai. I read his Little Black Dots series and my mind was blown. From that point on, I never thought of guitar as 'guitar' ever again. I only thought of it as a way to make whatever sounds I wanted, however I wanted.



Just looking these up, thank you. It's interesting how functional we've become in terms of tuition and information, not just on guitar but in general. These lessons are much more interesting in terms of getting into a great headspace, I love the writing.

Of course, at the start he says you have to be able already to do a bunch of stuff I can't do haha.


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## USMarine75 (Jul 13, 2020)

I don't know how I overlooked it, but rather than artists...

Back in the day, before YouTube, there were VHS tapes like REH. Those had a profound effect on my style. PG, Vinnie Moore, and Frank Gambale are the ones I remember even to this day.


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## cardinal (Jul 13, 2020)

Jerry Cantrell. I <3 you Jerry.


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## efiltsohg (Jul 13, 2020)

Looking at my formative years it is probably one of Robert Fripp, Jon Schaffer, Dave Mustaine, or Matt Pike


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## mastapimp (Jul 13, 2020)

Jerry Cantrell and Marty Friedman.


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## Rosal76 (Jul 13, 2020)

USMarine75 said:


> Back in the day, before YouTube, there were VHS tapes like REH.



+1. I have the Yngwie Malsteen one. It came with a booklet that has the guitar tablature for some of the exercises Yngwie performed in the video. I'm so glad my friend gave me that VHS tape to me because that introduced me to neo-classical style playing.


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## jaxadam (Jul 13, 2020)

USMarine75 said:


> I don't know how I overlooked it, but rather than artists...
> 
> Back in the day, before YouTube, there were VHS tapes like REH. Those had a profound effect on my style. PG, Vinnie Moore, and Frank Gambale are the ones I remember even to this day.



I had Terrifying Guitar Trip by Paul Gilbert and Chopbuilder by Frank Gambale. I swear to god, anyone who can sit and play Chopbuilder from start to finish will be the best guitar player on youtube.


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## Rosal76 (Jul 13, 2020)

jaxadam said:


> and Chopbuilder by Frank Gambale. I swear to god, anyone who can sit and play Chopbuilder from start to finish will be the best guitar player on youtube.



I believe you. Many years ago, Guitar World magazine ran a excellent article on Frank and showcased (using guitar tablature) some of the arpeggios that he uses. Dude!!! I kid you not. Those were the most difficult arpeggios that I have ever seen/played in my life. It was so awkward trying to play his arpeggios that I actually thought I was getting vertigo. LOL.


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## jaxadam (Jul 13, 2020)

Rosal76 said:


> I believe you. Many years ago, Guitar World magazine ran a excellent article on Frank and showcased (using guitar tablature) some of the arpeggios that he uses. Dude!!! I kid you not. Those were the most difficult arpeggios that I have ever seen/played in my life. It was so awkward trying to play his arpeggios that I actually thought I was getting vertigo. LOL.



The thing about Chopbuilder is that it is so unbelievable easy and practical at first, but it because such a mental and technical workout that is actually doable, but it takes some major effort. I always told myself my goal would be to sit down and go all the way through it, but I never made it. I mean, look how simple but practical it is:


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## thebeesknees22 (Jul 13, 2020)

mike einziger - biggest influence in my overall playing style
stephen carpenter/Chino Moreno - I add Chino because he wrote a lot of white pony. Sonically they're both just a massively huge influence for me.

Lately - jerry cantrell, misha mansoor. I'm still working on my djenty/prog metal playing, but it's getting there.


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## manu80 (Jul 13, 2020)

Dave mustaine. Agressive, technical, singing and playing those songs at the same time (rust in peace especially) is crzay, and the guy plays V's. Top of the list in my book


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## Science_Penguin (Jul 13, 2020)

thebeesknees22 said:


> mike einziger - biggest influence in my overall playing style



Real good choice. Always does top notch rhythm guitar work.


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## RevDrucifer (Jul 14, 2020)

Gilmour, Vai and Cantrell, in that order. 

Gilmour is why I started and is still home base for me. AIC was my introduction to heavier music in the mid-90's and half my riffs sound like Cantrell throwaways. Vai changed the way I thought about guitar and music in general, his phrasing has definitely had a big influence on me, even if I just stay in Dmin all the time. 

Petrucci was also big in my teens/twenties, but I kind of purposefully stopped going down that road. I was way too focused on chop building and while I still woodshed a couple times a year, it's mostly to keep up what little skills I have in shape, opposed to progressing with speed or technique. I started writing solos and realized I was coming up with crap because I'd just start shredding....which is so far removed from that Gilmour influence that it bummed me out.


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## GalacticDeath (Jul 14, 2020)

When it comes to playing technique I'd say Paul Gilbert was very impactful to my alternate picking and fretting hand development. As far as writing heavier metal, Michael Keene from The Faceless is a really big influence. 
The guitarist that first got my attention and drew me into guitar playing was Steve Howe. I would still consider him a big influence as well.


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## TheDandy (Jul 14, 2020)

I’d have to go with Steven Wilson. His approach to being a songwriter who happens to use a guitar as a tool, rather than being a guitarist, really made me look at songwriting and music as a whole differently.


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## Randy (Jul 14, 2020)

jaxadam said:


>




Frank Gambale and company dressed as henchmen in the most boring 80s action movie.


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## Randy (Jul 14, 2020)

Most influential in where I ended up would be probably Vito Bratta, EVH, maybe some Holdsworth for legato and Michael Keene.

As far as who got me into playing guitar in the first place, strangely enough I'd say KoRn and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Kids are strange


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## Rosal76 (Jul 14, 2020)

Randy said:


> Frank Gambale and company dressed as henchmen in the most boring 80s action movie.



LOL!!!

Frank looks like he auditioned for the hero part in Invasion U.S.A. (1985) and lost the part to Chuck Norris.


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## Science_Penguin (Jul 14, 2020)

Randy said:


> Frank Gambale and company dressed as henchmen in the most boring 80s action movie.



That's exactly what I look for in my 90's guitar instruction tapes. It's how you know he's legit.


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## mirrorshades (Jul 14, 2020)

marty friedman
andres segovia
paco de lucia
strunz and farah


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## HungryGuitarStudent (Jul 17, 2020)

Paco De Lucia and Al Di Meola most definitely.


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## Bdtunn (Jul 17, 2020)

Mustaine 
Marty 
Dime 
Vai 
Gibbons


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## ArtDecade (Jul 17, 2020)

Blues Saraceno and Brian Setzer.


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## ConfusingParadise (Sep 17, 2020)

In terms of songwriting, dynamics and structure definitely Munky and Head from Korn.


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## possumkiller (Sep 18, 2020)

Devin Townsend


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## JSanta (Sep 18, 2020)

Django Reinhardt and Stephane Wrembel


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## Sumsar (Sep 18, 2020)

Michael Romeo
Jeff Loomis
Ihsahn
Nergal

The last two for their riffing and song writing.

Keith Merrow for learning me that you can produce really cool metal music at home and dont have to work in a band setting.


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## ArtDecade (Sep 18, 2020)

At first, EVH, Blues Saraceno, and Dweezil Zappa. Then, Dweezil's dad. Brian Setzer later.


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## DiezelMonster (Sep 18, 2020)

Dimebag and Trey.


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## Louis Cypher (Sep 18, 2020)

EVH, Rhoads, Lynch, Nuno, Sykes. Later Munky & Head, Dime, John Oliva, SRV, Kotzen & Andy LaRocque


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## Spectre 1 (Sep 18, 2020)

Gary Moore.


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## littlebadboy (Sep 18, 2020)

I wanted to learn playing the guitar because of Roland Orzabal's (Tears for Fears) guitar solo on "Shout".


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## BornToLooze (Sep 19, 2020)

Originally it was James Hetfield (my wife still thinks I have a crush on him) because when I first started playing guitar, I was down picking everything because I thought it sounded more consistent when you heard the low note first every time in the chord instead of low then high. I had a guitar teacher that said I would never be able to play anything fast if all I did was down pick, but when you Google downpicking it pops up, did you mean James Hetfield.

Here recently it's been a mix of people like Steve Gaines and Roy Clark, because it makes you realize how many flaws in your playing you're hiding behind a mountain of gain playing through a basically clean amp, and people like Stevie Ray Vaughn, Nuno, and Roy Clark where their playing is on a whole nother level, and have passed up being a guitar player to being an entertainer.

I can't practice guitar like I used to, but I make it a point to make sure I play everything as naturally as just strumming chords to a campfire song.


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## ajsfreily (Sep 21, 2020)

Some of my heroes

Ace Frehley, well, he is frekkin ACE!!

Yngwie Malmsteen, first time I heard him, around the time he moved to the US, my jaw dropped to the floor, never heard anything like it before.

Ritchie Kotzen, so different from all the other shredders from the 90's (most of them flirting with the neo classical stuff). Love his early stuff

Allan Holdsworth, when I heard his music and his playing for the first time, I couldn't believe my ears. I HAD to know more about him


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## Spaced Out Ace (Sep 21, 2020)

I don't rightly know...


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## ThePhilosopher (Sep 22, 2020)

I grew up listening to EVH and Metallica, and learned some of their stuff but it didn't really speak to me. I didn't really enjoy playing until I started trying to learn songs from Demanufacture, Around the Fur and Korn's first three albums - there was something very raw and appealing about the downtuned guitars to an angsty teen. At the opposite end for me is Martin Gore from Depeche Mode, while they don't use a lot of guitar there's some tasty stuff there and Amir Derakh's guitar synth work in Orgy always made me want to play a little differently. 

Devin got me into open tunings, though I had at been playing a guitar tuned C-G-Eb-G-C-Eb long before I had heard of Devin and I don't know how I stumbled into playing in full-fifths but I dig that approach to the instrument as well.


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## sakeido (Sep 22, 2020)

Jimmy Paige
Marc Okubo 

two names you'd never think to see in the same sentence together but Marc especially doesn't get the props he deserves. One of the most beastly guitarists out there and maybe the best guy playing djent


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## Taylord (Sep 22, 2020)

Misha and John Mayer. So I get roasted on all the forums.


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## Bogner (Sep 22, 2020)

So many...I will try to hit the main points and the why's behind them.

Iommi was key in the initial interest. The tone, the riff...captivating. It was the beginning of my interest and making me curios about guitar. I was a very young lad at this point. My uncles were 11 and 16 years older than me and I was bombarded with good music.  Sabbath and Purple were the initial early on seeds planted within me. 

EVH was another interest. EVH was so different than Sabbath to me. He brought the swing and the rhythm in a different way...very captivating to me. It was gripping guitar work (like Sabbath) but in a happy, party type way and not a dark and sad (dare I say evil) way. I thought the "tricks" EVH did were cool but my interest was always more along the rhythm side of playing. 

Hetfield was the key to bringing the heavies of Iommi with the more uptempo rhythm stuff of Van Halen to me. At the time, I recall slow heavy (Sabbath) Fun and wild awesomeness along with speed and flare (Van Halen) and Metallica kind of bridged the gap with those musical qualities (at least in my childish mind). I had also played enough (not much at all really) to know that Sabbath style riffs and tempos were something more realistic to me to grasp than the insanity of the EVH stuff. I was a young little kid remember...I had no idea about pedals and effects, etc. I just saw guitar and had no idea how those sounds came from a guitar. The tapping, phaser, flanger stuff...I never thought I would be good enough or able to pull that off but the Sabbath stuff seemed possible to that young boy. I fell in love with riffs from the very beginning. 

Enter Metallica and the aggression of Hetfield and that helped give me hope for the speed of things with the anchor to the Sabbath thing (again in my child like mind) and I was hooked. Metallica was great and connected the dots for me on that. 

Of course I aged, and acquired some skills on guitar along the way and improved and was able to branch off in the various directions of interest. Thrash music became my world. I grew up in the middle of that genre and had no idea at the time how lucky I was to live and be around those types of bands and see them play all the time. A kid in a candy store!

The riff compelled me, thrash was deep within my veins and the course was set. I also was able to see a lot of the "guitar" bands or instrumental players. I was intrigued by that but the riff still ruled in my life. 

Satriani and all those guys exploded onto the scene and turned the world upside down. Yngwie J. Malmsteen opened that door and blew me away. I was determined to bring that style into my life and did to a certain extent. I had and still do have a love for all those instrumental players. I was around many of them and able to see them perform often. Deep down I knew I was more interested in the song and the riff and that as a player, I wasn't going to be Malmsteen or Vai or Satriani. I defaulted back to the riff and the heavies were and always will be my anchor.

There are so many genres now a days...but the riff rules for me as a guitar player. From Metallica to Sabbath to Cannibal Corpse...I love the guitar parts. It's that simple and it is in that place that I hang my hat. 

I play many styles, listen to many styles and write many styles. I have learned the value of a song, etc. but deep down, that little kid is constantly rearing its riff maddening head and wanting to come out. I turn him loose as often as I possibly can...


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## Mprinsje (Sep 23, 2020)

I've got a couple, but I'll limit it to 5, in chronological order of influencing me:

James Hetfield
Jim Root
Buz McGrath
Kurt Ballou
Matt Pike

Sneaky bonus add: John Frusciante. Would've never picked up guitar without the Peppers and the Califonication record.

I'm not as much influenced by particular guitarists anymore as by styles and bands, but this was from the ages of 12-20 or so.


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## MistaSnowman (Sep 23, 2020)

Over the years, I've looked up to many guitar players wishing I had at least an ounce of their skill. However, I'll narrow mine to two...Jesse Johnson (The Time) and Prince. They were the first to make me say 'Yeah, I wanna do that!!!'


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## possumkiller (Sep 30, 2020)

Skwisgarr Skwigelf


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## shadowlife (Sep 30, 2020)

Ace Frehley- inspired me to want to learn to play guitar. The whole "spaceman" image was cool as hell to me, plus his soloing really appealed to me (and still does) on a gut level.

Randy Rhoads- inspired me to want to practice seriously, to be the best guitarist I could be, and also to investigate classical music, and how it could be combined with rock.

David Chastain- inspired me to want to take my ability to the highest level, and to incorporate different influences into metal.

Allan Holdsworth- inspired me to strive for my original voice on the guitar, and in music that I write. Which is ironic, since I spent too many years playing like a poor AH clone 

Frank Zappa- I could write a 20 page essay on what Frank's guitar playing means to me, but suffice to say his "guitar solos as instant compositions" approach has been the singe most influential thing on my own playing. Not to mention his unique phrasing, rhythmic interplay with the drummer and bassist, and his plethora of incredible tones.

This is still my favorite solo, on any instrument, by anyone:


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## Spaced Out Ace (Sep 30, 2020)

shadowlife said:


> Ace Frehley- inspired me to want to learn to play guitar. The whole "spaceman" image was cool as hell to me, plus his soloing really appealed to me (and still does) on a gut level.


My comment a page or so back was basically a "cough cough nudge nudge" at my name on here. Ace is the reason I begged for 4 years just to get a guitar. Ace was tapping as far back as 1975. So far as I've been able to gather, Eddie was not tapping prior to being around KISS. *APPARENTLY* Eddie gave credit to Ace being an inspiration. In my personal opinion, you do not go from the old guard (60s/early 70s) of Hendrix, Clapton, Page, Beck to Eddie Van Halen without Ace. I consider ZZ Top apart of that older generation despite when they release records because of Billy's playing style. That said, Gibbons is also a pretty obvious influence on Eddie, as is Blackmore. However, I think guys like Holdsworth, Blackmore, etc. are more salt and pepper to Eddie's hotrodded blues boogie hard rock gumbo. Slow down some of those songs on YouTube or elsewhere; there is a definite swing 8ths happening, but is less obvious due to the speed.

Another guy who influences me (at least the last few years) is Ted Nugent, whom I think can shred his ass off and write riffs meaner than his bow and arrow. That dude is super gonzo deluxe when it comes to just completely bonkers blues rock mondo destruction. I feel he deserves more credit.

Here is Ace on Midnight Special tapping.



I do not get how this performance did not kick start their careers that were on the verge of everything falling apart. Casablanca Records and Neil Bogart were basically running out of good will with people, and Neil had to essentially force the pressing of records for Alive!, I think a Diana Ross record, and one other, which (if memory serves) all did pretty well. Bill Aucoin (fuck Bill; piece of shit) was apparently in debt and maxed out his credit cards. So not only was KISS probably likely to get dropped by Casablanca, but likely lose their funding by Bill.


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## Mathemagician (Sep 30, 2020)

I know I’ve shared my answer a million times, but almost 50/50 Kirk Hammet and Yngwie Malmsteen. 

I didn’t learn a rhythm part of I could help it for YEARS. But my lead work? Almost entirely based on these two guys’ playing for my first 5+ years of practice/playing. 

Like not even a little subtle, lol. A fact I’m actually very proud of.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Sep 30, 2020)

Mathemagician said:


> I know I’ve shared my answer a million times, but almost 50/50 Kirk Hammet and Yngwie Malmsteen.
> 
> I didn’t learn a rhythm part of I could help it for YEARS. But my lead work? Almost entirely based on these two guys’ playing for my first 5+ years of practice/playing.
> 
> Like not even a little subtle, lol. A fact I’m actually very proud of.


Eh. Add more.


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## shadowlife (Sep 30, 2020)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Another guy who influences me (at least the last few years) is Ted Nugent, whom I think can shred his ass off and write riffs meaner than his bow and arrow. That dude is super gonzo deluxe when it comes to just completely bonkers blues rock mondo destruction. I feel he deserves more credit.



I still listen to the Weekend Warriors album still regularly. It's by far my favorite album of his, and a rock guitar tour de force.

I don't know the whole story with Bill Aucoin- wasn't he selling gear out of the band's warehouse to pay for a drug habit and/or bills he owed?
I do think he was important to the band's early history though, and without him, they may not have become as successful as they did.
Same for Sean Delaney, who I never felt got the credit he deserved, except in Peter Criss' book.


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## Mathemagician (Sep 30, 2020)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Eh. Add more.



No worries I have. That was 10+ years ago. But single “biggest influences” would definitely be those guys.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Sep 30, 2020)

shadowlife said:


> I still listen to the Weekend Warriors album still regularly. It's by far my favorite album of his, and a rock guitar tour de force.
> 
> I don't know the whole story with Bill Aucoin- wasn't he selling gear out of the band's warehouse to pay for a drug habit and/or bills he owed?
> I do think he was important to the band's early history though, and without him, they may not have become as successful as they did.
> Same for Sean Delaney, who I never felt got the credit he deserved, except in Peter Criss' book.


He's, uh... So there was a contest, kid involved. I'll just leave it at this:
"...You didn't?"
"I did. And the photographer."

Sean Delaney always kinda came across as a bit of a creepy weirdo.


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## shadowlife (Sep 30, 2020)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> He's, uh... So there was a contest, kid involved. I'll just leave it at this:
> "...You didn't?"
> "I did. And the photographer."
> 
> Sean Delaney always kinda came across as a bit of a creepy weirdo.



Yuck. I was better off not knowing that, but you're right, fuck him.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Sep 30, 2020)

shadowlife said:


> Yuck. I was better off not knowing that, but you're right, fuck him.


Not sure what is worse: Bill, or that no one reported his ass. Billy Idol supposedly knew as well. There was another incident, I think, where Paul saw him with someone in his bed. I believe another member also said something similar about him, but can't remember who. Why neither of them said shit makes them all really sus. KISS, Billy Idol, Steve Stevens... all of them are suspicious.


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## Vyn (Sep 30, 2020)

James Hetfield in the early days, I tried learning as many Metallica riffs as possible. Michael Amott and Jeff Loomis through Arch Enemy and Nevermore really got me into leads. I think the two biggest influences on my playing though have to be Joe Haley from Psycroptic and Karl Sanders from Nile. I've busted my arse to learn material off of both of them and I've had lessons from both of them as well - I've still got a weekly lesson with Karl via Skype. Joe has this way with flowing legato licks/riffs that's mind blowing and Karl is just an outright master of vibrato and shred. 

I think the most impactful guitarist on anyone individually is less who you listen to, and more who taught you (if you have regular lessons). Not saying that listening influences don't rub off, they most certainly do! Just that the impact of one's guitar teacher cannot be overstated enough.


----------



## John (Sep 30, 2020)

Emanuel Aguilar.

Show, brother. Together as one.
Fingers, aliens, super connected shred, and the abrazos.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Oct 1, 2020)

Vyn said:


> James Hetfield in the early days, I tried learning as many Metallica riffs as possible. Michael Amott and Jeff Loomis through Arch Enemy and Nevermore really got me into leads. I think the two biggest influences on my playing though have to be Joe Haley from Psycroptic and Karl Sanders from Nile. I've busted my arse to learn material off of both of them and I've had lessons from both of them as well - I've still got a weekly lesson with Karl via Skype. Joe has this way with flowing legato licks/riffs that's mind blowing and Karl is just an outright master of vibrato and shred.
> 
> I think the most impactful guitarist on anyone individually is less who you listen to, and more who taught you (if you have regular lessons). Not saying that listening influences don't rub off, they most certainly do! Just that the impact of one's guitar teacher cannot be overstated enough.


I've never had one, aside from records and tabs. Dave Mustaine, Ace Frehley, Eddie Van Halen and James Hatfield taught me. Peace Sells and Ride the Lightning were somewhat of a bible to me for about two years early on after I moved from simple punk to thrash.


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## ajsfreily (Oct 2, 2020)

shadowlife said:


> Ace Frehley- inspired me to want to learn to play guitar. The whole "spaceman" image was cool as hell to me,



Was!???

It still is...



shadowlife said:


> Allan Holdsworth- inspired me to strive for my original voice on the guitar, and in music that I write. Which is ironic, since I spent too many years playing like a poor AH clone




Luckily for me, I never really tried to sound like Allan, I quickly realized that was a project bound to fail, lol, and besides that, I really like the freedom to be able to pick and play what I like for myself rather than imitate another persons style.


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## lurè (Oct 2, 2020)

johnucol said:


> Emanuel Aguilar.
> 
> Show, brother. Together as one.
> Fingers, aliens, super connected shred, and the abrazos.




Haters gonna say it's fake


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## lurè (Oct 2, 2020)

Michael Romeo: for the proggy and shreddy stuff

Allan Holdsworth, Shawn Lane, Frank Gambale for the fusion stuff

For heavy metal, Metallica are huge for me, so I guess James and Kirk are worth to mention.


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## Crash Dandicoot (Oct 2, 2020)

Like many others my list is a bit long but I think I can narrow it down to three:

Buckethead absolutely changed how I approached playing in a fundamental way. His ability to blend technical shred with impactful phrasing is still an element I try to inject into my own playing. He may not be the most technically accomplished or most "soulful" (which I could debate for hours, but I digress) as his contemporaries but his ability to weave the two together is absolutely jaw-dropping. His body of work is so massive and so genre-spanning I freely take on the challenge when someone tells me they don't like his music - I bet I could find something.

Takayoshi Ohmura's mastery of alternate picking and pristine execution of lightning fast runs is something I hold in extremely high regard - you don't run the "Speed Guitar Department" at MI Japan without having some ridiculous chops to back it up. If your only exposure is his BabyMetal stuff (which I will argue has some great instrumentation), check out his clinics, lessons and solo work. He's an honest-to-God master.

Shawn Lane, from a technical standpoint, is the most terrifying guitarist I've ever seen. If you don't enjoy his music, that's fair, but to not acknowledge the beast that he was at what did does is folly. There is no greater aspiration for fluidity and widespread capability of the instrument, in my opinion. Taken far too soon.

Special mention to Guthrie Govan, Tom Quayle, Paul Gilbert and Jesse Cook.


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## MFB (Oct 2, 2020)

If we're talking about listening and musicality wise:

Michael Romeo - Symphony X really blew the lid off making classical 'cool' how they did it, I mean, there's so many that sound like they're just classically _influenced_ but are the straight up pieces used in their own songs; they're just that well integrated into them, it's so seemless. Out of their entire catalogue, there's only one album I'm really meh'd by (sorry not sorry Iconoclast), but I do often forget about all the ones post _Odyssey_. Can't beat the classics with those first five albums. Then as I grew up I also realized classical is cool as fuck without it being used in heavy metal, so that was neat too.

Brent Hinds/Bill Kelliher - in the same way Symphony X made me enjoy the classical introduction into metal, Mastodon used some unconventional licks that you'd traditionally only see in bluegrass and southern music but they also made it metal as shit without sounding bad. That main riff in Divinations? I eat that shit up, breakfast/lunch/dinner, any of 'em or for all three meals, makes no difference to me. The surf-y sounding lead into the solo in Oblivion? Fuck yeah man, tear that shit up. Like SymX, there's one album in the catalogue that I'm lukewarm on (hey _The Hunter_!) but I still like catching them when they come around if possible.

Playing wise: 

Jus Oborn - I got into doom in a big way, and truthfully I wish I could remember how I even did; I _think_ it was because I had watched Gummo and Sleep's _"_Dragonaut_"_ was on the soundtrack, but that's going aways back that I mostly smoked out of myself. I remember going down the rabbit hole of the big names of doom, like Electric Wizard, and it was just so vastly different from anything else I was listening to at the time. It was slow, it was low, and it was just so thick with effects of fuzz, and reverb that it was almost like it was leaking out of my speakers. Just absolutely incredible. Suddenly any desire I had to be this string skipping, tight articulate player (which I wasn't by any stretch of the imagine, but I was all about tech-death so) went out the window, and suddenly it was groove, the power of one riff just becoming hypnotic (see: Dopesmoker) and phrasing.


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## bigswifty (Oct 3, 2020)

Lately..

Richard Henshall
Mikael Akerfeldt
Guthrie Govan
Mattias IA Eklundh
Gary Green


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## Splinterhead (Oct 6, 2020)

Jimmy Page made me pick up the guitar at 9.
As a kid I was entranced by the imagery and enigma of him and the band. Needless to say he was not a guitarist first but a songwriter, producer and engineer...and amazing at that.
As I got older I found out about Allan Holdsworth....and I didn't get it. Coming from a rock background the harmony was too intense and alien to me. There didn't seem to be enough structure to his music for me to hold on to. So I started to study jazz and through the likes of Greg Howe, Brett Garsed and Scott Hendrson, Holdsworth's music clicked. He is by far my biggest inspiration to me as a player, person and songwriter. "Hard Hat Area", i feel is probably Allan at the height of his powers. The beauty in his lines is otherworldly and the harmony is dense and full of color. I'll never play like him, never would want to...nobody can touch him, but I can enjoy his legacy.


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## Undivide (Oct 7, 2020)

syu from galneryus, is just amazing


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## syndrone (Oct 8, 2020)

Hey mate! Back on this page and saw your thread.... Hope you`re well!  

Here is my story:

Metallica (Hetfield / Hammett): When I was around 11 years old, I got introduced to metal my friends "Garage Inc." Metallica CD. Little did I know that those were all covers.. But I liked it. So I went out to buy a Metallica CD and it was "...and justice for all". Shocked about how much heavier this sounded I was impressed with the guitar work and the harmonized guitars. I had never heard that stuff before so I was blown away, and my metal journey started. I thought Hetfield and Hammett were probably the best guitarists in the universe at that point so I learnt the whole album by ear. I made huge steps from that and it laid the foundation to my guitar playing. 

Yngwie Malmsteen: Then, probably a year or two later, I discovered Yngwie Malmsteen in a CD shop. Jesus christ.... I heard his first solo, stopped the playback, bought the CD and went home. It took me some time to digest what I was hearing. This was some new level guitar playing shit for me and once again I was completely blown away. Yngwie had the most impact on my playing and because of him I started practicing hours and hours each day because I wanted to know how he did all his stuff (there was no YouTube back then, I did not even have a computer). I probably did everything wrong but at least did it my way, so I learnt and discovered A LOT on the guitar during that time. 

Alexi Laiho: Probably not everone`s guitar hero pick, but when I first heard Children of Bodom at the age of 15 I immediately fell in love with their stuff and loved the guitar work. Alexi was so young (19 or so) and he played so clean and musical back then. Saw him live - great performance at that young age back then. Had great riffing work, cool ideas and nice melodic lead lines. I always thought that he will be the next big guitar hero but he kinda didn`t do it. Too bad he didn`t make it further and fell into the alcohol hole.. Anyways, I probably learnt every COB track and I still think that "Hatecrew Deathroll" has some amazing and very underrated guitar work. He influenced me quite a bit back then!

Drop from Sybreed: Drop probably shaped the way I approach riffs more than anyone else. His work on Antares was so damn good - I still think it is one of the most interesting albums when it comes to non-traditional new age guitar riffing (which is not Periphery-style djent....). 

Paul Wardingham / Per Nilsson: I discovered both of them at the same time and needless to say that both of them are absolutely outstanding guitar players and musicians, and obviously influenced me as well. It is hard not to get influenced by any of them, so.... : ) They did not shape my playing as much as the others before because I already had quite some years under my belt, but the way the approached music and a lot of their concepts found a way into my own playing!

Of course, a ton of other guitar players had some influence as well, but these were the most important ones.  

Cheers!
Marco / SYNDRONE


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## HeavyMetal4Ever (Oct 8, 2020)

Without a doubt it's Dave Murray and Adrian Smith. While there are plenty of influences, Iron Maiden are the reason I decided that I wanted to play guitar.


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## possumkiller (Oct 8, 2020)

Duke Erikson


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## ArtDecade (Oct 8, 2020)

possumkiller said:


> Duke Erikson



That guy is Garbage.


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## feilong29 (Oct 8, 2020)

For me, it would have to be Alexi Laiho!

When I was 19, I decided to learn how to play guitar. I started out with acoustic, game music covers, then went to rock and nu-metal and that was easy to pick up. I was creeping some chicks Myspace page (back in 2005) and she had Follow the Reaper as her Myspace page song. I was so blown away by the raw tone, the speed and energy of the playing, the melodies, the screaming and how well they fit, and then the shredding, oh my lawd! I never heard of such a thing! I grew up liking Trapt (haha), Linking Park and System of a Down, and never heard of Melodic Metal or wasn't really into Metallica and the like...so once I understood guitar, the music I was discovering was like entering into a whole new world.

Alexi Laiho is such an awesome musician and he style was very distinct and it just inspired me to improve my playing and to learn how to shred. My first guitar was a $99 Yamaha Strat, and when I got deployed, I had some money to burn and bought my first "high-end" guitar, an Edwards Alexi Laiho Sawtooth sig. From then, the rest is history. A lot of my licks and phrasing are truly inspired by Alexi Laiho, and when I discovered Singery, I was even more impressed that he could delve so much into another genre of metal so well. To this day, he is truly my favorite guitar player. I regret whiffing 2 opportunities to meet him--the regret is deep lol. I will always have an Alexi Laiho-inspired guitar in my arsenal, whether it's his sig or a Jackson RR in black w/yellow pin stripe with a pre-amp booster.


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## ArtDecade (Oct 8, 2020)

feilong29 said:


> I was creeping some chicks Myspace page (back in 2005) and she had Follow the Reaper as her Myspace page song.



Yeah, but did you get her number?


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## feilong29 (Oct 8, 2020)

ArtDecade said:


> Yeah, but did you get her number?



HAHAHA, no, once I heard Follow the Reaper playing, I had to find out who it was and she was forgotten that very moment.


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## p0ke (Oct 9, 2020)

1. James Hetfield and Kirk Hammet (I didn't know who played which parts back then so I named both).

Metal was totally new to me, coming from rock -> rap -> nu-metal I was totally blown away by their riffs. I already played guitar but Metallica was what really made me practice.

2. Alexi Laiho

After getting into Metallica and the likes, I jumped into the deeper end quite quickly. I didn't even try to play any CoB songs for a long time, because I could tell straight away that they were too hard. I had wanted a V-guitar for a while and was already settled on the Kerry King signature BC Rich, but when we moved from Sweden to Finland I discovered Alexi's signature models and the cheap LTD-models that were apparently only sold in Finland (they weren't actual signatures but looked the same), so I bought one and started learning all their songs I could. I also joined a band in which we covered a bunch of their songs, and I was a total Alexi-fanboy.

3. John Petrucci

Well, obviously. I discovered Dream Theater via the Guitar Pro tablature site Mysongbook.com  The tab for The Glass Prison was highlighted and I saw someone commenting something like "damn, gotta get me a 7-string now". I didn't even know there were 7-string guitars at that point, so I grabbed the tab and listened and thought WTF, this has got to be wrong, no-one can play stuff this awesome. So I downloaded the song and was even more blown away. Then I immediately started saving up for a 7-string. Back then I was mostly inspired by the riffs he did, and only "discovered" his awesome lead playing later. 

There are plenty more who influenced my playing, but I'd say those are the main ones.


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## Shrediablo (Oct 9, 2020)

Jeff Loomis
Rich Ward
Dave Mustaine
George Lynch
Tony Iommi
Dimebag


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## ajsfreily (Oct 15, 2020)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Not sure what is worse: Bill, or that no one reported his ass. Billy Idol supposedly knew as well. There was another incident, I think, where Paul saw him with someone in his bed. I believe another member also said something similar about him, but can't remember who. Why neither of them said shit makes them all really sus. KISS, Billy Idol, Steve Stevens... all of them are suspicious.




Not only Sean, Bill, KISS, Billy, and Steve, the WHOLE entertainment industry are guilty, by todays standards...


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## AwakenTheSkies (Oct 15, 2020)

Mark Tremonti
Adam Dutkiewicz
Misha Mansoor
Mark Holcomb
Billy Howerdel
Dan Donegan

Very influenced by their playing..


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## Spaced Out Ace (Oct 15, 2020)

ajsfreily said:


> Not only Sean, Bill, KISS, Billy, and Steve, the WHOLE entertainment industry are guilty, by todays standards...


I'm giving others benefit of the doubt. I know for a fact they knew as they admitted it.


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## Acaciastrain360 (Oct 19, 2020)

Diego Farias rip(VOLUMES) 
DL (the acacia strain)

massive Influences to me


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## HungryGuitarStudent (Mar 5, 2021)

syndrone said:


> Hey mate! Back on this page and saw your thread.... Hope you`re well!
> 
> Here is my story:
> 
> ...



Hey man! Just saw your reply. Thanks for sharing your story man! Lot of similarities with my influences, except I haven’t incorporated them in my playing as well as you. Hope you’re well. Can’t wait for the new tracks!


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## ManOnTheEdge (Mar 5, 2021)

Gary Moore: was always a big blues fan and a metal fan and didn’t think I could “do both” when I started playing guitar then my dad put on Blues Alive and I was floored

After that: Adrian Smith, Schenker, Sykes, Yngwie, Zakk, Petrucci and Skolnick followed and since YouTube boomage I take influence from anywhere I can find it

edit: Loomis!! I have one guitar now, which is a 7 and that’s because of Nevermore and because I can find a 6 string neck that I vibe with


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## MFB (Mar 5, 2021)

ManOnTheEdge said:


> Gary Moore: was always a big blues fan and a metal fan and didn’t think I could “do both” when I started playing guitar then my dad put on Blues Alive and I was floored



Shit to the yeah for Blues Alive, that album is top notch all around, let alone as a live album.

My dad used to play that shit ALL the time in his SUV, I mean I came to know it front and back, at the time thinking "what's the deal with this?" But as I listened to it more, it made it's way into my own catalog. 

But now I only spin it in honor of him whenever I'm down, and its like some sort of fucking divining rod that mentally focuses me into not going too far into grief. But I'll champion that album for as long as I live, even if I it's "lost" to me.


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## Necky379 (Mar 5, 2021)

Eschbach, Eddie, Carpenter, Haynes and Hendrix.


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## John (Mar 5, 2021)

Tough to limit it to a single guitarist, but here's a few who have been very influential to me over the years in one way or another:

-Santana and his Supernatural album sparked my interest in the electric guitar, to begin with. Even if I've deviated quite a bit into the likes of melodic death metal among a variety of other things.

-Michael Romeo of Symphony X. Listening to the Divine Wings of Tragedy really inspired me to try stepping up my game.

-Kris Norris and Mike Schleibaum of Darkest Hour. Deliver Us and Undoing Ruin were among the albums for me when I was getting into metal.

-Adam Dutkiewicz and Joel Stroetzel. As Daylight Dies and the Times of Grace Album (Hymn of a Broken Man) are still a couple of my favorite albums to this day.

-Augustin Barrios Mangore

-Randy Rhoads, despite having one of the worst guitar tones I've heard on a recorded album

-Emanuel Aguilar on account of the shredded abrazos, despite any amount of negativity hurled at him. It's pretty messed up to hear others hurling slurs at him, and in a few cases aspirations for his death- all for doing stuff he enjoys that has never harmed anyone else physically, emotionally, much less spiritually. Nonetheless, he remains one of the few truly positive musicians out there in this day and age. Many other guitarists can learn from his example.


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## possumkiller (Mar 6, 2021)

Steve, Righ?


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## onefingersweep (Mar 8, 2021)

Metallica and Ironmaiden for getting me to start playing the guitar.

Yngwie Malmsteen, Al Di Meola, Michael Angelo Batio and Paul Gilbert for making me practice like a maniac.

Jeff Loomis and Mikael Åkerfeldt for getting me more in to riffing.

Shawn Lane, Allan Holdsworth, Brett Garsed for expanding my understanding of guitar playing and making me practice even more.


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## High Plains Drifter (Mar 8, 2021)

I understand that everyone wants to see famous names but to be honest... the three most impactful influences for my decades of love for the guitar... 

My mother- Allowing me to pluck and strum her acoustical guitar when I was a little kid, probably planted the seed. The sounds, the vibrations, the resonance... it fascinated me. 

My sister's boyfriend, GoGo- Approaching my teens, I already had my favorite guitarists that I'd heard on albums and on the radio. But GoGo was the first [electric] guitarist that I actually knew... that I could talk to face to face. I would listen to him play just as long as he'd let me. It sparked a flame inside me that just couldn't be extinguished. And as he showed me some basics and allowed me to play sometimes, he was definitely one of my most direct influences. Hell... he gave me my first guitar. 

Carl Edwards- I think that was his name. It's been many decades ago. But once I had acquired my first guitar, all of a sudden I wanted to hit up the local music store. It was there that it all started to take hold. I remember meeting Carl... just seemingly slaying all kinds of genres. He was a guitar teacher and after hearing him, I begged my mom to let me take lessons from him. She obliged and although I did struggle at times, he was a great motivator for me and made me feel as if I could play anything if I practiced enough. He and GoGo were just the coolest cats that I'd met at that point in my life. And my mom... gotta give her all the love for allowing and encouraging me to follow my passion.


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## thebeesknees22 (Mar 8, 2021)

good point.

non famous most impactful guitarist for me would be my uncle. I begged my mom and real dad to get me a guitar for 3 years straight and they wouldn't do it. So I saved up until I had $100 and my uncle took me to a pawn shop to buy one lol

I still have it to this day, but if it weren't for him taking me to get one I probably never would have started playing.

He loaned me a bunch of old records that I used to listen to all the time. Jeff beck, santana, albert king etc... It was a good collection that still influences me some to this day. 

Unfortunately he passed away a few years back and his daughter took the records....and sold them...... without asking me or anyone if they wanted them. Fun times.

He was an awesome dude though.


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## nightlight (Mar 8, 2021)

Hanneman and Schuldiner. Probably others, but these are the names that shot into my head.


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## Gnarcade (Mar 11, 2021)

This thread has been fun to follow and had me thinking about this on and off for a few days. I think one of the most influential guitarists to me has to be Dan Yemin. Kid Dynamite, Lifetime, and Paint it Black hit me at different points in my youth in different ways. His contribution to each of those bands had a huge influence on how I play and write. His ability to combine intensity, raw emotion, and melody in different ways is fantastic. Plus I don't think there has ever been a better record opener than "Pause"


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## MartinMoyan0 (Mar 11, 2021)

Impossible to name only one... I belive that Hetfield on rhythms/muting, Malmsteen on Vibrato/bending and Vai on the rest... quite a mix


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## Boofchuck (Mar 12, 2021)

If I had a narrow it down to one person it would be John Petrucci. I don't listen to much Dream Theater any more. But I played a TON of it on guitar as a kid and he's the person I think most of my riffs (subconsciously) harken back to. I have an entire song that started off as a Jaws of Life rip off.

And it's not just in my playing, but it's in my tone as well. His tones on Train of Thought and Scenes from a Memory are what I aspire to.

The guy is a fucking king.


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## fantom (Mar 13, 2021)

Non famous: my middle school friend taking lessons that showed me how to play a barre chord. After that, any guitar teacher or band mate I ever had to motivate me to get better.

Famous: I probably learned more from learning Hetfield parts than anyone else.

Less famous: I really like Stefan Weinerhall's riffs and melodies. He is super consistent. I learned many Mithotyn and Falconer tracks while I was in high school and college and had a blast reverse engineering his writing.

And Ihsahn. If you try to play any of his stuff, you will quickly realize that he is unconventional. For me, learning many Emperor and later Ihsahn parts forced me to play guitar in a way that no teacher would ever show me.

And I guess I need to throw in Dimebag. So many amazing riffs to learn. I still think The Sleep is one of the most underrated Pantera tracks. And that opening riff to Regular People is super fun.


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## Dan_Vacant (Mar 13, 2021)

Devin Townsend.


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## Dan_Vacant (Mar 13, 2021)

I forgot the reason part of the post and I'm messing up quotes. When I was 16 maybe 15 a friend showed me Love by Strapping Young Lad. I really dug it so I checked out the rest of the album, and but then other albums. I then learned that the band called it quits so I looked into Devin Townsend Band and the dude writes stuff that seems all over the place. I kept branching into stuff that was connected to him. He helped me branch out and look at weird tunings.


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## Marked Man (Mar 20, 2021)

Hetfield introduced me to the concept of palm muting, which I initially had to do on my POS Global acoustic with 4 strings, but at least they were the 4 lower strings. 

As soon as I got my first electric guitar in '89, I was excited to learn everything I could from Metallica, Murray/Smith, Crosby/DeMartini, Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, and a year a two later, Hanneman/King, Vai and Yngwie and Nuno and Al Di Meola. And a few years after that, Mr. Petrucci, who basically perfected all the things I heard in my head and dreamed of writing as original songs with the first several DT albums. I'd say elements of all these can be heard directly in my playing. It was a great time to be a kid with an electric guitar!

Petrucci may have been the last major "new" guitarist to influence me in a big way, although in the mid to late '90s, I started mining the past and discovered King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator, Yes, etc, which could have hardly been more obscure at that time, although I immediately realized that some of what I thought was "new" from Dream Theater in the '90s had already been 20 years earlier by such bands. I was more influenced by the overall songs than the guitarists in those '70s prog bands, although Trevor Rabin did influence me directly as a guitarist as well with Yes and Solo. He is an underrated hero in my book.

Today I listen more to the overall songwriting and production of a new artist for inspiration, and Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree are way up there. Also underrated heroes.


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## WarMachine (Mar 21, 2021)

King Edward
He was the reason I was drawn to the guitar.
After him, I'd go with
Marty Friedman - phrasing that is so melodic it sounds like his solos are singing to you

Zakk Wylde - riff monster, pentatonic monster

Dimebag Darrell - another riff and lead monster. The man put the groove back in heavy

Dave Mustaine - intelligent songwriting, not off the cuff bs. Undisputed King of Thrash

Randy Rhoads - another that let melody make them stand apart from everyone else. Metal's Mozart lol

Tony Iommi - the Godfather of Heavy Metal. 

Paul Gilbert - amazing phrasing, arpeggios that DONT cop the feels like Yngwie all day long

Jason Becker - Covered all the bases. If anyone argues that he was just a virtuoso, tell them to listen to DLR A Lil' Aint Enough

Jerry Cantrell - AiC has always been a corner stone to my playing guitar. The moment Man in the Box came out I was hooked and still am today.

Clint Lowery - fucking drop tuned riff machine, same sentiment as AiC. As soon as 7D came around I was hooked. To me they were like the hard and heavy version of AiC.

Warren DeMartini - RATT fuckers! Need I say more?

George Lynch - Mr.-Fucking-Scary!

Jake E. Lee - amazing AF guitarist all the way round.


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## oldbulllee (Mar 21, 2021)

my first guitar teacher. 
guthrie govan. for quite a while a couldn't believe hat i was hearing and seeing, watching guthrie play. his control of the instrument is on another level.


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