I am using this thread to express your feelings for the musicians that inspire/influence you, no matter what instrument you play. I play guitar, and my biggest influences are (in no specific order) Tony Iommi, Dave Mustaine, Kerry King/Jeff Hanneman, Jon Schaffer, Trey Azagthoth, Mikael Akerfeldt/Peter Lindgren, Chuck Shuldiner, Ralph Santolla, Murray/Smith of Maiden, John Petrucci,and of course, Dimebag.
Most notable out of that list are Jon Schaffer, Dimebag, Akerfeldt, Petrucci, and Murray/Smith. They are unbelievable. Most say that Dimebag is overrated, and he probably is, but his style has influenced me and his death saddened me a lot. It's hard to see a legend like that leave in such a way. I like Jon Schaffer a lot because of the technicality and precision he uses with his rythym guitar. Not to mention that he is one of the riff-masters of metal. I can't express how much these guitarist mean to me, they have influenced me musically and personally, in a way I can't really explain.

Great thread, kudos to you.

I play bass, and my greatest influences are Steve Digorgio on Individual thought patterns, a really unique style of playing bass and that makes the music sound so full. Jari from stratovarius also kills on his bass and adds on to Timo's guitar skills. Steffan fimmers, and martin with their contribution to tech death metal.
steve tucker and henka from cob is also good. I like bassists that amplify their sound and make it stand it out, sometimes you have to play along to get a certain feeling, but in general, bass has its own independence from other instruments that make it so unique.

I Guess I've been playing for five years now, and the amount of influence has really just gotten out of control, so let me just try to catch as much as I can.
I play guitar by the way, but I still know some stuff about bass and piano.

-Rhandy Rhoades-First inspired me to play
-Kieth richards
-Jimmy Page
-John Lennon
-George Harrison
-Angus young
-Ritchie Blackmoore
-Toni Iomi
-Brad Noell-Sublime was a noticable rush for me
-John Frusiante-Guitarist of my favorite band, Red Hot Chili Peppers.
-Brian May
-Johnny Ramone
-Adrian Smith/Dave Murray-Maiden Got me into Metal!
-Glen Tipton/K.K. Downing
-Dave Mustain/Marty Friedman/Jeff Young/Chris Poland-MegaDeth is when I started to study Thrash, and are my favorite thrash band to date
-John Donais/Matt Bachand
-Chuck Schuldiner
-Alexi Laiho/Alexander Kuopalla/Roope Latvala
-Tim Roth/Rob Doherty
-John Petrucci-Got me into Prog metal
-Cid Barret/David Gilmore

There's probably a shitload more, Just can't think of anything......

the one and only Jason Becker

Yea, my influences come from 'tallica because when I started playing it was the band I most listened. Nowadays I've taken influences from Alexi Laiho, Jason Becker and Marty Friedman.

my current influences are early nightwish and therion's sirius b period.i just can't manage not to write other stuff, as much as i try

I'm usually very very skeptical of when anyone says what they are "influenced" by. I know so many who mistake "influences" as "bands I happen to like".

When playing guitar, I notice that a lot of my rhythm influences come from Dream Evil/Iced Earth/Kamelot. Nothing really complex, but more riff-focused with a bunch of catchy dual-guitar harmonizing techniques. I'm still venturing into the world of soloing, so I have not yet noticed any definate "influences" as such, but I've always subscribed to the philosophy that one good riff is better than three good solos.

When playing keyboards, I'm still a newbie, fumbling clumsily at the various string/brass/harp settings in an effort to make a better more grand symphonic feel (as best as able, that is). Some of the influences in that regard are Nightwish (Oceanborn era) and Therion (Secret of the Runes/Lemuria era). Still working that part out.

Good topic, however. It's interesting to see what influenced people and has driven them as musicians.

Well I play bass, drums, and guitar alot my main influences on bass are:
Steve Harris
Eric Wilson
Les Claypool
Geddy Lee
Flea
Troy Sanders
Justin Chancellor
Steve DiGiorgio
Cliff Burton
Geezer Butler

My main influences on guitar are:
Andre Olbrich
Bjorn Stromblad
Adam Jones
Paul Waggoner
Omar A. Rodriguez Lopez
Devin Townsend
Michael Romeo
Jon Schaffer
Jeff Hanneman
Dave Mustaine
Steven Wilson
Mikael Akerfeldt
Tony Iommi
Chuck Schuldiner

My main influnces on the drums are:
Danny Carey
Mike Portnoy
Gene Hoglan
Richard Christy
Jason Rullo
Bill Ward
Neil Pert
Tim Alexander
Martin Lopez
Brann Dailor
Chris Adler
Nicko McBrain
Kevin Talley
Dave Lombardo
Yanic Bercier

That's just to name a few of my main influences because I'm basically influenced by everything I hear wether it be good or bad because if I hear something bad it influences me to not play like that.

You mean Bjorn Gelotte or Jesper Stromblad right?

Steve Crane & Jeff Hanneman for me.

Jeff was my biggest influce for the guitar until I noticed that my growling is actually very good and gave the guitar up.
I just did not have the nerves for it lol. And Steve is the biggest influce on me as a vocalist.
Crazy motherfuck', his crushing, gently and guttural vocals are awesome.

i dont know if i consider myself as a musician im pretty much a begginer, but one person that really inspired my to play bass is Alex Webster hes bass play is so amazing!!

well about me:
I began playing when I heard Chuck Schuldiner of Death....
I had to be better when I heard Yngwie Malmsteen (but then I knew I wouldn't reach his level in a million years )

others names are:
Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Adrian Smith, Dave Murray, Alexi Laiho, Pekka & Antti Kokko, Ritchie Blackmore..........and a lot of others

Guitar:
Alexi Laiho
Zakk Wylde
Niklas Sundin
Michael/Christopher Ammott
Kris Norris
Jesper Stromblad
Scott Padgett
Etorre Regotti

Bass:
Justin Chancellor
Ryan Martinie
Sami Kukkohovi
Sharlee D'Angelo

Well i cant name them all but ill name a few
for bass its: Alex Webster, Billy Sheenan, Stefan Fimmer, Orion (of Behemoth), Sean Beasley, Marcin Nowak

For guitar: John Gallagher, Nergal, Pitor Wiwczarek, Muhammed Suicmez, Chuck Schuldiner.

I forgot to mention vocal influences!
- Mikael Akerfeldt (Amazing growls and clean vocals)
- Johan Hegg (very unique vocals)
- Maynard James Keenan (amazing what this guy can do)
- Jonas Renkse (he has such an awesome voice)

There are many more and I am not going to take the time to list them all.

I got quite long list: I have played classical guitar since I was 6 and I played it for 17 years,which 14 were very intence years and my biggest influences in classical were:

Anders Segovia
John Williams
Fernando Sor
Francisco Tarrega
Sharon Wayne ---- she is excellent
Sharon Isbin ---- She is also unbelievable

And then my brothers forced me to play electric guitar and introduced me to the blues , after that I have only listened to these guys: plus some metal guys

Jimi Hendrix ---- but of cource
Jeff Beck
Duane Allman
Ritchie Blackmore
Stevie Ray Vaughn
Ry Cooder
Ted Nugent
Jimmy Page
Pete Townsend
Rory Gallagher

And some older blues Masters

Bo Diddley
Albert King
Muddy Waters
Otis Rush

24 years later I can say that my brothers were right

I play drums and i think my biggest influences are neil peart, chris adler, and joey jordison. just because they have such unique styles.

i play drums, and i have been influenced mainly by Joey Jordison, Dave Lombardo, Aquiles Priester, Terry Bozzio, and Mike Portnoy

I play guitar, drums and bass so i have a lot of influences.
Guitar influences: James Hetfield and Kirk Hamett, Dave Mustain, Glen Tipton and K.K. Downing, Angus Young and Jimi Hendrix
Drum Influences: Mitch Mitchell, Bun E. Carlos, Joey Jordison, Tre Cool, Scott Travis, and Tjodalv
Bass Influences: Mike Dirnt, Cliff Burton, Cliff Williams, and David Ellefson.
Those are my influences for all of my instruments I play. I probably have a lot more but Im brain dead right now.

I play mainly keyboards,bass and mainly guitar for the time being.
Bass Influences=Terry Butler,Cliff Burton and Roger Waters
Keyboard Influences=Jon Lord(Deep Purple,crazy speed),Jens Johansson(Stratovarius,crazy speed)Kevin Moore(Dream Theater,mostly for the feeling)
Guitar Influences=-Slash(first influence,especially for the bluesy feeling and crazy bends)-Randy Rhoads(perfect from all points of view)-Kirk Hammet/James Hetfield(my first intro to the thrash,The Four Horsemen rhythym playing says it all)-Dave Murray/Adrian Smith(if i hadnt heard all those solos from NOFTB to 7th son i wouldnt know what is overdrive and solo guitar)-Jimmy Page(because Zeps introduced me to hard-rock and Jimmy make me love Les Paul guitars)-Angus Young(purest and original)-Carlos Santana(because he showed guitar can play different styles and his style is so universal)

I play keyboards but I like on certain kinds of keys. I like musicians that can create an orchestra like theme and musicians that can play fast leads with using other tones besides the regular harsichord.

My biggest influences are:

Joost van den Broek (After Forever)
Henrik Klingenber (Sonata Arctica)
Lando Van Gils (Ex-After Forever)
Katrin Goger (Crematory)
Janne Tolsa (Eternal Tears of Sorrow)

Ever since I started drumming Ive been sort of immitating Chuck Biscuits (former Danzig drummer). Hes got a pretty unique style, not to mention he seems to be able to fit headbanging into every song (watch the video for 'she rides' to see what I mean)

My guitar influences (in order) :

Michael Weikath (Helloween) He inspired me to compose and make that kind of disharmonized solos.
Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden)
Jon Schaffer (Iced Earth)
Axel Rudi Pell
Ritchie Blackmore

And in vocals:

Oliver Hartmann (Ex At Vance)
Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian)

Steve O'Malley
Dylan Carlson
Liz Buckingham
Josh Homme (Kyuss)
Damien Rice
Aaron Turner
Clifford Mayer
Steve von Till
Scott Kelly
Danny/Vincent Cavanagh
...

My Influences:

Allan Holdsworth
Al di Meola
John McLaughlin
Randy Rhoads
James Hetfield
Ritchie Blackmore
Brian Tatler (Biggest Influence)
Dave Mustaine
Buddy Guy

There are some bands and musicians that do influence me a bit, but it's more of an inspiration that they induce as opposed to them influencing the way I write and play music.

Darkthrone is a fairly big inspiration, especially Fenriz's drumming, but Anders Kobro of Carpathian Forest is another big influential drummer. I don't really have any guitar influences, maybe Nattefrost but I am just a big fan of his solo work and all of the Carpathian Forest stuff. The same thing with bass, as far as I can tell the best basslines are in CF's work and in Shining.

I am a song-writer and sometimes compose my songs but I do not play any real instrument apart of vocals but I must say that the biggest influence I have is Varg Vikernes and Tolkien ( and maybe Beethoven from time to time)

im a bass player. Steve Harris, Les Claypool, Alex Webster, Geezer, and Geddy Lee are EPIC. Valfar is awesome simply because he was an incredibly talented musician. raw talent. too many.

My Influences:
Michael Romeo
Steve Vai
Alexi Laiho
Chuck Schuldiner
John Petrucci

As a drummer, a huge influence on me is Danny Carey. His playing style, complex patterns and rhythms, and overall sound he produces is just mind blowing. Derek Roddy was also a huge influence on my drumming as well, with his breakneck speed and precision.
As a vocalist, my main influence is definitely Jonny Davy. His work on DOOM has been what I've been modeling my vocals after.