For me it all started sometime in the summer of 1974.

 

I was thirteen at the time a drummer in our middle school band and somewhat discouraged with the then current state of music in America.

 

One hot summer day I was kicking back on the front porch with my best friend sharing a joint and listening to the local "Rock" station.

 

We were bemoaning all the insipid faggy crap passing as music on radio rotation at the time and the sad state of popular music in general when all of a sudden this utterly raw song with an incredible Bass line began pouring out of the speakers.

 

Then this nasally voice started to sing:

 

"I get up at seven, yeah, And I go to work at nine, I got no time for livin' Yes, I'm workin' all the time..."

 

I was blown away by the song and I was instantly hooked!

 

Rush as I soon learned was the groups name instantly became my new favorite band and their skinny bass player became my new musical hero...

 

I determined that day; to Hell with the drums. I'm going to become a bassist!

Started with System of a Down which made me pick up an Electronic drum kit (where i live i sadly cannot use a acoustic one :c)

 

Then with Muse and Flyleaf i got inspired to finally give Bass a chance. It also inspired me to try guitar sadly the one i have (a cheap one) does not create the right sounds on the lower Frets :c

Buckethead is the reason I picked up the guitar in the first place. And every time I feel like guitar is too tough for me, I listen to his songs and then I practice till my fingers bleed.

My biggest influences over the years would have to be Metallica, Pantera and Maiden, but the ONE song that made me first want to pick up a guitar (but didn't actually learn properly until 20 years later) was the theme from Red Dwarf!

For me it was The Cult and ironically (due to how easy it is to play) Interpol.

 

The song PDA actually made me go out and buy a guitar, I still love the sleek post-punk sound those guitars made.

 

Being fairly young, I guess it was a good call though, since I love playing guitar now.

Coheed and Cambria, Bad Brains, and Silversun Pickups

for me it was jim root and mick thompson paul gray of slipknot

Started to listen to Pink Floyd about a year ago and started to play songs from The Wall and The Dark Side Of The Moon. Then I was digging more into prog, starting from Kansas and Boston and then moving to something more complex, like King Crimson, Yes, Tool, Symphony X. Talking as a bass player, my heart really belongs to Rush and to Geddy Lee personally. He's a monster. 

 

Dave Grohl really

Such a nice guy and I just wanted to play because of him

 

Going to ditto that one. 

I think it was Green Day, Rise Against, Cage the Elephant, MCS, and Slipknot were the bands I was listening to when I started to play bass.

id have to say alice in chains got me to pick up a guitar at age 10, but i dropped it for 2 years and got back into it with chelsea grin. bummed that theres no 7 string support in rs2014 though.

I would say Red Hot Chilli Peppers but I think Jamiroquai was a really big factor for me to pick up a bass. Never liked Jamiroquai when I was younger until I grew a bit older. 

 

This maybe will sound weird, but for myself it wasn't a band: It was a composer. I always liked bass but Galt MacDermot's Hair OST was the culprit to make me want to learn bass. I was totally hooked by the initial notes of the Aquarius bassline and how an instrument usually considered as support was the lead of the music.

nirvana  with nevermind

It may surprise, but I got into acoustic guitar, because of medieval music,

and Greensleeves was for a long time one of two songs I could play decently. ^_^

 

The other was this Mozart Minuett 

 

 

And if you check my customs, you will notice clean acoustic fingering is still very present.

(Rick Emmett, John5's 2 Die 4 ...Buckethead)

 

I only went into E-guitar in 2013, when RS12 released some Santana.

For me it was The Strokes - in my opinion one of the most influential bands of my generation, and a lot of the bands that followed in their footsteps like The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys were also a big influence on me as well. Love the strong vocals and two-guitar bands

no doubt about it,,,,Ventures !!!

Hard to say. There have been so many great bands. But most inspirational for me have been Ritchie blackmoore (Rainbow) and wolf hoffmann from Accept.

I think for me it was Hawkwind, that opening bass riff from Motorhead (specifically the version with Dave Brock on vocals) is what made me want to play bass.

 

It was the first song I looked for when I signed up here, but sadly, no CDLC of it exists.

It started with one song. I was playing Cliffs of Dover on Guitar Hero when I first thought "Would be awesome if I could play that on a real guitar." After that it probably was AC/DC, Chuck Berry and Huey Lewis & The News.