Share with us who are your guitar idols, who inspired you to pick up guitar and practice, who do you look up to?

Well, my first guitar idol was my dad, he inspired me to pick up the guitar and taught me the first chords since he played in a band himself. I don't really have an idol whose style I wanna copy, I enjoy the playing of many great guitar players. But in every music style there is a guitar player I look up to, be it Satch, Vai, Slash, James Hetfield, Billie Joe Armstrong, El Hefe, Richie Sambora etc etc.

Hendrix started me off....Nuno Bettencourt showed amazing skill with rhythm meets Lead phrasing, then I found Dream Theater......
And most recently Marco Sfogli and Andy James....

My very first was Stefan Elmgren from Hammerfall

but now my biggest one is a guy who i have had the pleasure to get to know. He taught me what guiarplaying is all about and what is important to learn in order to play in a band.

this guy is Peter Stenlund guitarist from the band Laudamus

Dave Murray, Buckethead, Slash, Hendrix

Marty Friedman and Paul Gilbert


i also admire BIG alot: Randy Rhoads, Buckethead, Jake E. Lee, Guthrie Govan, Jason Becker, Richie Kotzen, D.Mustaine, Nuno Bettencourt, and Bumblefoot.

I guess SRV was my first guitar Idol, followed very closely by Gary Moore and Albert Collins. Later, as I started listening to music other than blues, I discovered guys like Nuno Bettencourt, John Petrucci, Guthrie Govan, Buckethead, David Gilmour, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Andy Timmons, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Joe Pass and quite a few others, too many to list. As far as who actually influenced the way I play, and whose style I tried to emulate, probably Gary Moore the most, followed by Joe Pass when I play Jazz.

Slash, Steve Vai and Joe Satriani were the first that I heard and that blew my mind.

Of course, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin ! Blackmore and Page are the most tasteful to me, the tone of their guitar is crept right under my skin !

Randy Rhoads and Vivian Campbell,got me hooked
and it's been downhill ever since

My very first inspirations were Carlos Santana,Jimmy Page and Malmsteen

I have quite a few guitar idols.
But just counting the more important ones for me it would be:
John Petrucci
Michael Romeo
Alexi Laiho
Misha Mansoor
Chris letchford and travis levrier
Marty Friedman
Dimebag Darrell
Mark Morton
Dave Mustaine.
Joe satriani

It's going to be interesting to see what my own style sounds like a few years from now when i've mastered a few of all their songs.

I started out with Funtwo as my guitar idol, covered more in detail on my 3rd Anniversary thread. I also like Vai and Satch, and some of my other favorite bands like Skillet and Red. Ben Kasica used to be with Skillet and he was awesome. I'll have to give his replacement, Seth Morrison a chance. Anthony Armstrong is equally awesome with Red. And a few of you instructors are my idols.

I started off with Clapton, Santana, Hendrix and BB King and later on find out about Satch, Eric Johnson, and several jazz players, like Django and Charlie Byrd.

There are so many but just to name a few that I like

Garry Moore
Slash
Michael Schenker
Uli Roth
Eric Clapton
John Norum
Jimmy Page
Brian May
Jimi Hendrix
David Gilmour
Peter Green
Mark Tremonti
Chris Robertson and Ben Wells
Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham
Ritchie Blackmore
Doug Aldrich

... and many many more

Well, my first guitar idol was Ritchie Blackmore, but my favourite guitar gods, who made me pick up the guitar are Luca Turilli and Marcus Siepen (he also made me love rhythm playing better than soloing).