Who or What Influenced Your Style?

[Rata-tat-tat]

I honestly think that the bands you dont want to sound like most are the bands that usually come out in your recordings... Thats just my observation.... For instance.... you do a take on a track and listen back... Then you think to yourself... Ohh that souds too much like Bowie, Dylan, or whoever... Point is you will redo until it doesnt sound like them.... That is a subliminal in my book.

[lg]

I believe that 3 guitarists have influenced me the most, and they are:
Eric Clapton of the Cream, Jimmy Page of the Led Zeppelin, and Leigh
Stephens of the Blue Cheer!

LG
 

[Ferryman]

Steve Lillywhite is a big influence on my "style". Not a musician or band, but a producer. I just love his big clattery drum sound with toms spread wide across the mix, pretty raucous sounding guitars and in yer face mix. That's why I like the bass so high in my mixes. That sound influences a lot of my writing. And Chris Squire, Peter Hook, Bruce Foxton and JJ Burnel were influences on my bass playing/sound.

I think loving Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds as a kid pushed me towards a "space rock" kind of leaning. I love sci-fi sort of stuff and music associated with that.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Oldrottenhead]

I think loving Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds

how that got you to iain m banks will need a lot of explaining but fair to say "i wish i was a spaceman, the fastest guy alive" i took a similar route  minus the loud bass.

[SE]

My main influences really came from the seventies, glam rock was the frist thing that took my musical interest, Sweet ,Marc Bolan and Slade, these where the bands for me that where exciting at the time. I would never miss Top Of the Pops to see who was number one, as I got into my late teens we when,t to concerts at the Glasgow Appollo to see such giants as Rory Gallager, Bad Company, Black Sabbath, Rush and Thin Lizzy, I never saw AC/DC till the early 80,s when sadly Bon Scott had  passed away, at this time I was also a big fan of the Jam.
Then in the mid 80,s it all stopped, wife ,children and work took over, in the mean time the children have grown up, I still work, the first wife has gone and I,ve found a better one.
Now I would listen to anything from rock, country, elecronic to rap, right now I,m on Snow Patrol,s greatest hits and Solitary Man by Johnny Cash. All of the above have infulenced how I play guitar, you find your self picking a lick or a riff from here and there, then you try and write a tune and there it is, their is nothing new in the world and if you do find somthing a little different then you,ve struck gold. As I,ve got older, music is only down to musicality if the artist has got it, then it,s good, if not, well better luck next time.

                                                        John

[Redler]

This isn't meant to be a list of bands or musicians you love, more a list of bands and musicians who sub consciously influenced the way you express your own music.

That's a good point...

Mainly, I write tunes for acoustic guitar and pop/powerpop tunes. I'm influenced by Ramones, Johnny Thunders and especially The Boys. Nowadays, I listen their music just seldom, but I've listened them a lot long time ago, so I think it can be heard in my music.

Perhaps, I'm also influenced by a few other brit bands like Lightning Seeds and Smiths. I mention early Pink Floyd, too.

On the acoustic side the biggest influence is a Finn; Pekka Streng who recorded only two records in early 70's and he died for cancer at the age of 29.

Kari

Here's a sample of his music:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6jgLwCJvlQ

[Ferryman]

I think loving Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds

how that got you to iain m banks will need a lot of explaining but fair to say "i wish i was a spaceman, the fastest guy alive" i took a similar route   minus the loud bass.

Not really much to explain - started with Isaac Asimov books and also the yellow Gollancz books which I used to get from the library aged about 11 onwards. The yellow spine always stuck out and most of them were SF, so I read a lot of them. Then the Elric novels, lots of Hawkwind, Tolkien and there you go, Iain M Banks and space rock.

I have a lot of influences that are definitely conscious but I haven't consciously tried to copy them because a) I don't have the skill and b) I can't be bothered to learn. So for example I always liked the way Manazanera and Fripp got interesting sounds out of the guitar and I have always focused more on sounds and tones rather than actual playing style.

Cheers,
Nigel

[OsCKilO]

You guys pretty much shaped my style.

Never cared much for songwriting before logging onto the microrecorders site.

That soon changed.

[Geir]

You guys pretty much shaped my style.

and Guinness !!

[ODH]

It's a very interesting line of thought I'd not really considered before.  And I should probably give more credit to my mother's record collection than I previously have.  I was born in '65, so the early 70's in our house musically consisted of 5 or 6 key albums, thinking about it;
- Paranoid, Black Sabbath
- Led Zepelin III
- Pictures at an Exhition, Tomita
- Rubicon, Tangerine Dream
- A Clockwork Orange, Soundtrack
- Switched on Bach, Walter (Wendy) Carlos

So a smatering of classic rock and a bunch of pioneering electronic music.  There was so much change in music in the 70's that I picked up loads of influences.  I subsequently 'became' a punk, goth, new romantic, etc, etc in turn and there are much of these in my music now, but it's probably that early rock and electronica which 'informs' it.  I should add the Ramones 'It's Alive', which was massive to me in the late 70's and which I used to teach myself guitar.  And the John Peel show.  Peel was the father I never had.

I've been thinking about this a fair bit since this thread, I realised that what I said there was actually not even half the story.

In fact the main influence on my musical taste (and role model for my approach to life in many ways) wasn't a band or an artist, but was in fact John Peel.  John's diversity and embracing of often obscure music forms taught me everything in that mid-70's through mid-80's period.  And the bands he championed are still many of my favorite bands today.  But mainly it was the attitude of seeking out the new and refreshing.  He introduced me to a world I couldn't have otherwise have glimpsed.

I often think of him as the father I never had and still miss him.