Creative use of influences

Can you think of a few creative uses of influences by metal bands? I've often come across some licks or chords or riffs that have been used more than once, and sometimes, the song structure is lifted and a slightly different song is written all over it, or a solo has bits from some other solo, and so on. Not so much a lack of imagination, or an attempt to steal, but a smart use of an influence.

One example I can name is Anthrax's "Indians". While Anthrax may not be the biggest Rush fans around, they've taken the riff from Rush's "Passage to Bangkok", which is rather hard not to catch, if you've heard both songs. When Helloween wrote "I want out", they took the song structure from "Out In The Fields" by the Phil Lynott-Gary Moore team-up, from Gary Moore's solo album Run For Cover. A rather hard one to catch is Van Halen's "Can't Stop Loving You", which seems to pick one from Whitesnake - "The Deeper The Love". One example which has surprisingly not been caught anywhere, except by a now-defunct copycat hawk site (in a reply to my email) is "I can't dance" by Genesis, which appears to be a stripped-down, tuned-down version of Deep Purple's "Strange Kind of Woman", and I'm not sure if this is a smart use of influence or an outright lift, but this is too close to be called a co-incidence.

I hear Avenged Sevenfold might have at one time or another shown outside influences on their albums.  

Quote :

A rather hard one to catch is Van Halen's "Can't Stop Loving You", which seems to pick one from Whitesnake - "The Deeper The Love"

I would wager two things:

- that is complete coincidence
- EVH has never listened to Whitesnake in his life

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

I would wager two things:

- that is complete coincidence
- EVH has never listened to Whitesnake in his life

Rather, it's difficult to write a completely original song, especially with a song structure or song style used so often. If we took away the vocals, the songs wouldn't be very different.

One example of a band falling victim to a serial songwriter would be British AOR band FM, whose song "Bad Luck" was a Desmond Child staple, already made famous by Bon Jovi as "You Give Love (A Bad Name)".

Main riff of Whitesnake "Ready and Willing" is nearly identical to TT Quick "Isolation Booth."
Sorry couldn't find the TT Quick song on YouTube to show the comparison.

Iron Maiden "Wicker Man" main riff is identical to Stryper Sing Along Song which in itself is similar to Judas Priest's "Running Wild".




Impellitteri "Father Forgive Them" is identical to Impellitteri "Walk Away"



Megadeth's "Don't Turn Your Back" is nearly identical to Ultimatum's "One For All"

BTW not saying any of these bands borrowed anything from any other band, nor is a "creative use of influences", but just coincidence that the songs have similar riffs or structures.

Maiden - Two Minutes to Midnight
Accept - Flash Rockin' Man
Riot - Sword and Tequila
Raven - Seek and Destroy
Mercyful Fate - Curse of the Pharaohs
Venom - Welcome to Hell

and many, many more (I'm thinking there's a Diamond Head song with this but not too sure) all use a slight variation on the same palm muted inverted fifth drone. My question is who started it (I'm leaning toward Venom)?

Just in case anyone misunderstands me, I'm not accusing these bands of ripping off others.

As a musician up until the time of my stroke playing a lot of cover tunes. Sure there are riffs that are the same. But that's how Rock & Roll is. No biggie...

Gamma Ray likes to put parts of other bands' music to their songs. And utilize their own melodies once again