First band/musician that made take notice of music

I was 3 years old the yeear Elvis died, so that is one of my earliest memories. My grandfather used to knit woolen carpets to hang on the wall, and since he didn't think we'd like the ones he made, he bought one for us with Elvis. Now, I can't remember exactly where I heard his music first, but I do remember Elvis being the first musical "idol" for me. To this day I love the man's post-'68 material the best.

I can also remember my 3 brothers and me playing in some wrecked cars my grandparents neighbor had standing on his property. This fella was what we called a rockabilly during the early '70s, and we used to nick the tapes out of the car stereos in these abandoned wrecks. The band that made the biggest impression was Smokie, and the song "Living Next Door To Alice". My youngest brother and me didn't even know the name of the band, but told our oldest brother to play "the hoarse guy" again!

My oldest brother kept being my "source" for new music over the years. In November, 1980 KISS visited Norway for the first ime, and I had just turned 6. My brother brought home an LP he had borrowed from a neighbor. It was the Peter Criss solo album. This was the coolest album cover I'd ever seen! The next year I started school, and I remember borrowing Unmasked from a class mate. I studied that cover for hours at a time, while listening to the album on my parents turntable, with laaaaaaaaaarge headphones on.

After this my brother used to make this mixed tapes with stuff he recorded from one of his class mates. Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, WASP, Loudness, Agent Steel, Scorpions, Queensryche etc. My brother stopped listening to metal "after he grew up", but I was a life long fan of metal.

Well my music obsession started at about 4 years old. My grandparents owned a bar and at the time it only played 45 rpm vynil records. The 1st song I ever heard that grabbed my attention was a song called Chug-A-Lug by Roger Miller. I was given the same 45 record a week after I heard it. I was raised on country music until I was in the 4th or 5th grade and thats when the metal obsession hit.

My 1st tape was an Oak Ridge Boys full length "Fancy Free" which featured their famous song Elvira.

The artist that got me wanting to play music was Ozzy Osbourne. When I heard "Little Dolls" that was the end of me having a normal life. haha Randy Rhoads really inspired me to play guitar.

As a drummer my main focus was always Bill Ward and Frankie Banali. I still idolize those 2 drummers and they are the reason I play drums.

father's (played it for me as a lullabies songs)

Santana LP 1st best of
Styx LP paradise hotel
Eagles SP (hotel+new kid)
MJ some kind of best of
Europe final countdown

and than father came up with cassette where was all rock/hard best collection of songs e.g. Quiet riot (metal health)... i fell in love with this cassette and got it since today. it was early 1990. that what i remember and than i saw KiSS GGRnRTY in TV and i forget my mouth shut.
i was 4 to 7.

When I was a kid my mom would listen a a station that played some soft rock, America, Neil Diamond, Classics IV, Glen Campbell, Harry Nillsen etc. I remeber liking some of that.
My first purchase was the Osmond brothers-Crazy Horses (which I still listen to sometimes!).
My older cousins played Humble Pie, Zeppelin, Doobies, etc and I really enjoyed that- but Deep Purple is the band that really made me a fanatic. Later I had a room-mate that was very influential (Pretty Things, Hot Tuna,etc.), and there was also a late night radio show that I could tune in from Little Rock Arkansas that turned me on to a lot of great stuff such as Rush.

Lurideath wrote:

My 1st tape was an Oak Ridge Boys full length "Fancy Free" which featured their famous song Elvira.

"Giddy-up a oom pappa oom pappa mamma!"

I heard that song all the time.


My parents were really into country music. Conway Twitty, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams. And even the next wave too, George Strait, Randy Travis, The Judds etc. So, I still love popping in a country mix from time to time. My Dad was into Johnny Cash so I used to hear alot of his stuff playing. I remember my Mom had Michael Jackson's Off the Wall on tape, and it soon became mine.

I really didn't get into heavy music until one christmas when my Mom bought my older brother Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil" I remember that day like yesterday. My brother opens this all black album with a Pentagram on it! We looked at each other like WTF? Mom bought this? Years later I asked her about that. She says she went into the store and asked a clerk what she should get a 12 year old boy. This chick goes and gets Shout at the Devil and tells my Mom that this is what everyone is listening to. That chick changed my life!!

I remember watching wrestling and the tag team The Roadwarriors would come out to a kick ass song. It was Iron Man by the mighty Sabbath. My brother then came home one day with Ozzy Osbourne Randy Rhoads Tribute. That tape soon became mine and help started me down the right path!

For me it was Def Leppard. As far as I was concerned they were the be all, end all of music for me at the time. They were all I would listen to. I also like Led Zepplin but they just weren't Def Leppard.

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

For me it was Def Leppard. As far as I was concerned they were the be all, end all of music for me at the time. They were all I would listen to.

so no matter where you went from there, it was going to be a step up.

mc666 wrote:

... my father, who then broke out his record collection to show me what "real" rock music was supposed to sound like. that's where i learned about Purple, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Priest, Scorpions, Aerosmith, etc. etc.

You must have the coolest Father ever!

manny wrote:

I find it interesting that some of the guys who responded, it was their older sister who got them into metal, the cliche back then (with the expection of the soon to explode pop metal ) that girls where not into heavy metal turns out that was nothing more than a stereo type.

yes and no. Yes back in the day girls and guys liked hard rock/heavy metal as my sisters did. But my sisters "grew out of it" somewhere around 20 years old where as I never did grow out of it, and alot of guys I know havent either. So guys by-and-large tend to keep the rock and metal alive where as women kinda move on from it. At least from what Ive seen.

stepcousin wrote:

manny wrote:

I find it interesting that some of the guys who responded, it was their older sister who got them into metal, the cliche back then (with the expection of the soon to explode pop metal ) that girls where not into heavy metal turns out that was nothing more than a stereo type.

yes and no. Yes back in the day girls and guys liked hard rock/heavy metal as my sisters did. But my sisters "grew out of it" somewhere around 20 years old where as I never did grow out of it, and alot of guys I know havent either. So guys by-and-large tend to keep the rock and metal alive where as women kinda move on from it. At least from what Ive seen.

I do not think it just the ladies that supposedly "out grew it" I know alot of guys who claim that they have out grown heavy metal/hard rock, I just think for some of us, like somebody said earlier in the thread music hits you a certain way and it stays with you forever.

ultmetal wrote:

mc666 wrote:

... my father, who then broke out his record collection to show me what "real" rock music was supposed to sound like. that's where i learned about Purple, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Priest, Scorpions, Aerosmith, etc. etc.

You must have the coolest Father ever!

he was huge into late 60's & 70's rock. he hated the term "metal" though, as he associated that with the "noise for the sake of noise" of my generation. he was funny that way. i guess that goes in cycles, as i don't understand the "Brokencyde"s of the younger generation either.

i miss that guy.

mc666 wrote:

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

For me it was Def Leppard. As far as I was concerned they were the be all, end all of music for me at the time. They were all I would listen to.

so no matter where you went from there, it was going to be a step up.

definetly. Considering how they are now its true. You can basically listen to just about anything else and it will be better than what they are doing now. Its sad.

Always was into music, but MTV took it to another level for me. First with New Wave and then with hard rock bands like Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Krokus, Scorpions among others. Then real metal bands like Maiden and Priest.

My obsession started when Michael Jackson Thriller came out. I saw it on tv but along side Ozzy, maiden, quiet riot and the others in that year. I had never really seen music videos until then. I got those great bands on vinyl. Don't have the vinyl anymore.

I grew up in a very musical household but it was all very `churchy'. Then when I was about 14 or 15 I heard Stryper's The yellow and black attack and that was it for me. From there I got into Deliverance, Barren Cross, Bloodgood and all those classic christian bands from back in the day. Now I cant get enough of the european power metal like Narnia, Majestic Vanguard, Sinbreed, Mehida, and Divinefire. I love this topic!

I remember playing the AC/DC "Live at Donington" double album tons as a kid, and my parents tell me I used to always wanna listen to the Wayne's World soundtrack cassette whenever we were in the car haha! thats as early as I can remember and then it just grew I discovered all the classics soon Aerosmith, ZZ Top, Scorpions, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath as well as more modern stuff growing up in the 90's like Nirvana and Tea Party. Eventually I became more interested in heavier stuff and grade seven and grade eight I discovered NWOBHM and early pre-metal stuff like Deep Purple, Blue Cheer, Hendrix, MC5 then after that my life was discovering one awesome band after another and its still going on today

I remember listening to Blacks Sabbath "We sold our souls for rock'n'roll" collection and thinking it was the most intense thing ever, Iron Man gave me goosebumps and Paranoid made the hair stand up on the back of my neck I loved it! and its still great to get that same feeling

I remember getting into my sister's record collection when I was around 11-12.

She had The Beatles, a few Stones (one with a zipper lol), she had Boston, Bad Company, Eddie Money (I think it was his first), I even remember a Warren Zevon?..something about a werewolf in london, well anyways, I snuck a few listens here and there, and probally liked the Boston album the most from her stack, until one day I noticed she had got something new, it was Foreigner's "Double Vision"...it just looked cool, I can't explain why I thought so, but when I played that record, I heard this awesome singer, he was the best singer I ever heard, I instantly became hooked on this!..I told my sister I really loved the new record she got..(needless to say she was pissed I had gotten into her stuff and slapped me)..So I bugged my dad into getting me my own Foreigner album, and then that's when I discovered they had another album too, so I eventually got both, not long after, Head Games came out, and I loved it as well!..I guess that's what really woke me up to music, then my friend told me about the Columbia House record and tape club...OH MY GOD!!!!...I got a look at all this stuff, that's when the new wave stuff was hitting, and the likes of Devo, B-52s were becoming known, and I also discovered Pat Benatar and Blondie too..I guess my next big group after Foreigner was AC/DC, and was into them for quite sometime, which is what led me into Motley Crue, Quiet Riot, Ratt, etc... and to this day, still my music of choice.

The first artist to make me take notice of music in general and become a fan was probably Sam Cooke. Growing up, my mother and grandmother were heavily into the Soul singers & Motown artists. Sam Cooke was heard a lot around my house and I loved it. I had no older siblings so my musical influence came directly from them early on.

As for Metal, it was friends & MTV. The first Metal album I ever bought was Pyromania when I was 12. I listened to (what is now) Classic Rock & Pop along with my great-grandfather's Country and my mom's Soul music. I did not become what you would consider a "Metalhead" until I was 14 when a friend of mine at school loaned me an Yngwie Malmsteen cassette. I was already a fan of bands like Night Ranger & Kiss, but Metal hit me hard when I heard "I'll See The Light Tonight"...from then it was on!

mc666 wrote:

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

For me it was Def Leppard. As far as I was concerned they were the be all, end all of music for me at the time. They were all I would listen to.

so no matter where you went from there, it was going to be a step up.

I was born in 1983 and my first encounter with music was via Queen around the age of 5 or 6. My dad is a big fan of Queen, the Beatles, Paul McCartney so he would always play their records (and still does from time to time).

When I grew a little older, around 7 or 8 years old I got my own Queen tapes. Well my dad bought me Innuendo because that was my favorite album at the time (this was like 1991). But my dad also made me a mix tape of all the Queen classics and he bought me a cool walkman too. I used to ride my bike with the walkman on listening to all the Queen classics.

All these years later, dad and I still love Queen a lot and we'll drop everything we're doing to watch a Queen concert on cable. Of course I now own all the Queen albums on CD, and we both love the 5.1 mix of A Night At the Opera.

Now onto metal - well unfortunately dad and I don't really share the same interests in metal music. Metal has become my obsession since I first heard Iron Maiden and Metallica around the mid 90s - by that stage both bands were well past their golden eras but their earlier / classic albums will forever be there.

I first heard Metallica's One probably around 1993 or 94. I woke up one Saturday morning and I was flicking through the channels until I got to MTV and this black and white video came on. I was just mesmerized by the sheer power, emotion and aggression of the song. I remember my parents waking up and finding me headbaging while playing air guitar on an old tennis racket. That year, 1994, I got my first 2 metal albums: Iron Maiden's A Real Dead One and Babylon AD's self-titled.

Although a Real Dead One is by no means of the same quality as Live After Death, it was a really good introductory disc. I also got Metallica's Black Album without realising that One was in fact on Justice (this is before the days of the internet, and I had no friends who listened to metal or Metallica for that matter). I didn't quite like the Black Album as much at the time and for a while I was a lot more into Iron Maiden than Metallica.

I started getting more serious into metal probably around 1997. I rediscovered Metallica going back to Kill Em All and getting all their albums from there, including the Black Album on CD. Other bands were the modern metal acts of the 90s, Fear Factory, Machine Head, Sepultura, Pantera and the like. Pantera and Sabbath in fact became my most favorite bands circa 98 - 99.

From 99 onwards I just continued with my journey into metal, discovering more European metal bands and lesser known bands that I missed out on in the 80s and 90s.

Hmm interesting well for me it was The Beatles, CCR, The Doors, Hendrix back in the 60's my folks owned a resturante and that what was on the jukebox, along with cuntry crap!

Wargod51

For me it was bands like DEF LEPPARD, EUROPE, BON JOVI, IRON MAIDEN, VAN HALEN, METALLICA, POISON, URIAH HEEP, OZZY, ALICE COOPER etc...back in the late 80s.

4 years ago a friend of mine at school who was into music gave me a CD with some Metallica, Nirvana, System of a Down and Guns n' Roses on it. I always like whatever "rock" was on the radio but I listened to that CD about a million times. My first ever albums were the black album, Appitite for Destruction and Toxicty. Then I was hooked for good.

Good Thread.......

For me I was born in 1974, I remember the first time I really got into music but I think music from my childhood contributed as well. Growing up I remember hearing stuff on the radio stuff like The Bee Gees, Chuck Manogie, Olivia Newton John, Beach Boys, and Queen well those were the ones that stood out to me, in 1982/83 I remember hearing a awesome reading of Peter and the Wolf with some cool Classical music turns out it was narrated by David Bowie. Of course when Labyrinth came out I was hooked on David Bowie's music. Also during this time I was turned on to some Christian bands Phil Keaggy, Petra and Stryper, I credit these 3 artists in opening the floodgates of my love for music, while the ones from my childhood I think laid the foundation as I like alot of different types of music.

ABBA and BoneyM to start with as a small kid. But Def Leppard got me into rock.