I started playing guitar when I was about 8 years old. I started on the ol' Classical Guitar (which I still have today) and I had lessons religiously every week for about 8 years from Stuart Edwards in the Solihull area. In this time, I didn't take any grades as such but I was part of the Solihull guitar ensemble for about 5 years. During this time, my heroes were guys like John Williams and Julian Breem. Also, I bought my second classical guitar from guitar virtuoso Simon Dinnigan
1) I started doing my GSCEs - one of which being music
2) U2's Elevation tour was televised
3) My guitar teacher taught me a Satriani riff
I found it much easier to compose stuff on the electric guitar as most of it was through computers, so I was forced to jam a bit on the electric. When U2's elevation show was shown on TV, I was completely mesmorised by the show and I spent a week or two learning every song from it and playing along. But it was really when my guitar teacher taught me the opening riff from Satriani's "Always with me, Always with you" that I was turned onto electric. After learning that, I bought "Surfing with the Alien" to hear the whole song, and listened to the rest of the album, which is definatley one of his best. I then bought Crystal Planet and The Extremist and the rest is history...
Even today, I still play Classical (I definatley rate John Williams alongside Satriani) but electric is where I play the most. I mainly (try) to play along to Satriani, Vai, Dream Theater, Hendrix, Eric Johnson, U2, Led Zeppelin just to name a few.
1) Joe Satriani
2) John Williams
3) Steve Vai
4) John Petrucci (From Dream Theater)
5) Eric Johnson