What period/style of music inspired you to start playing?

[grandad]

Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch, Jet Harris and Tony Meeham, the original Shadows playing APACHE on 'Oh Boy' 1960.

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

[ambient]

1970's jazz to start with, mainly due to a guy that taught me for a couple of years, he was really into Jaco and that.

Then I discovered solo bass, and Steve Lawson particularly, and realised just what a tremendously versatile instrument the bass was.

[Number6]

Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy.....one of the coolest bassists, frontmen and bands ever!

[ahpook]

Goth

[drake]

The golden era of rock 68 - 72, Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher, Hendrix, Faces, Free, Cream, Bowie, Stones, early glam etc and the short lived punk years when I first picked up a bass.

[Barking Spiders]

Other than Chic it was really early-mid 80s electro, mainly Japan, Simple Minds, Level 42, Paul Young, Sade, Duran, Blow Monkeys, FGTH, Wham and Heaven 17 when the bass was mostly slap or fretless.

[christhammer666]

Metal for me. Used to love steve harris ( iron maiden) but it was rex brown (pantera)who made me want to play bass.I have been trying to emulate his style and groove ever since

[dmccombe7]

Heavy Rock inspired me to start playing. Rush, Thin Lizzy, Kiss, Deep Purple & Alice Cooper being the main ones.
Soon after i came into my Prog era and then Jazz Rock.
Since then i've moved thru all styles and back to one i never really gave much thought to and now Blues based Rock.

Dave

[j1mu5]

Bit of a mixture for me really. Nu metal bnads like Deftones, Korn and Limp Bizkit but Jamiroquai has also been a really big influence on me as well.

[Yukimajou]

The defining moment for getting me into music was seeing Sweet on the Christmas ToTP doing Blockbuster in '74 when I was just a stripling of 4 years old. But it was the Glam/Sleaze scene of the late '80s and early '90s that inspired me to play (as well as my Grandad!). I now find myself being inspired by the Classic Rock scene (The Doors, Creedence, Skynnyrd, The Who, Zeppelin, etc) and Garage/Psych stuff like The Fuzztones & The Cramps (I know they didn't have a bassist to start with). Lob in a bit of Punk and you've got my personal cocktail.

[Bolo]

89-92 death metal
Bolt Thrower (realm of chaos,war master), Obituary (slowly we rot), Paradise Lost (gothic, lost paradise), Entombed (left hand path).

[LiamPodmore]

2000's metal. Bullet For My Valentine, Avenged Sevenfold, Slipknot, that sort of stuff. At first it was mainly wanting to play guitar but my dad came home one day with a bass and it went from there.

[paul h]

Very specifically Steve Harris from Iron Maiden made me want to play bass. Also my mate Steve who was a great guitarist was a real inspiration too

[radiophonic]

Post-punk. Or 'Punk' as we actually called it at the time. Gang of Four, early Cure, Joy Division etc. All of those bands had really loud bass players so you were more obviously the melodic focus. I was also listening to prog though and my style (such that it is) is some combination of the two.

[TheGreek]

[quote name='Barking Spiders' timestamp='1495443022' post='3303671']
Other than Chic it was really early-mid 80s electro, mainly Japan, Simple Minds, Level 42, Paul Young, Sade, Duran, Blow Monkeys, FGTH, Wham and Heaven 17 when the bass was mostly slap or fretless.
[/quote]

Much of this for me too..

[BigRedX]

Early 70s Glam Rock. I had absolutely no interest in any kind of music until I heard T.Rex 1n 1971. After that I was hooked.

However I didn't start learning to play the guitar for another 2 years, and didn't get my first bass until 1981.

[Oopsdabassist]

My musical era is 70's rock and prog, but I didn't start playing bass until my 40's and I was actually learning Police songs when I got into my first band. I'm happy to learn anything nowadays but I prefer rhythmic/grooving over prog widdling. having said that I am still in total awe of Chris Squire and his ability to play bass like that, I just know I could never be that clever, I have tried before now but keep defaulting to 'normal' bass groovin'

[bassbiscuits]

I'm afraid 1980s metal did it for me.

Some friends had some Kiss, Iron Maiden and Scorpions albums, back in the day when you had gatefold sleeves with pics of huge gigs inside them!

Really made me want to play, and my earliest influences were Steve Harris, Gene Simmons and then people like Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith, Duff McKagan from G'n'R, Billy Sheehan who was playing with David Lee Roth at the time, and then later things like Extreme, Mr Big, Saigon Kick and Skid Row.

I was 12 when i began playing and it all seemed incredibly exciting.

Over the years the influences broadened thankfully, but there were a good range of techniques (fingers, using a pick, bit of slapping and tapping, thumping root notes and fast melodic stuff.)

I haven't mastered it all - far from it.

But I reckon i could probably play Live After Death still from memory, having played it so many times!

[bazzbass]

Led Zeppelin 1

song 1

Good Times Bad Times

aside from Bonham's double kick drum rhythm on ONE kick pedal, I heard JPJ's sweet lines coming through.

that and Yes - Fragile, and THAT song.

My older mate pinched the LP from his older brother and I asked what instrument was making that sound,

'that's a bass guitar" he said

and here I am

Edited May 23, 2017 by bazztard

[scalpy]

I told my dad Adam Ant was brilliant at the age of about 7 and he went listen to this- and gave me his Beatles and Stones collection, and then I thought Adam Ant sounded a bit wet in comparison. He followed it up with Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding. So that with G'nR and Nirvana by the time I was a teen did it for me.

Still love the buzz of finding new music too.

[SpondonBassed]

It was hearing Maccer's bass on jukeboxes as a small child that did it for me. You couldn't really feel it on TV, radio or domestic low-fi record players. In the café however... wow! It took many years for the seed to germinate into a deep love for the deep notes but it definitely started there.

[miles'tone]

I saw the Stone Roses in 1990 and was totally taken by Mani. He looked the coolest, was the most animated and seemed to be the down to earth link between band and crowd.
I sold my old piece of sh!t car the following week and bought my first bass and amp and I've never looked back!

[BrunoBass]

[quote name='Barking Spiders' timestamp='1495443022' post='3303671']
Other than Chic it was really early-mid 80s electro, mainly Japan, Simple Minds, Level 42, Paul Young, Sade, Duran, Blow Monkeys, FGTH, Wham and Heaven 17 when the bass was mostly slap or fretless.
[/quote]

Such a great era for bass; synths were the main melodic element in the pop of the time, rather than guitars - lots of room for inventive, melodic bass playing.

Can I add Haircut 100 to your list? Les Nemes' tight, funky basslines inspired me a lot.

[BassTractor]

[quote name='bazztard' timestamp='1495519562' post='3304316']
that and Yes - Fragile, and THAT song.

My older mate pinched the LP from his older brother and I asked what instrument was making that sound,

'that's a bass guitar" he said
[/quote]

Do you mean The Fish or Roundabout? Or something else?
I'd assume The Fish, but as it happens, for me personally Roundabout was the eye-opener (as a single, and before the album was released in Holland).

[Rich]

I'd always had a soft spot for bass, but when I finally got round to picking it up, the man I listened to for inspiration was the guy at front-left.