You know what is really strange? I got interested in playing guitar when I was 10 years old and Quiet Riot and Def Leppard were all the craze on the radio and music videos during the final years of public school. I would occasionally be listening to the radio in my bedroom while doing other stuff and end up playing air guitar using my tennis racket when they came on the radio. It was Def Leppard and Quiet Riot that actually planted the seed in my head of wanting to play guitar! I got an acoustic guitar for my 11th birthday and lessons for 2 months but that didn't get anywhere and was not the kind of guitar that I wanted to learn, but I was too young to know what I wanted either way. :) The guitar basically sat there for a few years.

A few years later when I was 14, I was with some friends at some guy's house and he had a Les Paul with an amp and effects, etc. I had never actually touched an electric guitar before. He let each of us try it out and once the guitar hit my hands, within seconds I knew "this is it". It's what I wanted all along and didn't really know it. After much begging, I got my first electric guitar for Christmas when I was 14 and the f***ing thing NEVER left my damn hands! :o) I played guitar literally for 4-6 hours per day every day for like 6 years straight, completely self taught from guitar magazines, guitar tab books, music theory books and ear. I just couldn't get enough of it.

Now I am 42 and I've been playing guitar for 28 years non-stop pretty much. I play just about every style of music except countryish type stuff, with an emphasis on progressive metal, metal, rock, blues, classical, fusion and experimenta/instrumental, and am fluent in most guitar techniques etc. ... and.... it has been all this time now....

And I have never even ONCE, sat down and learned a damned Def Leppard or Quiet Riot song! What the??? I know eh? I kind of feel bad about that since it was them who really planted the idea in my head originally. I swear that by the end of the year I need to sit down for a few hours or so and learn at least one of each of their songs just out of respect. :)

Thought you might get a kick out of the story. :)