Music has meant the world to me for as long as I can remember. Often I find that I remember an event or a person by a particular song. There are some bands that I believe have had a great impact on me, and some that have taken me through difficult times, such as Sepultura. It really made me feel a lot better hearing Max Cavalera cry “what is this shit” as I walked through the gates into my army compound. I’m not sure my superior officers would agree that those Brazilians were a good influence on my attitude…

Speaking of influences, here’s a list of my favourite bands/artists roughly in the chronological order that I took them to heart:

Pink Floyd
Dire Straits
Bob Marley
Yngwie Malmsteen
The Scorpions
Enya
Metallica
UB 40
Queen’s Ryche
Tiamat
Iron Maiden
The Doors
Pantera
Therapy?
Stone Temple Pilots
Sepultura
Paradise Lost
The Sisters of Mercy
At the Gates
Type O Negative
Rammstein
Stiltskin
K’s Choice
Live
Nickelback
HIM
Evanescence

Of course there are many others like Shakespeare’s Sister, Within Temptation, Ambeon, …but those haven’t impressed me with more than a couple of really great songs.