I was in Junior High School (seventh grade I think) when I first started playing guitar. When I saw the Flight of Icarus video from Iron Maiden it sealed the deal for me.
These guys were cool. They had this “just another day at the office” look, while they were wailing away. Dave Murray’s rapid fire trills (hammer-on/pull-offs) were unreal to me, and I wanted to own a black Fender Stratocaster.
I took guitar lessons at school, and my parents rented me a Hohner acoustic. One day my father offered to buy me an electric. We picked up an Ibanez Roadstar II Series guitar (black, of course) at Music World with a small Peavey Audition amplifier.
Now, to someone who’s only familiar with acoustic guitars and their light, hollow construction, an electric guitar is kind of like and oak tree or a tank. I would just put the guitar on its stand and look at it in awe, or pick it up to feel the weight of it. Then there was the sound. The bright, sharp, heavy, thin, and beautiful sound of amplified steel. A sound that, if you would indulge me another Iron Maiden reference, was exemplified in Strange World.
Iron Maiden was definitely my biggest influence when I started.