I started playin at the age of nineteen, when i first bought my electric guitar my parents found it terrible. I was listening to Deep Purple and that was a great influence, riffs like smoke on the water and child in time were really great, also Black Sabbath was great. New wave I liked also, The Cure, the Sound. Nowadays It's mostly rock orientated.
I was not lucky to have parents who gave me lessons etc. so I had to do it on my one. Nowadays it's much easier for children to go to music. My three kids all got music lessons but they won't play anything nowadays. (what did i do wrong?.