Split off from this thread: http://metal-archives.com/board/viewtop ... 21&start=0, except without the Killswitch Engage. I'm not sure why it got locked (probably the bickering, but no reason was given so I'm not sure), but I feel there is potential for more discussion on gateway bands...

Except, now not just gateway bands to metal, but to other genres.

Dream Theater and my uncle (who introduced me to Dream Theater) both were influential in introducing me to progressive rock such as Spock's Beard, and 70s stuff such as Gentle Giant.

Eiffel 65 was my gateway into techno, which I still dabble in from time to time.

I didn't have a gateway from Arena Rock, radio rock and alternative rock. If it played on WRFY, whether it was mainstream stuff during the weak or classic rock during Flashback Saturday Night, I listened to it. I was born into that kind of music. I recognize some Judas Priest and Iron Maiden songs from Flashback Saturday Night.

Van Halen was my ultimate gateway to Van Halen, one of the greatest bands ever created (only in their David Lee Roth stage though).

I was introduced to Mr. Bungle and that type of music by Incubus and System of a Down, whom I know realize owe their whole careers to Bungle and are just shitty bands in general (IMO).

Cradle of Filth and Demon Burger introduced me to black metal. Seems to happen often. Now I can't stand either of those bands.

Man, I haven't heard Eiffel 65 in years! Their song I remember most is "Blue." I'm blue, da-ba-de, da-ba-di.... I do remember them being good at the time, though, and I have a single of one of their songs floating around, too. I used to have a cassette of their album P.O.P. (is that what it was called?) after a mate of mine at school gave it to me. I used to listen to it sometimes, and I picked out the songs I liked most. The fact it wasn't on CD hindered my enjoyment, but otherwise, I found that album to be fairly catchy. I wish I knew what I did with the cassette (probably binned it ).

Anyway, the biggest gateway band for me was System Of A Down. Back in 2002-ish, my mate showed me their album Toxicity, and I loved it. I think the first song I heard was "Chop Suey!," and I fell in love with the sporadic music it had. At the time, it was the heaviest music I had heard, and I was determined to hear more from them. I eventually had burnt copies of their first two albums (only ones released at the time), and listened to them constantly, neglecting the plethora of singles I had accumulated (Groove Terminator, anyone?).

From there, I discovered Mudvayne a little later, then Slipknot (two bands which I still listen to today from time to time, particularly Slipknot), and the first metal band I discovered was Fear Factory, specifically their album Archetype. I ended up loving the shit out of it, and that's basically where it all began.

Slipknot's Volume 3: The Subliminal Verses is the first heavy album I ever bought legitimately, and Archetype was the first metal album I bought (from scratchy memory).

system of a down got me into music in general. Nofx got me into punk. Deicide's insineratehym was the first death metal album i ever got. Agalloch got me into black metal.

Queen and Aerosmith were the bands that got me into music in general. I still have a really deep love towards the two bands, especially Queen.

After that it was Anthrax for metal and Eminem for rap. I stopped listening to rap until very recently.

Dimmu Borgir got me into the extreme metal.

Bob Dylan got me into the more folk/country sound. I'm now starting to enjoy older country like Charlie Daniels band and stuff. Good shit.

And Paranormal Attack and Shpongle have became my gateway bands to electronic musc.

Not metal beginnings: It all started with "Weird Al" Yankovic in the second half of 2006 after a friend showed me one of his videos while I was living in New Zealand. Things stayed stagnant until I discovered Fall Out Boy from a footy ad in around 2007 after I came to Australia. They were both mass obsessions.

Metal: Guitar Hero 3 was the new thing in late 2007. I found a demo that was like the real thing. I discovered DragonForce and fell in love with it. DragonForce phase began. I also got into Metallica, Slayer and any other metal band from the game. But Metallica had a greater impact than the other.
I eventually went to the library out of curiosity and some metal. This included some of the heavier bands on an MTV Headbangers Ball comp and Fear Factory. They all started to grow on me but Deicide (on the comp) was what got me into death metal along with FF.

The first two metal albums I bought were Metallica--Master of Puppets and Anthrax--Spreading the Disease. The latter is still one of my all-time favorite metal albums.

Blink-182 lead to System of a Down which lead to Slipknot which lead in a big leap to Cannibal Corpse which lead to Cradle of Filth which lead into Mayhem which lead into now. Seem's most people have the same cycle.

Linkin Park -> Mago de Oz -> System of a Down -> Haggard -> All metal.

Edit: Eminem got me into rap. Then came the Wu Tang Clan. And then came Mobb Deep.

Avenged Sevenfold got me into metal, but Apocalyptica was the first metal band I liked.

Bands like S.O.B., Extreme Noise Terror, Siege and the like got me into Hardcore Punk and Crust, which is now one of my favourite genres.

It took me rather a long time to get into metal, since I grew up in a home where anything other than Christian music was intolerable. I grew up listening to such bands as Jars of Clay (who I still like today, they were my first concert, which was awesome, since they incorporated part of an orchestra into their live set), the Newsboys, and other worse bands. I kept progressing on to heavier stuff, starting with bands like P.O.D. and Thousand Foot Krutch (their first CD, it kinda sucks, but whatever, I was young). Also, I listened to tons of bands at my friends house like Disturbed, Slipknot, etc. I was stuck on these relatively average bands for altogether too long. Then, a combination of Dog Fashion Disco, Mr. Bungle, Tool, Dream Theater, and others, kinda moved me in the direction of metal and progressive rock/metal. Most of my favorite bands today are in this genre. Also, metalcore bands such as Bullet for my Valentine and August Burns Red opened me up to types of music that aren't just entirely clean vocals.

i'm sure i'm not alone when i say IRON MAIDEN was responsible for turning me into the metalhead i am today. no question. that was over ten years ago though

I'll admit that his first or second album is rather good, the one titled The Marshall Mathers LP. The one with "White America" in it (probably his best song).

Maiden and Megadeth were responsible for turning me into a metalhead 20 years ago (not sure who came first, my memory isn't that good )

Iron Maiden got me into metal, and I also listened to Killswitch Engage for a while but they weren't really a gateway to anything. Then Dragonforce introduced me to Power Metal, and I found bands like Stratovarius, Rhapsody, Hammerfall, et cetera.

Emperor, Gorgoroth and Nile introduced me to extreme metal, although it took me a while to really grasp black and death metal. In fact I still don't really grasp black metal all that much.

The Cramps have introduced me to several genres, among them psychobilly and surf rock.

Yeah, Eminem really took a nosedive after that album. The first two were crafty and whitty, then he rather lost his fire and passion and became more of a pop rapper, with more beats than rhymes, and less whit. One of my favorites has always been Just Don't Give A Fuck, personally.

Personally the movie Romper Stomper got me listening to punk like The Casualties and Anti-Flag.

It was Graveworm, Dark Funeral and Dimmu Borgir which got me into Black Metal and Deicide and Cannibal Corpse which got me into Death Metal. I still listen to all of those bands despite the fact that Dimmu is condidered untrve, Fuck'em I like their music.

apart from Maiden, Saxon, Venom and Def Leppard, (The bif 4 NWOBHM bands) Badger, Bitches Sin, Driveshaft and China Doll (got their singles all at the same time) got me into NWOBHM - many years ago.

Planet X and Meshuggah are my gateway bands into jazz fusion. From there, it may go into pure classic jazz... which would be my first expansion into a major musical genre since heavy metal around 2002/2003

Yeah, he really lost his uniqueness after that. Actually, I still have a burnt compilation CD of Eminem's songs somewhere in my room, of all the ones I thought were good. Maybe one day I'll bust that out again.

rhapsody was the first real modern 'power metal' band i heard. about 7 or 8 years ago

Depeche Mode --> The Cure --> Coldplay (shut up!) --> Pearl Jam --> Opeth --> prog metal/metal in general --> extreme metal

Damn, I've fucking changed... and by the looks of it for the better.
Who knew I'd go from Coldplay (shut up!) to Cannibal Corpse? I wonder what's next...

Wow, this is tough. I can't exactly remember what bands started to get me more and more into metal, but I would have to go with Slayer. I remember last year: All I did was sit at my computer and listen to "Raining Blood", "Angel of Death", and "Necrophiliac". I sat for like 6 hours every day just listening and listening. Amazingly I still haven't fully gotten used to Death Metal yet. So far I only find about 4 Death Metal songs actually decent. I'll have to listen a lot more though, (Which is tough because my brother and mom get all mad at me when I do, They go "that music's bad for you!!). If I could second a gateway band it would be Iron Maiden. I remember people telling me that they were one of the "lighter" metal bands. (Which is probably true). I sat and listened to "Number of the Beast" so many times. That was the specific song that I first heard that spawned me getting into metal. So my 2 ultimate gateway bands would have to be Slayer and Iron Maiden.

I started listening to Gorillaz then Linkin Park and some Psycho music like Infected Mushroom and shit, then a friend show me Slipknot but I was thinking "what the fuck is that, pure shitty stupid music"... then I get into SOAD, but my gateway band to metal was Blind Guardian and to extreme metal was Demon Burger (nice one TheRealThing) Gorgoroth and Dark Tranquillity

The Living End > Slipknot/Disturbed/Powerman 5000/Static X etc > All real metal

Metallica got me into metal in the first place and NIN got me into industrial rock

Those two albums are two of my favorites as well! The first time I ever heard a metal song was Enter Sandman on the radio and I loved it. After this I went home and checked out all of my Dad's cd's (he is a big fan of metal and hard rock) and started to love metal. The bands that initially got me into metal were Metallica(My first favorite band, and still my favorite along with Dream Theater, Anthrax, and Judas Priest), Iron Maiden, and Megadeth. These bands not only got me into metal, but also made me become a huge fan of music in general as i didn't listen to music at all before hearing sandman.

The first metal song I ever really liked was Enter Sandman. From that point, I went from Metallica and SOAD, through some Metalcore like KSE, even though I like the former better, to Melodic/Death. Enter Sandman is still one of my favorite songs of all time if not just from sentiment. I remember listening to that one song over and over again for hours until I decided to expand a little bit. My friend showed me SOAD which I absolutely loved. Then I was shown some early KSE material which eased me into harsher vocals. Through more recommendations, I got into early In Flames and Cannibal Corpse. Through exploring the internet, I am were I am today.

Well I my first influence's were local bands in my country which are not actually metal (nu-metal), then as time pass by I discovered more and more bands

Slipknot, Linkin Park, Korn. They were what got me into metal in the first place. Nu metal as a genre was my "gateway" to the real metal world.

I understand the idea of bands which are a certain way, then you want to listen to bands which are more in a certain direction, but I don't see why that always has to be super-popular commercial groups. I got into metal more or less by listening to British punk bands with various metal influences, then got into things like Motörhead, Megadeth, some progressive metal, Carcass, and some underground thrash.

Blind Guardian got me into metal and Painslut introduced me to all things industrial and post-industrial.