[gtrjunior]

I was listening to music pretty much around 5 years old, that would be 1980, music had been playing everywhere around the house.

When I started, I was a big fan of Mick Mars and Dave Mustaine. Their sense of rhythm still lingers on to this day.

But it wasn't until Kurt Cobain came into the scene. I almost gave up playing guitar. He somewhat showed me to just love playing music. And that still goes on to this day.

Mick Mars is a SOLID player. Maybe not as flashy as his 80’s shredder contemporaries but a hell of a player nonetheless. 
He was definitely one of my primary heroes.

[Guitar74]

George Lynch. Made me start playing and sort of solidified it after seeing Dokken on the Tooth and Nail tour when I was 10 yrs old. Then I found Yngwie, Randy, Eric Johnson, Paul Gilbert, Jimi, Jason Becker, Chet Atkins, and Brent Mason.

[The_Spell]

For me, it started with Cliff Burton for bass.
Then, and even still to this day, it's Mikael Sandorf for my guitar. Mike isn't the best, the fastest or most technical guy out there but he writes good songs and plays with feeling.

[HarlowTheFish]

When I first got into guitar, Ray Toro and Frank Iero from My Chemical Romance. Frank's got some killer riffs and Ray had a really good sense of melody that a lot of the punk/emo guys didn't have. When I started playing more seriously, I jumped really fast from punk to prog and got really into Mark Holcomb from Periphery, because his phrasing and especially his riff-writing is insane.
After a while I got into (relatively) less heavy stuff, with Yvette Young from Covet, Rabea Massad (the one with the really good youtube channel) for his Toska stuff, and Mark Knopfler.
Nowadays, top five in no particular order, probably:
Fredrik Thordendal from Meshuggah for his nuts solos
Adrian Smith who has the most godly lead tone of all time and I will fight people on this
Joey Rubenstein from Icarus the Owl for showing me that prog =/= heavy and serious and deep all the time
Michael Weikath for being the most underrated member of Helloween and IMO one of the best rhythm guitarists in power metal
Brent and Ian from I the Mighty (particularly for the self-titled, Hearts and Spades, and Karma Never Sleeps EPs as well as the Frame trilogy which are some of the best post-hardcore I've ever heard) because they're absolutely killer songwriters.
Honorable mention to Steve Harris who's my Bass Daddy and will have a special place in my heart always

[Guitar74]

That's quite a list. I agree with you on Adrian Smith. Him and Dave Murray both had such a great lead tone. I like Rabbea as well. Mark Knopfler. That guy and Chet Atkins are tops in that country lead thing. If you like Mark, check out some of Glen Campbell. He really was a beast of a guitarist. Dude could also shred when he wanted to.