Well my reason for picking it up was my hero, Jimmy Page, who I take alot of my acoustic technique from, however, besides making me want to start, he hasnt influenced my electric playing much (although I do add hybrid picking to my repertoire because of him, and I can play every Zep riff :D )
After that I got really into Tony Iommi and Randy Rhoads. I stole all of my fills and most of my solo techniques from learning Iommi.
My band-mates often comment on my playing style as "Letting Jimmy Page loose in Sabbath".
Dave Mustaine Influences me so much. He completely changed how I made riffs, changed the style of my fills, and I adapted a more "metal" style of playing (Strange, alternate picking, string skipping riffs). Mind you, my band isnt very metal, but many of the techniques and wierd chords are put in there. (a 3-7 stretch is wonderful, especially because my rhythm guitarist cant humanly do it, I like having big hands...)
The rest of my soloing technique (aka, whatever I didnt steal from Iommi) was taken off of listening to Cream, which besides soloing techniques also taught me how to listen to a song, figure out its key, play it without tabs.
