I love Eighties rock.
I was such a big Kiss and Van Halen fan, Yngwie Malmsteen, Racer X... all that stuff. I loved everybody.
As far as female vocalists, I love Heart, Joan Jett, Courtney Love, Laura Branigan, Linda Ronstadt, Barbra Streisand - or going back to when I was a child, Aileen Quinn, the original Annie.
I like Journey, Bad Company, Soundgarden and Aerosmith.
I've heard my share of Van Halen. I never liked rock.
So when I got to be about 13 or 14, I started listening - even though my parents music was way cool - to contemporary hard rock at that time, which was Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Ted Nugent and all that, and that's just where I came from.
I wanted to bring back that big, ballad type of music that we used to love so much. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, when they first came out, that's what I grew up singing.
I love nostalgic pop music. The '80s especially, to me, is the greatest era of songs. I just love the '80s so much.
When it comes to influences, we are influenced not just by Japanese and overseas metal acts, but J-pop acts too. One Japanese rock band we're particularly fond of is Seikima-II. We were attracted by their brand of devil imagery and of course, their high-quality musicianship.
My influences are Alice in Chains and Elton John.
I have a fascination for well-produced '70s and '80s rock with a lot of harmonies. AOR bands like Journey, Jefferson Starship, Toto, Kansas, Boston.
My mum listened to stuff like Alanis Morissette and Tori Amos, but she also listened to a lot of '80s stuff like Heart. I still quite like Heart.
Well, the stuff that I liked growing up was AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, but I also liked the Beatles and guys like Cat Stevens and Elton John.
I love power ballads and the earnest lack of irony and emotion that exists in '80s music, along with synth guitars, of course.
Well, what I love about '80s rock music is the amazing, fantastic melodies.
The bands that wrote the big, heroic rock songs - I really wanted to make a record like that.
I was a closet Journey fan when I was growing up.
I was in a party band in the early '80s, and we played Sabbath and Ozzy songs as well as Rush and Van Halen... all that kinds of stuff.
I've always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.
I was just obsessed with bands like Third Eye Blind, Matchbox 20, Everclear - those were shows I was going to. A lot of those bands definitely inspired me. Those bands' songs are powerful enough that they can last forever.
I am the man who put the hair in hair metal.
I don't like rock opera with back beats.
Breaking Benjamin, they're such incredible songwriters.
I was a total metal-head as a teen. I still love it, too.
I do appreciate the '80s as an era, the general sounds and aesthetics of the era. The Cure, that whole kind of image is really kind of amazing, I think. The power ballads and how everything sparkles and words are really dramatic. Huge drums, things like that. I do really find it inspiring.
