Who was your gateway band?

[Hinojos]

This might be somewhat long, so bear with me, haha.

For lack of better words, who was your gateway band? If any.

The band that you first listened to that broadened your horizons to other genres and styles, that introduced/led you into bands that you may not have gotten into otherwise.

For me, that was Deftones. That may seem like an obvious answer since I'm on this site, but it really was.

My music taste growing up has always been pretty bad. Well not really bad per-say, but I only listened to whatever was on the radio, or whatever popular songs that my friends listened to. It wasn't very vast, just super basic and stale. I couldn't listen to anything too heavy, because I was 'one of those people' at one point that thought screaming is just noise. I also couldn't listen to softer music, because I found it boring. I would always end up getting bored of what I listened to, but I wouldn't know where else to go. It's like I couldn't really get into much. There was legit only about 4/5 bands that I downloaded from Frostwire, and 2/3 cd's that my cousin gave me. That's all I listened to for years, other than the new mainstream radio hits. (Keep in mind most of this was before I had internet, I was still a kid in elementary listening to CDs in my cd player, a Static-X cassette tape my cousin gave me in my dad's truck, and the radio. Even when I finally got internet and discovered Limewire/Frostwire, it was AOL dial-up, so you guys know how 'fast' that was lol. [Insert dial-up beep/warping/static sound effects here])

But when my cousin showed me White Pony in 2012 on Christmas, everything changed; it was an immense refreshment. I instantly fell in love with Deftones' sound, from the drums, to the guitar tone, and the vocals as well as the lyrics when I listened deeper. I immediately knew that this was going to be my favorite band for a long time, which was odd because I have never come close to saying that with another band before. Within the next few months, I started diving into Deftones' entire discography and became addicted. I was kinda pissed that I hadn't discovered them sooner. Overtime I started getting into their heavier songs, and also started getting into their softer songs. Due to that, I was naturally able to get into heavier styles of music that I couldn't listen to before, as well as softer styles that I may have thought were boring and such before. Deftones also have tons of different influences and styles in their own music, due to that there are even more bands that I am able to organically get into. Even to this day, the bands I'm listening to continue to get heavier and heavier. Before Deftones when I tried to listen to heavy music, I would listen for 3 seconds and immediately shut it off; it was too much. A few months ago, I could only listen to heavier music when I'm working out, or if I'm in a very specific mood. Now, with even heavier music, I can chill on my computer and jam that shit. I'm also able to listen to gloomy soft songs that are deep (and sometimes depressing) as hell. Before I would just fall asleep mid song and not be interested.

So now my horizons are extremely broad, and I'm constantly attempting to discover music every day. Although my friends are mainly into hip-hop, I'm in a group chat with 3 of them, and bi-weeklyish we actually make our own individual music packs with 100-or-so songs and share them in the group to eachother, just for the sake of discovering new music. When someone asks me what kind of music I listen to, I can confidently say "pretty much anything" and be 100% serious. "Oh yeah? What about heavy metal, like this?" as they sarcastically play an example clip of Slaughter to Prevail. That's when I respond with "hell yeah, especially that", blowing their minds because they were kidding. Then I shuffle my iPhone in the car, and "Leeann Legore" from Hester Prynne comes on, and then "In Your Beauty" by inc. comes on, then Telephone Calls by A$AP Rocky/Tyler the Creator comes on after that. Anyone in my car would be extremely confused at the random ass variety playing through the speakers.

I don't think I would be listening to 90% of the things I do now if it wasn't for Deftones.

Anyone else have a base band that rooted them into other genres and styles?

[Red Pill]

Korn, Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine , Linkin Park, System Of A Down, Slipknot.

[RoyalDeftonicBoy]

Pink Floyd, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Deftones, Megadeth were my gateway into music thanks to my parents and relatives.

[O]

DMX, Eminem, The Prodigy

[tarkil]

I had many "gateway moments" along my musical path, but I guess the very first one(s) were Nirvana and Guns And Roses

[ANattyRat]

Tokio Hotel. I only ever used to listen to rap and RnB, then I found them. They're a German band, I don't know what crappy genre they play now, but they started off as like a pop-rock band, and I loved it. They were 'rock' but not heavy enough to scare me off. Obviously they aren't the reason I listen to everything ranging from classical music to heavy metal, but if there's one band I can attribute to opening my mind to new genres and bands, it'd be them. It still took me a while to listen to heavier stuff. Hell, when I loved Deftones there were still so many songs I never listened to because they were too heavy. It was months before I re-visited their heavier music and decided that I love it. But I'd say they were the root of it all.

[DeftonesNZ]

i think i had the pretty typical path of Metallica,Led Zeppelin to bands like Tool and SOAD, but Deftones kind of is my gateway band,i remember i heard Change on the radio I had never heard a song like it so i tried to found out what it was and then listened to more Deftones, they were the first band I listened to full albums of before it was just singles, then i started to look at the bands influences and learnt about the Cure and the Smiths and bands like Meshuggah, really opened my eyes to try everything rather than going after a single genre, from then one I just kept trying new stuff.

[Rally Sweat]

Probably Mike Patton opened up my appreciation of other genres/music the most.

[The Prodigy]

Wu-Tang Clan

[defTHE1s]

I only listened like 10 bands all the time, being them Rammstein, Deftones, Metallica, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Gorillaz, SOAD (at first I thought they were pretty f*cking heavy when I listened to Toxicity (album) but I pretty liked them a lot) and some other bands that started to listen after (Pink Floyd, The Doors, Led Zepellin) and one or two mexican bands. It was all I used to listen but since Rammstein and Deftones are my all-time favorite bands, I think Deftones led me to extend my musical tastes even further and when I was on the process of discovering all about them, I found this forum, where I learnt way a lot of new music that I haven't discovered, and not only metal or alternative.
Many of the bands that I listen nowadays, I first discovered through here based on the recommendations and also the diverse influences for Deftones.

To sum it up, my gateway was Deftones and SharingLungs people 

[theis]

Tom Waits

Mike Patton's various bands

ISIS

[Red Pill]

Cypress Hill too!

[BewareTheWater]

Tom Waits

Mike Patton's various bands

ISIS

I second this. I wouldn't say Isis was a gateway for me, though, although I love that band as well.

But yeah, Korn was another one that was a gateway band for me, which eventually led me to Deftones, yet ANOTHER gateway band , lol.

[Crazylegs]

Michael Jackson and the Beatles we're the spark that lit the fire initially, for sure!