Vocalist/bassist John Gallagher of UK metal legends RAVEN counted down his Top 9 musical influences with Ranker.com recently. His list plus excerpts is below:

1) THE WHO's John Entwistle - The man who was the eye of the storm known as The Who. He practically reinvented the instrument. The bass solo (who played bass solos in 1965 other than him?!) on 'My Generation' jumped out of the speakers."

2) RUSH's Geddy Lee - "I remember getting the Rush album All The World's A Stage and thinking 'you can actually HEAR what he's doing!'"

3) FREE's Andy Fraser - "When I was a kid back in Newcastle Upon Tyne, the band Free was like a religion and the no. 1 hymn was the timeless classic 'All Right Now' - the bass breakdown in the middle of that song was something else - covering the bass part and adding a wonderful, suspended/released figure that just slayed me..and the guy was what..18 years old? Amazing!!!"

4) URIAH HEEP's Gary Thain - "Another one of our favourite bands was Uriah Heep - just an amazingly powerful juggernaut of an outfit...after hearing a few songs I got the Uriah Heep Live album - and Gary Thain's bass playing was just astounding - going up against the monster-distorted Hammond of Ken Hensley and the wall of sludge from Mick Box on guitar - Thain came up trumps every time with his killer melodic punchy bass lines."

5) SLADE's Jimmy Lea - "Slade was the band that inspired Raven to take up music - and Jimmy Lea was my main man. Initially I did not comprehend tyat a huge part of the Slade sound was due to Jimmy's bass until I tried working out the riffs. In a similar fashion to Uriah Heep's Gary Thain, Jimmy was all over the song."

6) Chris Squire - "Yes is a band I love, and Chris Squire is the main reason. The music of Yes is not supported by the bass, but it's built AROUND the bass - many times over."

7) KING CRIMSON's John Wetton - "Part of the UK's long tradition of singing bass players, John's been in many bands - and has usually been the driving force."

8) CHEAP TRICK's Tom Petersson - "It was 1977 and a new band was coming to our home town - Cheap Trick. There was a lot of press about the nutty guitarist with the 6000 guitars on stage. More impressive to me was the bass player with the 12 string bass. I thought to myself 'WHAT? 12 STRING BASS???'"

9) LED ZEPPELIN's John Paul Jones - "Zeppelin were SO influential..and right now, if you listen to THEM CROOKED VULTURES, you'll realize a HUGE part of the Zeppelin sound was due to the quiet guy at the back. A monster instrumentalist who came up with killer riffs ('Black Dog', anyone?) and locked in with the fury of John Bonham to create the most powerful rhythm section in rock."

Check out Gallagher's comments in full at this location.