Finally a topic worth responding too.
Musically playing instruments, I started in middle school like thousands of other children. Of all instruments I actually played the bassoon. I played it for three years, and actually became quite good at it (even made state two years!). However, I grew sick of playing the bass line every single song and gave it up.
About that time is when I picked up a guitar, but I actually didn't get too serious about guitar until near the end of my high school years. I could only play simple chords like C, G, D, and E for the longest time. It was near the start of 2002 when I actually started practicing and learning other things.
It kind of goes along with my metal interests - as that is when I found Avantasia (as in a store, not as in the founder of the project). The only metal band I listened too was Savatage at the time, as I found everything else ugh. Avantasia really opened my eyes - and it still remains one of the best power metal albums IMO. So that soon led to me practicing guitar a ton as I got more into the genre. How I got with Theocracy is a different story. That's the short story long
Theocracy's actually the only band I've played in. However, I have been working on a solo project for awhile, and hopefully that will be reaching completion soon (university work =

). It has some hints of metal in it, but wouldn't fit Theocracy's style too much.
Musical influences outside metal: I like the usual stuff from rock to classical. Big influences on my writing have to be Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt (Film scores). I feel so many bands focus on the formula of writing a song with the cliches of a genre that they lack melody and substance. By this I mean if you were to listen to just the music of many bands, it would express nothing. A snobby answer I suppose...
-Jonathan