I read that the features were heavily influenced by the music of Led Zep in the early days, but does anyone know if the guys listened to/were influenced by Vanilla Fudge? They were like Zeppelin but with loads of keyboards/Hammond organ on their tracks.
They pre-date Zeppelin by a few years, and were mainly famous for covers (mainly Beatles tracks- played with a lot more aggression- and musical talent). The bass player and drummer (Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice) went on to form a band called Cactus in the early/mid-seventies, who had a more bluesy feel.

Very recently, I was watching a history of rock and roll dvd. Chuck Berry, one of the originators of rock and roll was on this particular episode. I thought about matt. The stage presence, the way he rolls his eyes, and the facial expressions, even the body build were all similar. I was thinking, hey, if you want to be compared to someone, why not be compared to one of the Kings of Rock and Roll.

I have to admit that although he's not the most flamboyant frontman I've seen (i.e he's not exactly Cedric Bixler from the Mars Volta), Matt does have a certain 'presence' on stage. I can see how you compare him to the early rock performers, he could have almost been plucked from the 50's/60's.

The bands that I think most message boarders say influence them are Talking Heads and the Cars. Matt has also said that Roxy Music and the Kinks (obviously) are big influences.

Pere Ubu is a biggie as well...

He also likes to watch women pee.

Who doesn't?