I havwe been playing music almost 30 yrs, I have played most style, but consider myself a hard rock/metal/progressive metal bassist. To me, and imo, hard rock groups would be Thin Lizzy, Foghat, ACDC, Guns/Roses, and groups similar, Skynard is southern rock, and the define southern rock, dont know how they made it in hard rock genre/poll? Jethro Tull, they were hard rock with a twist, Auqalung, that song rocks, to me it is all rock. Yes Helter Skelter is harder than free bird, it freaking jams, the guitar sound on that song, is remakable, like I said before if it were not for the Beatles we would not have hard rock, also the Stones they are more bluesy not hard rock just rock.I glad to see there are metal heads here on this board.