An 11-year-old guitarist has wowed the judges on TV talent show America’s Got Talent with her incredible performance of Metallica’s Master of Puppets, and gone viral in the process.
The young shredder is Maya Neelakantan and whilst she got through her audition with a rendition of Last Resort by Papa Roach, for the quarter finals she turned her attention to a thrash metal classic.
She was accompanied by a full band and was playing a Gibson Dave Mustaine Flying V Exp in a silver finish, a nod perhaps to Mustaine’s early stint in the group. And she knocked it out of the park. She even switched effects and used a Neural DSP Quad Cortex to make her guitar sound like a sitar, a little homage, maybe, to her Tamil heritage.
Cue a standing ovation and much praise from the judges. The comedian and actor Howie Mandel said, “That was like Van Halen reincarnated. You're amazing on that thing. And not only that, but you were mixing it in with your culture, like a sitar making it sound like a guitar, and your smile, it doesn't end. You wouldn't think it would come from you. You are a surprise. You're amazing and I love you.”
Heidi Klum added, “You are amazing. You're perfect. You're perfectly you. I love that you didn't pick dolls. Maybe you have, but you picked this instrument instead.”
Even Simon Cowell was impressed, saying “That was wild... I gotta say a big, big thank you to Metallica for giving you that song. That doesn't happen very often. I just think you're one of these people that has a God-given talent and it's always brilliant to be surprised.”
Sadly, despite all the praise Maya’s performance wasn’t enough to get her into the semi-finals.
This surely won’t be the last we hear of her though. Maya has already been hanging out with some premier league guitarists. Gary Holt, of Exodus and Slayer fame, flew down to Los Angeles to cheer Maya on at her audition earlier this year. And you may remember that after her incredible Youtube performance of Tool’s 7empest went viral in 2022, none other than Adam Jones who played on the original, gifted Maya his signature Gibson Les Paul. Maya described it as “the biggest day of my life.”
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