This nine-year-old YouTuber’s commitment to his music made Tool’s popular American guitarist Adam Jones notice
This nine-year-old YouTuber’s commitment to music made popular American guitarist Adam Jones notice
Imagine a five-year-old slapping her tiny toy guitar, dancing around the house, listening to heavy metal. This is Maya Neelkanthan. Now nine years old, Maya has replaced toy guitars with five real guitars and has expanded styles thereby becoming a popular face on social media.
But for this self-taught metal guitarist, it’s all about the music, “Music takes me to a different place. Far away from life I can just go to my area. And that’s what I like.”
Watch Maya’s game descended by tool here:
Maya started learning the nuances of guitar by watching YouTube videos. “She communicates her thoughts in every video. I just do the recording there and wonder how he has so many processes going on in his mind. It is not just sitting and playing guitar, it is beyond that,” says her father, Neelakantan.
Shooting to fame after his cover version of American rock band Tool’s ‘7empest’, his fondness for music has only grown over the years. Maya posted her rendition of Thrash Metal, Tool and Carnatic music. She recently started learning Carnatic music from R Prasanna, better known as Guitar Prasanna, a pioneer in performing Carnatic on guitar.
“One day I saw a video of Guitar Prasanna on YouTube. I didn’t know you could play it on guitar. I wanted to play Carnatic music from there. Gets very emotional. I have not experienced this with other music,” says Maya.
Watch Maya playing Vijayambake here:
In the eyes of Tool’s Adam Jones, it was probably his impeccable style.
The legendary guitarist started following the budding musician on Instagram. Maya reached out to him,” he replied back saying how much he enjoys my cover. And he got a little emotional seeing my ‘7empest’ and strangled her,” Maya says, rather excitedly.
Watch Maya speak about that experience here:
Adam recently sent her a personalized Gibson Les Paul Custom Silverburst guitar. Maya recalled opening the gift, “When I got the guitar, I couldn’t explain the feeling of seeing an Adam Jones guitar in front of me. He even made a skull doodle on it. It’s the best moment of my life so far!”
Where does Maya go from here? “Maybe a band with my little brother,” she signs off.