{"id":37968,"date":"2024-07-05T11:40:31","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T15:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=37968"},"modified":"2024-07-05T11:40:31","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T15:40:31","slug":"americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;America&#8217;s Got Talent&#8217; Judges Blown Away by 10-Year-Old&#8217;s Metal Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_37986\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37986\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/07\/Guitarist-Maya-Neelakantan_credit-Americas-Got-Talent-YouTube.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-37986\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/07\/Guitarist-Maya-Neelakantan_credit-Americas-Got-Talent-YouTube.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37986\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Americas Got Talent \/ YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The judges of &#8220;America&#8217;s Got Talent&#8221; continue to be blown away as each contestant graces the stage. In a recent episode, judges Simon Cowell, Sofia Vergara, Heidi Klum and Howie Mandel were shocked when 10-year-old Maya Neelakantan performed Papa Roach&#8217;s hit &#8220;Last Resort&#8221; on her electric guitar. The young girl, originally from India, began the song a bit slower, paying homage to her Indian roots, before she rocked out to the heavy metal tune.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0HcZEfFInLU?si=MFy_08fVyURu8991\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>After finishing her performance, she received a standing ovation from the audience as well as all four judges. &#8220;Are you sure you&#8217;re 10 years old?&#8221; Vergara asked in awe. &#8220;Your energy, your confidence. A perfect audition. Amazing.&#8221; Howie Mandel asked the 10-year-0ld, &#8220;Who inspired you?&#8221; She responded saying, &#8220;Alex Jones from Tool and Gary Holt, the guitarist from Exodus and Slayer.&#8221; &#8220;Well, I think you just picked yourself up a viral moment,&#8221; Mandel added. Judge Heidi Klum shared her thoughts, saying \u00a0&#8220;Everyone in this room loved what you just did. You should be very proud of yourself.&#8221; Simon Cowell shared his disbelief saying, &#8220;You know what I love about this audition? You just weren&#8217;t expecting this. You were so shy, and you&#8217;re 10! And then you turned into, like, this rock goddess.&#8221; He added, &#8220;That is the beginning of a career, which I always say, \u2018Make noise among the noise.\u2019 And you just did that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Backstage before her audition, Neelakanten was shared what inspired her and how she got into playing guitar at such a young age. She revealed that her father played the instrument as a hobby and encouraged her to teach herself how to play at the age of six. When asked what her biggest dream is, Neelakantan said, \u201cMy biggest dream is to create my own music. So, I\u2019m just gonna go, and I\u2019m gonna play it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The judges of &#8220;America&#8217;s Got Talent&#8221; continue to be blown away as each contestant graces the stage. In a recent episode, judges Simon Cowell, Sofia Vergara, Heidi Klum and Howie Mandel were shocked when 10-year-old Maya Neelakantan performed Papa Roach&#8217;s hit &#8220;Last Resort&#8221; on her electric guitar. The young girl, originally from India, began the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":37986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;America&#039;s Got Talent&#039; Judges Blown Away by 10-Year-Old&#039;s Metal Performance<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"10-year-old Maya Neelakantan shocked judges with her guitar skills.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;America&#039;s Got Talent&#039; Judges Blown Away by 10-Year-Old&#039;s Metal Performance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"10-year-old Maya Neelakantan shocked judges with her guitar skills.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-07-05T15:40:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/07\/Guitarist-Maya-Neelakantan_credit-Americas-Got-Talent-YouTube.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Leigh Pizzutilla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"'America's Got Talent' Judges Blown Away by 10-Year-Old's Metal Performance","description":"10-year-old Maya Neelakantan shocked judges with her guitar skills.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"'America's Got Talent' Judges Blown Away by 10-Year-Old's Metal Performance","og_description":"10-year-old Maya Neelakantan shocked judges with her guitar skills.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2024-07-05T15:40:31+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/07\/Guitarist-Maya-Neelakantan_credit-Americas-Got-Talent-YouTube.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Leigh Pizzutilla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html","name":"'America's Got Talent' Judges Blown Away by 10-Year-Old's Metal Performance","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/07\/Guitarist-Maya-Neelakantan_credit-Americas-Got-Talent-YouTube.jpg","datePublished":"2024-07-05T15:40:31+00:00","dateModified":"2024-07-05T15:40:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a"},"description":"10-year-old Maya Neelakantan shocked judges with her guitar skills.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/07\/Guitarist-Maya-Neelakantan_credit-Americas-Got-Talent-YouTube.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/07\/Guitarist-Maya-Neelakantan_credit-Americas-Got-Talent-YouTube.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Americas Got Talent \/ YouTube"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/americas-got-talent-judges-blown-away-by-10-year-olds-metal-performance.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"&#8216;America&#8217;s Got Talent&#8217; 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