Watch: TESTAMENT joined by 11-year-old viral rock sensation MAYA NEELAKANTAN at Las Vegas concert
16-09-2024
11-year-old guitarist Maya Neelakantan from Chennai, India, who has gone viral for her “America’s Got Talent” audition, joined TESTAMENT on stage last weekend (Friday, September 13) at the House Of Blues in Las Vegas, Nevada to perform the TESTAMENT song “Curse Of The Legions Of Death (C.O.T.L.O.D.)” Fan-filmed video of her appearance is now available.
Watch the footage below.
After the concert, Maya shared a backstage photo of her with TESTAMENT and she included the following message: “Just played with TESTAMENT on stage now!!! It was incredible playing with all of them, playing to a metalhead crowd for the first time and meeting Eric Peterson, Alex Skolnick, Chuck Billy, Chris Dovas, Steve DiGiorgio and the amazing TESTAMENT crew too. It was all such an incredible experience and I loved hanging with the band as well as jamming with them on stage!!!! So unforgettable! Thank you so much TESTAMENT for giving the amazing opportunity and for always being so kind and supportive to me right from the beginning!!!!”
Last month, Neelakantan went viral again for her rendition of METALLICA‘s “Master Of Puppets” at the “America’s Got Talent” quarterfinals. The young guitarist had previously covered PAPA ROACH‘s “Last Resort” in front of a packed live audience at the “America’s Got Talent” auditions.
Maya recently hung out with SLAYER and EXODUS guitarist Gary Holt. In addition, TOOL guitarist Adam Jones gifted her one of his own signature Gibson Les Pauls after coming across her rendition of TOOL‘s 16-minute masterpiece “7empest”. In 2023 she went viral after playing a mashup of 22 TOOL songs all in one take.
“I have been listening to SLAYER, METALLICA, SLIPKNOT, EXODUS and LAMB OF GOD ever since I was two years old,” she said. “I loved thrash metal because of how energetic it sounded. Every time it was playing, I always jumped up and down.”
As for how she envisions her own music, Maya said: “My dream is to create a genre of my own. Something that merges all of my musical interests together. It’ll be a combination of extreme thrash metal and intricate Carnatic music in its traditional form. And it will be something as crafted as TOOL music.”
Earlier ths month TESTAMENT announced they have tapped Swedish producer Jens Bogren, who has previously worked with OPETH, KREATOR, PARADISE LOST, SOILWORK and AMON AMARTH, among others, to mix their upcoming studio album. The LP will mark TESTAMENT‘s follow-up to 2020’s “Titans Of Creation”, which was co-produced by Juan Urteaga, who previously worked with TESTAMENT on “Dark Roots Of Earth” (2012) and “Brotherhood Of The Snake” (2016).
TESTAMENT guitarist and main songwriter Eric Peterson discussed the band’s upcoming album in a new interview with Brutal Planet Magazine. He said: “It’s, like, 90 percent done. And it’s gonna get mixed in December by Jens Bogren. He’s a producer from Sweden, and he’s done — God, he’s done KREATOR, he’s doing the new BEHEMOTH right now, he’s done IN FLAMES, ARCH ENEMY. A lot of European bands. We usually work with Andy Sneap, but he’s the touring guitarist in JUDAS PRIEST and he’s just, like, ‘Bro, I need some time off.’ It’s a good switch, though. I think Jens will do a good job. And yeah, there’s a lot of crazy stuff on this record. I’m excited for everybody to hear it.”
Last month, TESTAMENT singer Chuck Billy told Oran O’Beirne of Overdrive.ie about the progress of the recording sessions for the band’s follow-up to “Titans Of Creation”: “Eric and Chris (Dovas, TESTAMENT drummer) have been working together since around November. And we had a few shows thrown in there early in the year. We got into the studio, I believe, maybe end of April, beginning of May, we started recording ’em, about 11 tracks ready to go. All the music was done and we started the recording process. I still needed to go write some lyrics. We really wanted to get the record done before we came over to Europe (in early July). I have seven tracks finished. Eric has a bunch of guitar tracks. The drums are finished. The only thing left is the bass and Alex (Skolnick, TESTAMENT guitarist), lead-guitar stuff. Between this tour, when we get home in two weeks, we’ll go back in the studio and finish up, continue on, and then we start the American leg with KREATOR and POSSESSED. And then between that break, we’ll try to get everything finished up. Then we go back to Europe, again with KREATOR and ANTHRAX. We plan to, I think, start mixing in December, January. That’s the goal.”
Regarding the musical direction of the new TESTAMENT material, Chuck said: “We always try to outdo ourselves or make a better record or write better songs. It’s always a challenge for ourselves, and I think this time we really took a long time to create the record. We kind of got everybody in the same room to really go through the songs and kind of put their two cents in to the arrangements. I think by having Chris — he’s a younger drummer, a really great drummer — but I think he brought you know a new fire to Eric in the writing process. And I believe because we’re going on 37 years of making records, it’s kind of full circle right now. We’re kind of inspired by new generation, I guess, of music and metal. And Chris is a big part of that. He’s a big fan of that. So I think he inspired Eric just to write some really aggressive, fast, creative riffs. And it really inspired me to really push myself to try to do a little more screaming, death vocals, melodic stuff. We even went as far as writing — I don’t wanna say ‘ballad’, but it’s something really catchy that’s really slow that’s something we haven’t done in over 30 years. So I think just the overall songs and the confidence in the writing this time really is gonna stand out on this record.”
When O’Beirne noted that TESTAMENT continues to “raise the bar” with each successive release, Billy concurred. “It’s true,” he said. “I think since 2000, ‘The Gathering’ record is where I think TESTAMENT kind of had a new life, I’d say the second life TESTAMENT. And then I became ill. And then after that, I didn’t think I was actually gonna be playing music anymore. I just wasn’t the same person. I’d look in the mirror and I didn’t see the same guy. And after I beat it and survived it, I kind of thought, ‘Okay, now it’s time to continue on with life.’ And then shortly after that we had the original lineup reunion. And I think that’s kind of what really set off the new life of TESTAMENT, because we were writing music, jamming with the guys who started it from the beginning and kind of taking the attitude, like, ‘We’re gonna finish this together, what we started.’ But over time, Louie (Clemente, former TESTAMENT drummer) had to drop out ’cause of health reasons; he couldn’t hold the sticks like he used to. So he had to drop out. And then shortly after that Greg (Christian, former TESTAMENT bassist) dropped out. But from then on, I think we’ve just kind of been writing for ourselves, maybe not really caring what necessarily the press thought. You always wanna impress the fans, but we were really writing to make us happy.”
Dovas shared the same pictures on his social media and he added: “New TESTAMENT material in the works! Eric and I have been working hard all week on new ideas. Stoked so far!”
In a 2023 interview with Loud TV, Peterson said that the new TESTAMENT material is shaping up to be “fucking killer.” He added: “I’m a fan. For me, I wouldn’t release anything unless I’m a fan of what I’m doing. I have to get goosebumps. When I hear it, I’m, like, ‘Yeah.’ And then, of course, I play it for friends. A few of them go, ‘Ehh.’ But most of them go, ‘Fuuuck!’ Except Chuck — Chuck goes, ‘Eh.’ And then four years later, he goes, ‘That’s the best song ever. Write more shit like that.’ I’m, like, ‘Yeah, but four years ago you said that sucked.'”
Peterson was also full of praise for Dovas, who officially joined the band last year as the replacement for Lombardo. Eric said: “When we were auditioning for new drummers, his video tape was the number one for me. And then, of course, Dave Lombardo called us, so we just kind of pushed everything aside; we said, ‘Okay, we’ll try Dave.’ And when Dave was, like, ‘Oh, I’ve got this show coming up. I’ve got this show coming up,’ I went back to my videos, and I said, ‘Oh, yeah, this guy.’ I remember the other guys going, ‘Let’s call Paul Bostaph.’ ‘Let’s call John Tempesta.’ And, of course, they would probably do it, but with the stipulation of, like, ‘I can only do this date,’ ‘I can only do this date.’ I called Chris. He was, like, ‘I’m in. I’ll do everything.’ And so we tried him, and were just, like, ‘What?!’ Perfect tempo. Everything correct — bam, bam. Very polite. Really nice guy. I can’t say enough good things about him. He’s just a really good drummer. He’s 24; he’s my son’s age. Young blood back in TESTAMENT. For me, too, he loves black metal, so he was, like, into blast beats. But he also graduated from a school called Berklee. So jazz… He’s very fluent. He’s not, like, ‘Oh, I only know blast beats.’ He knows blues… TESTAMENT‘s really diverse — we have ballads, we have rock songs, we have blast beats. That’s just it — when he came to visit me before this tour, we were rehearsing for the tour but we would go back to my house at night, do some Jager really late at night and just start jamming at my house. And the next morning we were, like, ‘Woah!’ Really cool shit. So I’m excited for the next record. It’s gonna be killer.”
Lombardo, who was the guest drummer on TESTAMENT‘s 1999 studio album “The Gathering”, formally joined the long-running San Francisco Bay Area act in early 2022. The former SLAYER drummer is currently a member of the MISFITS, MR. BUNGLE, EMPIRE STATE BASTARD and SATANIC PLANET, among others. He also played with SUICIDAL TENDENCIES from 2016 up until 2020.
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