This is pretty bloody special.
Tool guitarist Adam Jones has gifted a 9-year-old fan his signed Gibson Signature 1979 Les Paul Custom guitar, after seeing a video of her impressively covering Tool’s track ‘7empest’ on her own guitar.
9-year-old Maya Neelakantan has been uploading guitar covers on YouTube for the last year, mainly covering thrash metal, traditional carnatic music and Tool songs. Three months ago, she uploaded a guitar cover of her favourite Tool song, the nearly-16-minute-long track ‘7empest.’
In the caption of the video, she wrote:
“I feel Adam Jones, my favourite guitarist, really shines throughout the song,” - and boy she was right. She absolutely nailed all of the melodies and solos on the mammoth Fear Inoculum track.
She’s definitely got some chops.
In a video uploaded to Maya’s YouTube channel over the weekend, we get to see the youngster’s reaction to receiving Adam Jones’ guitar - and it’s pretty epic to watch.
Maya immediately recognises what's in the box, and is absolutely ecstatic to see her favourite guitarists’ guitar sitting in her bedroom.
"He actually messaged me a while ago saying that he does have a gift for me, but I never expected it to be something like this," she said, hugging the instrument. "Thank you so much, Adam Jones. This is really the biggest moment of my life!"
Maya’s Dad also took to reddit to express his gratitude towards Jones' gift for his daughter. He wrote:
“For Maya, Adam Jones is the God! Ever since she started listening to Tool, her love and passion for guitar increased astronomically! It shows in all of her videos. That's all because of Adam Jones.
“She started analysing his music so much, started learning how to use the effects like him, seeing how Adam makes simple sequence of notes sound so beautiful just the way he plays him, how his playing makes Maya transcend to a journey, Adam is the biggest inspiration for her!
“And now receiving this beautiful, thoughtful and very very generous gift from Adam, it has changed her life even more!”
What a legend.
