High school is a place where you put in the time and energy to become the person you want to be in life. Many are able to exhibit this through sports and intellectual activities. While others, like these four young teenagers at Becker High School in Minnesota, decide to demonstrate their skills and abilities through their school’s talent show in 2009.

Jordan Maiers (guitar and vocals), Luke O’Neil (lead guitarist), Cody Sakry (bass), and Mark Peterson (drums), wanted to fuse their love for heavy metal music by performing the song Fade to Black from the 1980s band Metallica. They named their band “John Wilkes Tooth and The Plaque Assassins,” which was inspired by the late President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin.

The heavy metal genre requires an intricate understanding of timing, note progressions, and a level of singing that takes a great deal of time to fully master. Yet with only two weeks before the talent show, this band spent each day practicing to perfect their skills.

After setting up their gear and instruments, the boys played a few notes to psyche themselves up before their performance. Jordan, Luke, and Cody began to slowly play a few rhythmic notes of the song, showing off their strumming skills. Mark eventually came in with his drum beats to help piece the music together.

They are off to a great start, sounding just as good as the original band. Each performer is on point with their chord transitions and timing. The amount of time they took to practice can be seen in just the first few minutes of playing.

Metallica’s vocalist has a raspy, throaty sound when he sang the song. Jordan, however, took his own approach and produced a soothing melody that everyone in the gym could enjoy.

There is a great deal of guitar shredding in this song and both Jordan and Luke did a great job in showing off their skills. Cody performed just as well with his bass play. And Mark did exceptionally well by giving the rest of the band the right beats to rock to as they each played their part.

They were very well coordinated and came in on the right cues throughout the entire song. Overall, this amateur metal band exceeded expectations. Even though they placed second, their performance received rounding applause from their schoolmates. The person recording their act posted it on YouTube where they received even more praise.

The video reached over six million views and the band members were given helpful tips and compliments to improve upon before their next performance. They had some minor mistakes here and there but overall, they did well with only two weeks of practice.

Jordan, Luke, Cody and Mark trained and focused themselves for two weeks before their performance. The amount of talent they have proves that anyone can succeed in life if you just stay disciplined. They did a great job in performing Fade to Black and should be proud of themselves.

After watching the video, what do you think about the John Wilkes Tooth and The Plaque Assassins act? What kind of improvements do you think they should make? Leave your opinion in the comments. Make sure to let your friends and family read this post so they can give their critique of the band.