Layla Clark, 17, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School in Jefferson Hills, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, has become an internet sensation for her performance of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" with the school's Jaguar Marching Band during the 2025 football season.
The video shows Clark rapidly striking the wooden bars of her marimba, recreating the song's iconic opening guitar riff before the rest of the marching band joins in.
Although the performance was recorded more than a year ago, it exploded across social media after Ronnie Evans shared the clip on X on Friday, Oct. 30.
"I have an agent who's single purpose is to wake me up with something fun every morning," Evans wrote. "today it sent me this. A+"
His post surpassed 5.5 million views, while additional reposts brought the performance to millions more.
The original viral post can be viewed here.
'Mom, I'm Going Viral Again'
This wasn't Clark's first brush with internet fame.
Her mother, Christine Clark, originally shared a video of the performance on TikTok in 2025, where it attracted nearly 4 million views.
During that performance, Clark played so forcefully that the ball of one of her mallets actually popped off, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
But the latest wave of attention was something else entirely.
As the video spread over Halloween weekend, Clark began receiving messages from friends and classmates who had spotted her performance online.
Around 3 a.m., she texted her mother with the news that she was going viral again, the newspaper reported.
The clip eventually reached celebrities, musicians, and sports personalities, including Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
"I just found out getting on the bus today that Taylor Swift's husband (Travis Kelce) reposted my video and was talking about me, so that's exciting," Clark told WTAE on Friday, Nov. 6.
Composer John Mackey also praised her performance on Threads, calling her a "ROCK STAR."
Hours Of Practice Behind The Viral Moment
Despite making the notoriously difficult guitar riff look effortless, Clark said learning the song was anything but easy.
"It took forever to learn the song," she told WTAE. "I'm going to be really honest. I don't even have it perfected yet."
The performance was part of the marching band's 2025 rock-themed show, which also included AC/DC's "Back in Black" and Metallica's "Enter Sandman."
Clark practiced for hours at home using a miniature glockenspiel, an instrument with much smaller bars than her marimba.
Her mother told the Post-Gazette that practicing on the smaller instrument helped make the full-sized instrument easier to play.
Clark also emphasized that she wasn't performing alone. Five members of the band's mallet percussion section worked together to recreate the opening before the rest of the musicians joined in.
The attention has been especially meaningful for the teenager, who initially joined the band as a shy student.
"I wouldn't be the same without my band. I'd probably still be, like, the super shy, nervous kid," Clark told WTAE. "I couldn't have done any of this without them."
From Rock Star To Veterinarian?
Despite her newfound musical fame, Clark has no plans to make rock music her career.
Instead, she hopes to become a veterinarian specializing in exotic animals.
She has already been accepted into Ursuline College in Ohio for its pre-veterinary program and has expressed interest in eventually attending Ohio State University, where she dreams of joining the university's marching band.
Thomas Jefferson High School Principal Pete Murphy praised both Clark and the attention her performance has brought to the school's music program.
"We are extremely proud of Layla and excited to see her receive this well-deserved recognition," Murphy told KDKA Radio.
"It has been a lot of fun watching a performance from our 2025 marching band season gain so much attention more than a year later."
For Clark, the best part isn't necessarily the millions of views.
It's knowing that something she loves doing with her friends has made so many people happy.
"From what I've seen, people say it makes them happy," she told CBS Pittsburgh when asked why she thought the performance had become so popular.
And more than a year after she first played those famous opening notes, the internet still can't get enough.
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