Music

These dudes performed Presidents of the U.S.A.'s "Peaches" using actual peaches

by Mark Teo

For a three-piece alt-rock band, the Presidents of the United States of America always had unique instrumentation—they crafted timeless boner jams like “Lump” using an impossibly sparse drum kit, a guitar built like a bass (in PUSA parlance, a “guitbass”), and a bass strung like a guitar (technically, it was an Epiphone bassitar). Odd as those instruments were, though, YouTube user JWKTJE has one-upped the Seattle trio by creating a digital instrument using peaches, which he used to cover—wait for it—the PUSA classic “Peaches.”

So, how does the instrument work? It’s made from peaches, a laptop, and basic electronic circuitry, and an arduino, which is an open-source microcontroller. (The latter of which is used to build interactive environments, like this incredible Tetris table.) Then, he wrote a program that detected when the peaches were touched, and associated each peach with a distinct sound. Then, they covered the Presidents of the United States of America—in a grocery store, naturally.

Pretty impressive, no? If you’re interested in the specifics of the experiment—like the fact that he used peaches from a can (that were put there by a man), a midi shield, and Ableton—check the video below. Or just listen to the original rendition of the song.