Musician plays Red Hot Chili Peppers on a bunch of red (presumably hot) chili peppers

Tyzo Bloom connected the peppers to a synthesizer to make his instrument

By Reid McCarter  |  September 7, 2021 | 7:30pm
Music Features Peppers
Musician plays Red Hot Chili Peppers on a bunch of red (presumably hot) chili peppers
Anthony Kiedis stares in wonder at his new bandmates. Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer

In 2017, bass maestro/YouTuber Davide “Davie504" Biale played a collection of Red Hot Chili Peppers songs using an actual red hot chili pepper in place of his fingers. This, we’ve assumed for years now, represented the height of novelty food-related Chili Peppers musical performances.

Until today.

Musician Tyzo Bloom (AKA Casey Chen) has gone a step further than Davie504 by using a bunch of actual chili peppers to play “Can’t Stop” without a bass or a guitar to help out along the way. Bloom connected 6 peppers to a computer using Makey Makey, a toy that lets any conductive object turn into a controller capable of playing electronic samples when pressed. In a video of his performance, Bloom starts out playing the track’s guitar intro by rhythmically tapping the peppers then transitions into a xylophone-style melody that follows its vocals.

This Chili Peppers on chili peppers video is only the latest in Bloom’s catalog of extremely literal covers. He’s also played Drake’s “Passionfruit” on passion fruit and, over on Instagram, everything from The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” on light bulbs, Gorillaz’ “Feel Good Inc.” on jars of Gorilla Glue to M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on actual paper planes and Florence + The Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over” on frozen hot dogs.

These videos are all entertaining enough, though we can only enjoy them while hoping that Bloom has enough restraint not to take the gimmick too far. God forbid he starts making covers of songs by The Animals by clipping wires onto cats and dogs or performs “My Heart Will Go On” by running up to Celine Dion herself and covering her in electrodes.

[via Rolling Stone]

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