WATCH: Seattle-area drummer boy in Michael Jackson tribute video
Four years ago a kid in Sammamish started playing a unique kind of instrument.
The washing machine. Which, it turns out, is like a drum kit with a spin cycle.
At 10, Jonathan Carollo became a viral YouTube sensation. Now he’s back with a new video.
Jonathan uses every part of the Washington machine to make different sounds.
“The side here sounds like a bass drum. And inside it has a different sound to it.”
The agitator has a more hollow sound. And he says the lid is his cymbal. Put it all together and you end up with this. . .
Jonathan says he started playing the washing machine out of boredom.
“I had to think of something to do and my creativeness just blew up I guess,” he says.
Yeah it blew up. That YouTube video has been seen three million times. Jonathan says he was surprised when he found out he had gone viral.
“I didn’t think anything like that would happen,” he says. “I just posted it on Facebook. One of my relatives, he’s like, ‘Oh you should put that on YouTube; it’d go viral.”
Four years since the video was posted, Jonathan has been invited to play at a national laundry industry convention . . . and got to play with the New York cast of STOMP after their Broadway musical production. It features people playing everyday objects like pots and pans.
“They saw my video and they liked it and so they wanted me to come down and I got to see their show.”
Now Jonathan is featured in a new video of child prodigies performing their version of Michael Jackson’s Heal the World. You’ve got kids singing, playing violin, the harp, another kid really rocking it out on an electric guitar, and then there’s Carollo, standing in front of Sammamish City Hall with his washing machine.
“I thought that was pretty cool because I was the only one who wasn’t playing an actual instrument.”
Jonathan isn’t just playing the washing machine these days. He’s also playing a real drum kit and taking lessons. He just started his freshman year of high school and is looking forward to band.
“I’m in the jazz band in my school,” he says. “Well, I haven’t auditioned yet, but I’m pretty sure I’ll make it.”
