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A single violin turns a Bangkok sidewalk into a arena-rock stage.
American violinist Rob Landes set up his acoustic-electric violin and a loop pedal on a crowded Bangkok street and, in real time, rebuilt Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” from scratch — percussion, bassline, chords, melody, all off one instrument. Passersby who started out walking past ended up stopping cold, phones out, as the layers stacked into a full band sound. The clip is the latest entry in Landes’ catalog of street-level performances that trade the concert hall for whatever corner will draw a crowd.
- Landes built the entire arrangement live using only an electric-acoustic violin and a multitrack loop pedal, layering percussive body taps, low-register basslines, pizzicato motifs, and looped chords before playing the vocal melody on top.
- Born in Orem, Utah, he started violin at age three, trained classically at Brigham Young University and Rice University, and previously soloed with orchestras including the Utah Symphony before shifting into pop and rock crossover covers.
- Landes has already won “Best Instrumental” at the Utah Music Awards for a looped rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” the same layering technique on display in the Bangkok “Radioactive” cover.
Building a Band Out of One Violin
Landes doesn’t play “Radioactive” the way it sounds on Imagine Dragons’ 2013 recording — he engineers it, one loop at a time. He starts by tapping a rhythm directly onto the body of the violin to lay down a drum pattern, then loops a low pizzicato bassline underneath it. From there he layers harmonic chord progressions, and only after the groove is fully built does he pick up the bow to play the song’s soaring vocal line and toss in improvisational flourishes over the top.
It’s a construction process the crowd can watch happen in real time, which is part of what stops foot traffic on a busy Bangkok street corner. There’s no backing track, no other musicians — just a loop pedal capturing each pass and stacking it under the next.
Classical Chops Meet Street Busking
Landes’ training is old-school. He picked up the violin at three years old in Orem, Utah, and went on to earn degrees at Brigham Young University and Rice University, performing with symphonies before he ever touched a loop pedal. That background shows up in the phrasing and intonation even when the material is a Grammy-nominated rock single instead of a concerto.
Percussion, bassline, chords, and melody — all off one violin, built loop by loop in front of a crowd that had no idea what it was walking into.
His pivot from symphony stages to busking videos has become his signature: taking an instrument built for concert halls and dropping it into subway platforms, plazas, and, in this case, a Bangkok sidewalk, then letting the technology do the heavy lifting a full band would normally provide.
From Utah Music Awards to Bangkok Sidewalks
Landes’ looping method isn’t new to his catalog — it’s the same approach that earned him the “Best Instrumental” trophy at the Utah Music Awards for his cover of “Hallelujah.” The Bangkok “Radioactive” performance shows the same trick applied to a much higher-tempo, percussion-heavy track, which raises the technical bar considerably since the loop pedal has to keep every rhythmic layer locked in time as he adds more on top.
As a digital creator with an established online following, Landes has built a niche around exactly this kind of clip — full pop or rock arrangements condensed onto a single acoustic-electric violin, filmed wherever a crowd happens to gather.
Landes has spent his post-Rice career chasing this same setup — one violin, one loop pedal, one unsuspecting crowd — from Salt Lake City sidewalks to street corners overseas, and the Bangkok “Radioactive” take is just the latest city added to that list.
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