“Bohemian Rhapsody.” You have heard it butchered at countless karaoke nights and, thanks to Wayne’s World, you will always bang your head like a doofus whenever the guitar solo notches up the rockin’. But unless you were tuned into KHUM last Saturday, you probably have not heard Queen’s signature composition banged enthusiastically out on a one-of-a-kind instrument made of twisting PVC pipes. Prepare to do the Fandango like you never have. 

First year Dell’Arte student Kent Jenkins (aka “Snubby J”) is the inventor of the RimbaTube, a finely tuned series of tightly packed PVC pipes that produce tonal thuds when whacked with specially made paddles. It’s like a marimba made by bored plumbers. The Portland native spoke of his motivations for crafting the instrument last week during an interview with KHUM’s Bayley Brown.  

“I was inspired by the Blue Man Group,” Jenkins said. “They’ve got these pipe instruments in their show and I think it’s just the coolest thing so I decided to take it a step further, set it up like a piano and create my own music and play a lot of recognizable stuff.”

The RimbaTube!

Prior to his big break on Humboldt County radio, Jenkins achieved some level of YouTube success — one video on his channel is approaching nine million views while a handful of others have broken the million mark. Also, before making Blue Lake his home, Jenkins auditioned in front of Piers Morgan, Sharon Osbourne and Howie Mandel during the Portland auditions for America’s Got Talent. Oh, and a Pringles commercial.

Maybe you are screaming at this blog post “Hey, I want a RimbaTube so I can show America how talented I am!” Well, sit tight. As he noted on KHUM, Jenkins is taking steps to unleash his creation on the masses. 

“I think I just got the trademark, too, for it, which is pretty cool,” Jenkins said. He’s still trying to figure out how to mass produce the instrument. It took him and his father around three months to build their first RimbaTube back in 2007. The model in the video above was birthed in 2010. Getting the tuning right is “pretty crazy” according to Jenkins and entails hours and hours of painstakingly cutting off tiny slivers of the piping.

“Thankfully, once it’s cut and set, it’s done,” Jenkins said. 

If you need more RimbaTube in your life feel free to check out Snubby J’s entire KHUM performance below.