Once upon a time bands could only dream of Apple using their song in a global commercial.

However, West London girl band The Mentalists have taken matters into their own hands, using their iPhones to cover MGMT's "Kids".

A video of the unsigned band performing the song on instruments downloaded from the iPhone App Store is quickly going viral, spurred on by coverage on CNET.com, Wired, and The Telegraph, amongst other outlets.



Viewed almost 190,000 times, as of this morning, the clip shows the four band members covering the song using the super cheap Ocarina app by Smule, miniSynth by Yonec, Retro Synth by Iconic Apps, and the free to download DigiDrummer Lite by Magnus Larsson and Nick Rudolfsky.

Singer Kim-Leigh Pontin, the self-described geekiest of the four ("I'm really a want-to-be geek. Is that worse?"), explained that the band stumbled across the idea while messing around with their iPhones, and explains that the only problems they "sometimes" encountered were tiny delays between pressing the 'key' and the note sounding.

The developers say this "software latency issue" is constantly being improved, and while they're not involved with the band in any way, they're naturally thrilled to have their software demonstrated like this.

I'm sure Apple isn't complaining either. The Mentalists have released one single so far (below), via the iTunes store no less, after forming three years ago through an ad in the NME.

Now Apple just needs to sign The Mentalists up for a lucrative commercial, demonstrating the iPhones ability to make music, not just play it.

[And as a colleague says, "if this is the future then kill me now". - Ed]