Famed Musicians Weigh In on AI-Generated Music

Photo from Riot Fest by Tim Toomey on Unsplash

With the very recent controversy surrounding the possible release of AI-generated recordings of deceased Small Faces and Humble Pie singer Steve Marriott, it has become apparent that a tipping point in the evolution of music has been reached and breached. As the old joke goes, the difference between a drum machine and a drummer is that you only need to punch the information into a drum machine once. But in the year 2024, could it be possible that overnight, computers might make redundant numerous people who have spent years studiously honing their craft in studios and on stages, lips raw from mouthpieces, fingers callused from being rammed against piano keys or pressed against strings, often for little pay? 

With that in mind, I approached some professional musicians to gather their perspectives on this thorny issue. Quotes have been edited for clarity.

Ricky Warwick, former lead singer and rhythm guitarist for Thin Lizzy:

“[Artificial intelligence] is not going to affect me because I’m not going to change what I’ve been doing. I’ve been recording and playing the same way for thirty-five years. But I don’t object to change. Change is inevitable. It happens. [But] music is about playing from the soul, and the human spirit, that can never be replaced no matter what you try to replace it with, especially with this fuckin’ shit [that’s been out lately]. It’s soulless and it’s banal because people are using shortcuts and they’re using machines, and you don’t get the magic anymore.”

Steve Grantley, drummer for Stiff Little Fingers:

“I think [artificial intelligence] is going to change things beyond everybody’s comprehension. We don’t even know how drastically it will change right now. It will be beyond our comprehension. So, in the future, kids will go, ‘Oh, you know, people used to write songs. Not machines. Don’t you know that was written by a man?!’ It will be beyond our comprehension how much it takes over…I think that if people can make money off of [AI-generated recordings of dead artists], they’ll do it. It will be completely financial. I think there’s going to be films with Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen and Bruce Lee all in the same film. [The producers] will just have to contact their estates and they’ll make these films and you’ll feel like you’re watching Marilyn Monroe and Bruce Lee in the same film, people will accept it, and it will change everything beyond belief. Once the human touch has been taken out of the equation for say, fifty or sixty years, kids and people won’t care anymore. It’s a bit like when we all rode around on horses, you know, and then suddenly, the car comes along, and all those people that used to shoe the horses and all that stuff, they were all put out of work. And all of the factories that had people spraying cars and stuff, they all got sacked and now computers do it. It’s just the future and you can’t stop it. The genie’s out of the bottle and you can’t put it back.”

Ian McCallum, rhythm guitarist for Stiff Little Fingers:

“Music’s already fucked up enough with computers and shit. It doesn’t really matter. People don’t… Music doesn’t really exist anymore. There’s no such thing as fuckin’ people with acoustic guitars fuckin’ writin’ songs. It doesn’t much matter. We all use technology to some extent. But AI is like something that fuckin’ takes it away from bein’ anything.”

Chris Wilson, former singer and guitarist for the Flamin’ Groovies:

“Holy Hannah, don’t get me started on AI! They done screwed the pooch on that one. There are many telltale signs when you hear or see an A-UN-I as I call ‘em. The dead eyes, when they speak words that are spelled the same but different meanings and pronunciations! They can’t do it. It’s the end of the world as we know it. Music will probably be one of the first casualties. It’s going down in flames already, and the FLAMES AIN’T GROOVY!”

Ted Falconi, guitarist for Flipper:

“A computer doesn’t play itself. Someone has to set the program up. So it would be ‘so n so’ played by ‘so n so’ whether a computer or a person…If the [AI-generated] recording [of a deceased artist] goes into the dollar bin or sells gold, only time will tell. I would imagaine that a lot of [Steve Marriott’s family, colleagues and contemporaries] were more concerned that a computer would co-opt the original music and not be an interpretation of the music.”

Ricky Maymi, musician and producer:

“Ain’t no amount of AI gonna bring you anything like Melvin van Peebles or Johnny Guitar Watson. I suppose I’d have to hear the results, but I reckon it’s in fairly poor taste [to use AI to generate new recordings of dead artists] on the whole. Don’t you? I don’t need to hear fake John Lennon. Maybe some cyborg might in a hundred years though. Who cares? Ha!”

Tina Fagnani, drummer for Frightwig:

“Music is energy. It has a resonance to it, it has a frequency, you know? Our hearts emit electromagnetic frequencies and acoustic instruments give the frequency life. If AI gets involved, you know, we lose the feeling, we lose the soul of the music, I think. It can give us ideas, you know? You can put in something and say, ‘Hey, what would you do here? What would you do there?” and it would give you an idea, but, it’s still…you know, music is as old as we are. It’s a vibration and I don’t think that AI can understand that. But, you know, we’ll see what happens. So far it hasn’t been so great, ha ha ha! And I don’t believe in autotuning! Learn how to sing that shit right!”

Despite recent developments, it seems as though musicians who care about the quality and authenticity of the craft will stubbornly push back against the very idea of using artificial intelligence to create music, no matter how inevitable the total automation and mechanization thereof may be. Hopefully, this idea will survive for generations to come, regardless of whether or not the day arrives when every song played on Top 40 radio is AI-generated.

By James Conrad.