In a new interview with Metallerium, Phil Demmel, former guitarist of MACHINE HEAD and VIO-LENCE and now KERRY KING, was asked for his opinion on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the creative industries, including music and art. He responded (transcript by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Well, that’s a difficult question. As far as music goes, I’m not going to use AI in music and I think music should be the natural, pure birth of something. I mean, there are certainly outside influences, but they’re all part of you and they come through you, and it’s not like, ‘Oh, I want you to click this and call this and do blah blah blah.'” As far as art goes, it’s a difficult one for me. I think that kind of artificiality is kind of cheating in terms of making something. I’m not against it, because it’s a common thing. I mean, you see a lot of bands plagiarizing other bands and other people using other things, but to me, it just seems like a little shortcut. So I don’t think I’m going to use it.”
Last September, Queen’s Brian May spoke about the dangers of artificial intelligence in music production, telling Guitar Player magazine: “My biggest concern right now is the artistic sphere. I think by this time next year the situation will be totally different. You won’t know which is on top. You won’t know what’s made by AI and what’s made by humans. It’s all going to become so blurred and so confusing that I think we’ll look back on 2023 as the last year that humans really dominated the music scene. I think it could really get that serious, but I don’t feel any joy. I feel anxiety and I’m prepared to be sad about it.”
“I think there’s going to be a lot of great things that come out of AI because it enhances human problem-solving abilities,” he continued. “But the potential for AI to create evil is obviously very large. And it’s not just about music. Music isn’t going to kill people, but if AI gets involved in politics or different countries taking over the world, people could die. I think it’s very scary overall. It’s a lot more widespread than anyone realizes, or at least I realized.”
May isn’t the only rock musician to have expressed concerns or hopes about the potential risks, challenges, and benefits of widespread artificial intelligence technology. During an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, KISS bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons was asked if he was “excited or worried about artificial intelligence, specifically AI.” [as it relates to] Aside from the music industry, I am concerned about the lack of legislation, as you enter a new, say, new planet, you are trying to land in a new place. [planet]Well, obviously there are opportunities out there. There are opportunities in minerals and all sorts of things. If there are no rules of the game… it’s like playing a sport with no rules. Who’s going to do what? There needs to be rules that are kind and beneficial to humanity, to women, to transgender people, to all kinds of people. OK, does that apply to everyone?
He continued, “The problem with AI is… AI is here, whether we like it or not. So let’s be smart and think about it and make laws. If an AI uses my voice, or a voice that sounds like me, to create a new song, and it sounds like me and it definitely sounds like me. So when you buy that, if an AI created it, who owns the copyright and publishing rights? Is it me because it sounds like me? I can say with certainty that it is me. So these are unknowns.” [territories]”
When asked if AI would be interested in using his voice to create new songs, Gene replied, “We can make a deal.”
In an interview with Canada’s Metal Voice , VOIVOD drummer Michel “Away” Langevin said, “We’re going to try to utilize technology as much as we can. [including] I envy the AI video for the footage and stuff. It would take 3000 years to make every frame. But the thing that scares me the most is AI controlling high tech weapons. That’s what scares me the most. It’s funny, I saw a movie called “Colossus” when I was a kid in the 70s.[: The Forbin Project]”That’s it. A giant American supercomputer teams up with a giant Russian supercomputer. They take control of nuclear weapons and enslave humanity.”
In July 2023, M. Shadows of AVENGED SEVENFOLD appeared on an episode of Doc Coyle’s (GOD FORBID, BAD WOLVES) podcast “The Ex Man” to talk about artificial intelligence. He said: “Looking back, if I was a 41-year-old singer now and I had to think about the past, about music, I think a lot of my favorite artists have beat me and challenged me with their records. I was hopeful and then something would come out and break my heart. I couldn’t believe it. And now I look back, I needed that, I needed to be taught that. And I have so much respect for the artists that did that for me. There were so many things that gave me the same thing. I can’t remember the names now, but there were so many things that challenged me and broke my heart back then. If you go to “Disco Volante” from the first MR. BUNGLE record, Mike Patton’s not even singing. He’s mumbling the whole time. And then you do “California”… I remember Brian. [Haner, Jr., a.k.a. AVENGED SEVENFOLD guitarist Synyster Gates] I was literally depressed when that record came out because the first record was so good, and then it becomes your favorite thing: “These motherfuckers are crazy. They don’t care.”
The singer, whose real name is Matt Sanders, continued: “But what I find interesting about AI is, if you think about what AI is at this point, it’s a collection of everything it’s ever known, so if you say, ‘Make an Avenged Sevenfold song,’ it doesn’t know what to actually make outside the box. [we] They know how to mix and combine things that the AI is trying to do in a different way. So what I think would be amazing is, like, “This new AVENGED album is trash. I don’t get it. I’m sick of all this crap they’re trying to do. Give me this album,” and then I’ll have the AI make it. And then the new AVENGED album will be a mix and combination of what we’ve done before, but with different choruses and different cool bits. I think it’s going to be really interesting. And then the real guys like us will just push what we’re doing even further. I think the future we’re in is going to be really weird. It’s going to be a future where people are like, “Eh, give me more of that.” So who knows what’s going to happen.
In May 2023, when discussing the music industry’s reaction to the proliferation of AI songs trained on artists’ voices on Decrypt’s “gm” podcast, M. Shadows was excited about the potential, saying, “AI could be extremely helpful to songwriters.”
“When you look at music, art, novels, literature, or whatever, just this data brick that’s taking information in some way and spitting it out to us, you’re basically giving everything humans have ever done and discovered into something that can be delivered faster, delivered in a different way, blended together, and performed in a different way,” he explained.
“If you actually look at the music, I don’t think most fans are upset that the drums have all been resampled and replaced,” he continued. “Pro Tools can already quantize your albums and make them perfect. You can autotune your voices and do all this other stuff. But for some reason, they have a problem with… Now, if you think about it, writing music is like going into your own database: ‘I listened to Bach, I listened to The Weeknd, I listened to Kanye, I listened to all this, and now I’m going to spit it out like this, and spit out my own version.'” AI is incredibly useful if it does some of that work for you. You can pick little things that interest you, like, ‘Give me 20 versions of this chord change,’ or, ‘I want to try changing the top line,’ and make something with it. So you can use AI to not only spark ideas, but you can get to those cool little nuggets of gold more quickly, like, ‘Oh, this is cool. Let’s see how far I can take it.'” So it’s not like AI is going to write songs for you, but it’s going to give you a starting point for, ‘Where can I get creative with this?’ I think that’s going to be the next step.”
M. Shadows further noted that AI also opens up the possibility for fans to create their own songs using the work of their favourite artists as a machine learning library.
“What I think is cool is… look, there’s a lot of fans out there who don’t want to hear a new AVENGED SEVENFORD album,” he said. “We’ve been around for 40 years, and we’ve gone in a lot more wacky directions than our fans want, and some of our fans are. They might want alternate versions of our older albums, Waking The Fallen, or City Of Evil. What’s wrong with someone prompting me and saying, ‘Listen to these two albums, and send me this new album with 11 songs?’ If I let go of my voice and I said, ‘Give me my voice,’ an AI will make an album that sounds like that. I think that’s super cool. I think it’s super cool if people get to make AVENGED SEVENFORD sound their own way. You can have the sound that you want and everything. But now you get a different version of the album that you like. So I think there’s something super cool there, and it’s not so crazy or wrong. I’m for that. I think it’s cool. As a human being, I’m going to go my own way and make my own work that I feel is breaking the mold or pushing things forward. I’m giving the AI more data to take it wherever it goes in the future. But I think that’s cool. And I want to let go of my voice so people can make their own versions of our songs or whatever they think is cool.”