In a recent interview with Chaoszine, Mammoth WVH frontman Wolfgang Van Halen disclosed his thoughts on AI being used in music and revealed whether he would license his voice to AI. Wolfgang was asked if he would consider making music or creating an album by using AI, to which he responded with:
“Not generative AI. Generative AI is dumb when it comes to music. I think that was a big misconception in this day and age with social media one-liners, or you can’t really tell the whole story.”
Mentioning Paul McCartney’s use of AI for a new Beatles song, he told:
“I think that the whole thing that came out with Paul McCartney using AI on this new Beatles thing, and it’s like everybody was trying to make it seem like he was using generative AI, making a fake John Lennon sing, which wasn’t what they were doing. They were using a thing to separate his vocals from an old demo. But of course, nobody reads the article, they just read the tweet, and they get pissed off without even informing themselves. Big surprise.”
Wolfgang is aware that while AI can be useful at times, it has limitations since it is created by humans. He further stated:
“But I think in applications like that, it can be helpful, but it can’t replace our brains and our creativity. They wouldn’t exist without us. So the only thing they can do is take what we’ve done and shuffle it up.”
Wolfgang was later asked if he would license his voice as M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold did. He replied:
“That’s really f*cking stupid. They are cool, but that’s dumb. No, I mean, I would make the dumbest sh*t possible, that’d be really funny. Actually, I’m gonna find out, see if I can make just a dumb [song]. That’s really funny.”
As stated above, McCartney used AI to separate Lennon’s voice from a demo for a new Beatles song, and similarly, M. Shadows, too, stated that he would love for his voice to be cloned using AI and even thinks it’s ‘kind of cool’.
Wolfgang, McCartney, and M. Shadows were not the only people to state their opinions about AI. Liam Gallagher, Joe Bonamassa, and Grimes are among the names to have spoken up about artificial intelligence.
See the interview down below.