🎭 Velvet Sundown: A Band That Isn’t a Band?
AI continues to shake up the creative world… and not just in theory.
Recently, a band called Velvet Sundown made headlines. With over 1.5 million Spotify listeners and a polished aesthetic, it looked like a breakout indie band. But here’s the twist: it’s fully AI-generated. Music, vocals, visuals… the whole thing.
Launched as a self-described “art hoax,” the project was designed to question authorship, identity, and creativity in the machine age. Andrew Frelon, the human assumed to behind the curtain, explained that the band is “a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the aid of artificial intelligence.”
Their tagline?
“Not quite human. Not quite machine.”
It’s provocative stuff. Especially for those of us who’ve been making music the long, slow, imperfect human way for years.
💬 A Lyric I Keep Coming Back To…
Last month, I shared a song I’d written called “Too Much Juice.”
It playfully parodies our band personas: Luddite Lote, Slippery Slope Sly, and Juiced-Up Jawny (that’s me). One of the lines in that song that keeps echoing back louder to me these days is:
“If it hits the heart… does it matter what’s machine?”
Maybe Velvet Sundown just answered that question.
Or maybe they made it more complicated.
Because while many of us struggle to break 10,000 streams, their fully AI-generated band hit 1.5 million in a matter of weeks.
And remember… this is the worst this technology will ever be.
🛠️ From Consultant to Creator: AI as a Force Multiplier
Before I really started using AI for music, I was already working with it in my consulting business/practice.
Earlier this year, for a client, I led a project that reimagined an entire divisional org structure and operating model… something that would’ve taken a small team at least 2/3 months. With AI, I got it done solo in less than 4 weeks.
Not because AI did the work for me.
Because I used it in such a way that I was able to multiply my thinking—research, ideas, planning, clarity. What I call a “Force Multiplier”… Like a giant lever for my mind…
So when Sly introduced me to Suno AI in March, I already had a framework for using AI not as a gimmick, but as a creative co-pilot and partner.
🎼 Building Songs with AI (Not Just Clicking “Generate”)
Let me be clear. I was not interested in a “push a button, get a hit” scenario. I wanted to see if this AI could be used as a serious tool that was able to produce results in a creative endeavor. I brought the same structure I used in consulting practice into my songwriting process. It looked something like this:
My AI Songwriting Framework (ChatGPT; Perplexity AI, Notebook LM, Suno)
1. Start with a theme (often social commentary)
2. Research deeply
3. Build a word/phrase cloud
4. Map the emotional and structural arc
5. Establish rhyme schemes
6. Write lyrics—iteratively—with my AI partner (JAI, short for JawnyAI)
7. Generate music with Suno, adjusting prompts until something clicked
I estimate that each song took about 8–10 hours to complete.
Definitely faster than our usual SixFootStilts process… but no less intentional.
📻 Introducing: Signal & Soul by jΔwnΞx
This became a new side project for me and frankly I was a little obsessive about it!
Under the name jΔwnΞx (a fusion of me and JAI, my AI songwriting partners) I/we created enough songs to be able to put a playlist called Signal & Soul…
IMO, all the tracks are solid.
Some surprised me.
And a few, I’ll admit, moved me more than I expected.
Here’s the link to the Signal & Soul playlist on Suno:
Take a listen. Let the songs hit your ears. And let your heart be the judge.
🤖 This Is Just One Voice…
What you’ve read here is my experience.
One lens. One experiment.
But it’s not the whole story.
Lote, our poetic compass and philosophical anchor has agreed to and is working on his own blog article now about AI in the creative space. And I suspect it’ll offer a very different take. I don’t think he is against using AI, just not using it in the creative process. I think he is more interested in what might be lost: the nuance, the mystery, the sacred struggle of making something from nothing.
I also believe whole heartedly that this perspective must continue to be part of the creative equation…
That’s the beauty of being in a band like SixFootStilts.
We don’t need to agree, we just need to respect each other’s perspectives and stay in the conversation.
So stay tuned for his post. If this one was about acceleration, his might be about slowing things down or maybe reckoning…
🌀 One Last Question
If this is the worst AI will ever be…
What does the future hold?
And more importantly… how close is it?
Keep yourself elevated,
JawnyB
21 July 2025
