Velvet Sundown | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Because we talk about it even came up in our conversation with Cammy Nicks. We talk on the show a lot about AI and AI and music, and so this relates very directly to that. This is from the BBC

0:13 Speaker 1: AI claims and a hoax spokesman. Viral band confuses the world of music. So there's this viral band. This band is AI generated. Check this out. So a band called The Velvet Sundown has had its tracks played hundreds of thousands of times on Spotify since appearing several weeks ago, without anyone knowing for sure what it is. The band has a verified page on the music streaming platform with more than eight hundred and fifty thousand monthly listeners. That's a hit. However, none of the four named musicians in the band have given any interviews or appear to have individual social media accounts, and there are no records of any live performances.

0:57 Speaker 1: It is prompted accusations that they and their music are AI generated, something the band deny. Something the band denies on social media, uh not on camera, and the band did not respond to the BBC's request for an interview. This is kind of funny. I mean, it's it's scary, but it's kind of funny at the same time. UH. Further confusing the story, Rolling Stone reported that the band spokesman had admitted the Velvet Sundowns music had been generated using an AI tool called care to Guess Studio or the one the one We've used, only for the magazine to to report shortly afterwards that the spokesman was himself a hoax.

1:49 Speaker 2: The spokesman was AI too. Yes, oh, I missed that part.

1:52 Speaker 1: The man who goes by the name of Andrew Freelan UH said it was a deliberate plot to hoax the media. A statement on the band Spotify page said that the group has quote no affiliation with this individual nor any evidence confirming their identity or existence unquote. An account on x which claims to be the band's official channel is also fake, it added. Professor Gina Neff from the Mindero or Mindaru Center for Technology and Democracy. Let's go with MINDERU because that's fun to say at the University of Cambridge says it points to a problem which affects much more than just one band.

2:33 Speaker 1: She said, quote whether this is an AI band may not seem important, but increasingly our collective grip on reality seems shaky. The Velvet Sundown story plays into the fears we have of losing control of AI and shows how important protecting online information is. Unquote. The Velvet sundowns indie ballads with guitar music and male vocals is fairly easy. If bland on the ear with lyrics such as eyes like film in faded light dreams, walk barefoot into the night, ash and velvet smoke and flame calling out in Freedom's name, it could all feasibly be either AI generated or penned by humans.

3:23 Speaker 1: Uh yeah, do.

3:24 Speaker 2: You remember that happened with me recently? Yah AI band.

3:29 Speaker 1: An AI band contacted you, well, were contact contacted them?

3:35 Speaker 3: The name is Interfery, Yes, And I really liked the music and thought, oh, these guys are great.

3:42 Speaker 2: I'd love to have them on.

3:43 Speaker 3: And then I come to find out they are the creation of one human who created these other humans that are not human. They are AI, and the whole band is is Yeah, his his musical creation. But in this instance is a big difference because he said every single lyric has been written by him. Yeah, for this particular band, Interfury. So I don't know about the other person, but I know that all the lyrics to this particular music is claimed to have been written by the artist.

4:16 Speaker 1: Let's see so they have, as I just looked up on YouTube. I want to I want to check out the music of the Velvet Sundown. They have a Velvet Sundown song called dust on the Wind. Not dust in the Wind, that's that's Kansas. This is dust on the winding. Let's uh, I want to hear this and just see what it's like. Uh, here we go. Oh, it's got to get through these commercials. It is uh, it is monetized content. Let's see dust on the wind.

4:50 Speaker 2: Say that's pretty smart.

5:02 Speaker 4: Dust on the wind, boots on the ground, smoking the sky, no peace found, rivers run red the drums.

5:15 Speaker 2: We also.

5:18 Speaker 1: Tell me, brother, where do we go?

5:23 Speaker 4: Raise your hand, doll away, sing out loud, May gumpay, march, hope, peace, nine for pride, Let that flya turn.

5:42 Speaker 2: With the tide.

5:50 Speaker 1: M hm, well it sounds like very pro war. Let's fly. You think it's a mom praise well, young man, sounds like it. Yeah, it's it sounds like it's we we still got time to make a stand God time. It's a it's a lyric video that I'm playing it from That's why the lyrics.

6:20 Speaker 4: Look away saying down now, make.

6:27 Speaker 2: Much foppy.

6:30 Speaker 1: Proud that fast.

6:34 Speaker 2: Turn the time.

6:39 Speaker 1: I gotta say, I love this AI generated voice. It's a good voice.

6:43 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of an issue.

6:46 Speaker 3: Because all the ones I've heard so far, but actually really good. So that's that's kind of follows. Oh yeah, yeah, I want to I just want to know what is AI and what is human?

6:56 Speaker 2: That's what I want to know.

6:57 Speaker 3: I think you should be a little disclaimer or something. Yeah, like this is my creation, but the band is magic.

7:05 Speaker 1: The Velvet Sundown. I'm curious if I can find anything else of there here.

7:12 Speaker 2: So you should check out that interfury one.

7:15 Speaker 1: Yeah no, you showed me that.

7:17 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, oh yeah I did show it too.

7:19 Speaker 1: Oh they've got a whole album called Dust and.

7:22 Speaker 2: Silence, Dust and Silence.

7:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see.

7:25 Speaker 3: This was the song though, wasn't it dust on the Wind?

7:28 Speaker 2: On the Wind?

7:29 Speaker 1: This one's called let It Burn.

7:37 Speaker 4: Flicker lights sound, silver sad marchingles with no command, velvet boots, some mirrored round.

7:58 Speaker 2: Drums of thunder, distance.

8:05 Speaker 1: Promises instatic. Yeah, I mean it is a little bland, but all right there it is the world radio premiere of The Velvet Sundown. These I'm looking at these song titles. I'm looking at these song titles and the titles like Driftwood Soldiers, where War Remains. Oh yeah, this is all there seems to be a theme, war Debt, Crimson Parade.

8:45 Speaker 2: Oh it's not a pretty image.

8:47 Speaker 1: Hm hmm. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff in the lyrics about waving flags and maybe the person making people pay, the person.

8:56 Speaker 2: Created maybe be a veteran. Maybe do we know anything about the creator?

9:01 Speaker 1: No, we don't know anything about just that they're not real.

9:06 Speaker 2: And there and their contact isn't real either, right.

9:10 Speaker 1: The spokesperson, the spokesperson was not real because an AI generated picture of them of the band.

9:20 Speaker 2: They saw that when I was looking at it.

9:22 Speaker 1: They look like, uh, but the.

9:23 Speaker 3: One yes, but you can tell like at least the one on the right hand side looked like he was AI.

9:31 Speaker 1: Yeah.

9:31 Speaker 2: They kind of doesn't look like he's not a I.

9:33 Speaker 1: They kind of look fake. Yeah.

9:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, that's where we are. Now.

9:39 Speaker 1: There you go, There you go.