Fender CEO compares cover bands to AI in music: “Cover music has been sort of analogue AI for a long time”
As the Fender Telecaster continues to celebrate its 75th anniversary, Fender CEO Bud Cole has shared his views on AI – and he believes that it has the potential to “help create a whole new world of guitar players”.
Cole’s views crop up at the end of a new interview with T3. In contrast with much of the rest of the music industry rallying against AI, the Fender CEO believes that AI isn’t a bad thing. In fact, he likens its ability to rework existing music to budding musicians covering existing songs to learn the ropes and find inspiration. “I actually believe cover music has been sort of ‘analogue AI’ for a long time,” he insists.
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And covering artists was something he himself did before dipping his toes into writing his own music. “I listened a lot to REM, U2, The Smiths and The Cure, and at some point I got sick of just listening to them – I wanted to play it, so I learned to play guitar,” he explains.
Thereon out, he would copy tracks, learn how they worked, and then and twists these skills into new songs. This, if we consider Cole’s view, would be an example of an artist carrying out their own act of ‘analogue AI’. Though, if we’re nit-picking, ‘analogue AI’ would technically just be non-artificial intelligence… meaning that Cole is just describing the typical learning process and adaptive nature of normal, human intelligence.
Though, Cole is convinced AI is a helpful new addition to a musician’s tool belt. “I think we have to be careful, but we should look at how this technology can help us,” he says. “I believe that AI is actually going to help create a whole new world of guitar players that use it. To help connect with other musicians, to be more productive.”
In his words, it could be the ultimate way of elevating new guitarists “students of songwriting to masters of songwriting”.
A similar argument has been parroted by Zakk Wylde in the past. Back in March, he told Qobuz: “If AI listens to all of Ozzy Osbourne’s melodies and gets a feel for what Ozzy’s style is, and then hears Tony Iommi’s riffs and then it could hear the tendencies Bill Ward plays, certain fills he does, and the way Geezer Butler plays bass, and it listens to the lyrics… and it comes up with something, it’d be no different than a songwriter trying to come up with something that Black Sabbath would write.”
However, Wylde wasn’t framing this as a defence for AI. While he admitted the process is similar to a musician copying another artist, he knuckled down and stated that it could never fully replace a strong artist. “It doesn’t bother me [if AI rips off The Eagles], because I’m still gonna buy the record from The Eagles!” he said.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
