Mac DeMarco says “we’re in a weird place” with AI and wants a “fucking break” from it
Mac DeMarco has said “we’re in a weird place” in terms of the use of AI in music, and that he wants to be given a “fucking break” from it.
The indie polymath musician was speaking in a recent interview with The Independent when he considered the threat that AI is currently posing to the music industry, with fake technology-generated artists rapidly on the rise.
DeMarco said: “We’re in a funny zone right now where AI is coming in and getting good at things, fast,” before adding, “Things start feeling paint-by-numbers sometimes. When you have AI bands coming around, and people listening to music without even realising it’s AI-generated, we’re in a weird place.”
As the musician prepares to release his upcoming album Guitar, he also blasted the idea of AI being used as part of the songwriting process. “I hear about people using AI to even write lyrics a lot nowadays, which is a bit like… give me a fucking break,” he sneered.
In contrast to the AI plague of the industry, DeMarco opened up elsewhere in the interview about the painstaking work that went into creating Guitar. “I got into the state where I was trying to re-record everything, moving drum microphones around and building weird huts in my garage to change the sound,” he explained, before continuing, “It got to the point where I was like, this is ridiculous. So I shelved that, and then luckily I was able to make Guitar in a couple of weeks.”
The musician previously said when announcing the album: “I think Guitar is as close to a true representation of where I’m at in my life today as I can manage to put to paper,” which he will share with fans on an extensive world tour which begins on August 29th in Los Angeles, before travelling across North America, Europe, the UK, and Asia.
DeMarco’s latest album Guitar will be released on August 22nd.
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