Stereophonics’ Kelly Jones on AI: Art should come from people

Stereophonics frontman Kelly Jones has spoken about the growing use of artificial intelligence in music saying that “art should come from people”.

The 49-year-old lead singer of the rock band which formed in Wales in 1992 also questioned the move towards multiple songwriters on a release.

Jones spoke to Times Radio at Latitude Festival in Henham Park, Suffolk, on Sunday after he played with his new band Far From Saints.

The Welsh musician said he had not realised until attending the Ivor Novello Awards that AI technology is being increasingly used to “finish off people’s songwriting”.

He also said: “I’m not against forward-thinking technology and how things are progressing, but I think art should come from people, I mean the basics of it anyway.

“I think art has always been somebody’s expression, a real person’s expression from a heart, from a head.

“If you’re going to start an idea, then a computer finishes it, I mean, it’s OK, but it’s just about algorithms and things like that, it’s not my personal feeling on where it should come from.

“I’m not really into 10 songwriters on a song.

“It’s like if you’re making painting, you’ve got 10 painters chucking paint on a canvas, I mean, whose f****** painting is it anymore?”

Nightmare

Far From Saints have been touring festivals after releasing Let’s Turn This Back Around earlier this year.

Jones, who set up his new band with Patty Lynn of The Wind And The Wave, said since the pandemic and the UK’s break from the European Union it has become harder to make money from music.

He said: “It’s kind of a nightmare with… Brexit and all that sort of stuff.

“So it’s a very different place since Brexit, since Covid, since all of that stuff.

“So it’s not easy to make a living of it if you’re a brand new kid coming out onto the street, ‘just let’s get in a van and go make music’ – it’s kind of hard.”

There has been a mixed response to the technology in the music business, with country star Dolly Parton voicing concerns about AI while Black Eyed Peas member Will.i.am has taken an optimistic view on new music software.

Last month, Parton told a press event: “I think I’ve left a great body of work behind.

“I have to decide how much of that high-tech stuff I want to be involved because I don’t want to leave my soul here on this Earth.”