A TV writer and producer has formed The Bootleg Velvet Sundown, a band of human musicians paying mock tribute to The Velvet Sundown, the act that went viral last year. Its line-up includes musicians Leo Walrus, Enzo Allen, Milo Garland and Luke McQueen.
The Velvet Sundown drew hundreds of thousands of monthly Spotify listeners. An unofficial spokesperson said its songs came from Suno; the band denied that and called itself a multidisciplinary art project. Some think it was a stunt to expose AI music's problems; others see a cash grab, with royalties estimated in the tens of thousands of dollars.
The tribute band plans to re-record its songs and hopes to become the first tribute act to out-stream the band it copies, with all profits going to working musicians, whose work its founder says AI took in the first place. He presents playing live as the one thing an AI act cannot do.
Its tongue-in-cheek posts, including a rooftop video in London warning AI music makers to be afraid, pitch it as humans against machines.
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