A spokesperson for indie rock ‘band’ The Velvet Sunset now admits that it’s not an actual band and that each one of its music is made with Suno, regardless of beforehand denying any use of generative AI.
The fictional group went viral in June 2025, with over 470,000 month-to-month listeners on Spotify. Nevertheless, just about everybody had their suspicions that the band was faux after listening to the music and viewing the very AI-styled cowl artwork and press pictures.
Nonetheless, the band’s X account insisted on 29 June that The Velvet Sunset just isn’t AI-generated in any capability. As we speak, although, a “pseudonymous band spokesperson and ‘adjunct’ member Andrew Frelon” admits to Rolling Stone that: “It’s advertising and marketing. It’s trolling. Individuals earlier than, they didn’t care about what we did, and now immediately, we’re speaking to Rolling Stone, so it’s like, ‘is that mistaken?’”
Within the telephone dialog with Rolling Stone, Frelon goes on to elucidate that the generative AI music platform Suno was leveraged to make a few of the music. “I haven’t admitted that to anybody else,” Frelon stated, including, “I don’t wish to say which [songs]” are Suno-generated. RS stories that Frelon additionally used Suno’s Persona function, which producer Timbaland is utilizing to create his AI artist TaTa.
Earlier this week, The Velvet Sunset refuted claims from on-line customers, YouTubers and journalists that it’s faux and AI-generated. On its X account, it stated that it’s “completely loopy that so-called ‘journalists’ hold pushing the lazy, baseless principle that the Velvet Sunset is ‘AI-generated’ with zero proof.… This isn’t a joke. That is our music, written in lengthy, sweaty nights in a cramped bungalow in California with actual devices, actual minds and actual soul.”
So, how did The Velvet Sunset get so massive on Spotify? Even Frelon isn’t so certain. “I’m not working the Spotify backend stuff, so I can’t tremendous communicate to precisely how that occurred,” he stated to Rolling Stone. “I do know we received on some playlists that simply have like tons of followers, and it appears to have spiralled from there.”
Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek stated in 2023 that the platform is not going to ban AI music — and it appears to be holding that promise. Deezer, in the meantime, advised TechRadar that it’s flagged The Velvet Sunset’s albums as AI-generated content material along with the message: “Some tracks on this album might have been created utilizing synthetic intelligence.”
The Velvet Sunset reportedly have an album popping out in a few weeks titled Paper Solar Rise up, which shall be their third album in two months. Will it obtain the identical consideration as their earlier…um…hits, akin to Mud On The Wind? Both approach, the band’s spokesperson encourages listeners to have an open thoughts.
“I respect that individuals have actually robust feelings about this,” says Frelon. “However I believe it’s essential that we enable artists to experiment with new applied sciences and new instruments, strive issues out, and never freak out at individuals simply because they’re utilizing a program or not utilizing a program. Individuals have this concept that you need to please all people and you need to comply with the foundations. And that’s not how music and tradition progress. Music and tradition progressed by individuals doing bizarre experiments and typically they work and typically they don’t. And that’s type of the spirit that we’re [embracing].”
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Sam is the Commissioning Editor at MusicTech, the place he’s helped form the publication’s editorial voice since 2019. With almost 20 years of music-making and a level in music know-how behind him, his focus is on the tales behind studio gear and the artists who use it. He’s spent approach an excessive amount of time sampling disco data.
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