ALTER BRIDGE's MYLES KENNEDY On Future Of A.I.: 'There's So Many Things That Could Go Wrong If We Leave That Unchecked'

In a new interview with Riff X's "Metal XS", ALTER BRIDGE's Mark Tremonti and Myles Kennedy once again weighed in on a debate about people using artificial intelligence (A.I.) to create music. Regarding whether he thinks this new technology is useful or if it's dangerous, Myles said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "These are crazy times. On one hand, it's exciting 'cause it could be good. And I think in a lot of instances it's very good. It has the potential to just change so much, like medically, and if we can use it for good. I'll speak for myself — I won't speak for everybody — but my concern is that it might be something that unless we start to kind of set up the guardrails now and certain things aren't regulated — kind of like with when we developed the atomic bomb… Once we realized the magnitude of what that could do, you had to kind of get everybody together and say, 'Hey, let's keep this safe here.' And I feel like with this particular technology, I don't sense that right now. And it kind of concerns me 'cause I think there's so many things that could go wrong if we leave that unchecked. I think a lot of things are gonna go extremely right, but I think the rate of change is gonna be something, as human beings, we've never seen, I think the next five to 10 years, I just hope we can assimilate it in a positive way into society without becoming completely beholden to it, where it'll take us down."

Mark chimed in: "Yeah. I think the art communities are gonna be hit the hardest, because I think slowly but surely music will start sounding perfect, and then people are gonna start liking imperfection, and then A.I. is gonna follow that imperfection. And then you'll have A.I. imperfection. It's gonna keep following this wave of what people are wanting. But I think, like Myles said, in the next five years or so, will be the last time in the history of our humankind that you're gonna know art is… A.I.'s gonna take over everything — movie scripts, books, paintings, everything. And it's gonna take half a second to do something. I have friends now that joke with me and they send me songs that they've written and they sound great. But in a perfect world, and somebody needs to listen to this and invent this, there needs to be an A.I. filtering device where you put ALTER BRIDGE records a record, and you put it into this software and it certifies that it's manmade and not artificial. And you can put that on the label of your record, and you'll be proud of it."

Myles continued: "Hopefully people will still crave the human content. I kind of look at — so you rewind, get in a time machine and go back 20 years, or even prior to that, when you had incidence of people singing to tracks and saying that they were actually singing and then they're in a live situation and then tracks go off and then people realize, 'Oh, they're just lip syncing.' Okay. So fast forward now, it's become much more accepted that that's what a lot of artists do. And that's fine because they have more production and there's dance or whatever it is. And the consumer is, like, 'Yeah, that's cool. I just wanna see the person do what they do, or the people do what they do.' But there was a time when that was taboo. You couldn't do that without being kind of — not canceled, but it was frowned upon. So my concern is with time that even with new creations, that people will just be, like, 'Oh, yeah. A.I. wrote it, but I like this person. I like this artist.' They're good at prompting. And I think for me as a person who has spent the last 30-plus years of his life living to create, and [Mark is] the same way, then suddenly it's, like, well, if people don't care about that anymore, and there's so much that goes into that, writing a record and making a song… Man, you go to extreme degrees some time to make something that's a real piece of art. In some cases, you get lucky and you come up with it in a second, but some of that stuff you chase down, and it's not easy. So we just want people to still value it."

Mark added: "Then hopefully they appreciate the bands that were out before A.I. hit the scene and they can come see the bands and say, 'Hey, these songs were obviously not written with that.' We have 20 albums that we can play that people know weren't created with A.I. But it's coming. It's coming, folks. It's coming everywhere. It's gonna be taking over everything from — like I said, beyond the music business."

Tremonti went on to admit that he had previously used A.I. while promoting the most recent album from his eponymously named solo project.

"I don't wanna be hypocritical, but my first video from my last solo record, which was — I don't know — two years or plus ago, before A.I. was becoming such a thing, we went online and saw this visual artist on Instagram and said, 'Ooh, that's really cool stuff," Mark said. "My brother does graphic arts ,and he uses all kinds of programs. I didn't know the difference between that. We hired the guy, put the video out. It was an early version of A.I., and it was incredible. And now that A.I. is getting more popular, people are, like, 'Oh, you shouldn't use A.I.' And I agree at this point. But still, that's probably the coolest video I've ever had. That's the problem. People are gonna see just how powerful it is, and it's gonna seduce them."

Myles added: "We [ALTER BRIDGE] just released a new video for [the song] 'What Lies Within'. And from what I understand, people are already saying, 'Oh, it's A.I. generated.' No, actually, an artist did that. So this is the thing we're talking about. It's, like, how's anybody gonna know? And then when people start accusing artists of doing something that they… And that's what concerns us about this. This is where the songwriting thing comes in, where you work really hard to come up with a song and it's, like, 'It's just A.I.' I mean, it just kind of deflates you. And it's, like, wow, you put in all that work and then someone will just say, 'Oh, it's just A.I.' It's, like, ouch."

Mark continued: "Literature, it's just as bad too. I've tried to become a published author for many years now, and I've failed miserably. But when you're writing and you say you wanna put it through Grammarly to make sure your grammar's correct, and you're just wanting to check your grammar, it spits out all kinds of new stuff that you didn't write in there and you didn't ask it for it, but you're, like, 'Ooh, that does sound better than what I did.' And people get carried away and books will start being, like, 'Write me a book about a fantasy novel about a witch riding a purple dragon.' It's scary. But like Myles said, there's definitely some benefits that are gonna happen, especially medically."

Myles went on to say: "But here's something that could happen in the future, where fans, they just prompt the A.I., like, 'Hey, write a song about this, whatever subject matter, in the style of ALTER BRIDGE.' And then the fans are all, like… It gets to a point where those songs become, in that community, [fans are], like, 'Oh, have you heard the song about the witches riding the dragon?' whatever that analogy is, and then it becomes a huge favorite. And then as touring artists, the fans are, like, 'Hey, are you gonna play that one song about the witch riding the purple dragon?' 'No, we didn't write that song.' And that could happen in 10 years where fans are gonna expect the bands to play [some songs that was created with A.I.]."

ALTER BRIDGE's eighth, self-titled studio album arrived on January 9, 2026 via Napalm Records.

"Alter Bridge" is comprised of 12 all-new tracks, including songs like "Rue The Day", "Disregarded" and "Scales Are Falling".

"Alter Bridge" was once again helmed by the band's longtime collaborator and producer Michael "Elvis" Baskette and was recorded over two months last spring at the legendary 5150 studio in California and Elvis's recording studio in Florida.

ALTER BRIDGE's current lineup consists of Myles Kennedy (vocals/guitars),Mark Tremonti (guitars/vocals),Brian Marshall (bass) and Scott Phillips (drums).

ALTER BRIDGE will be touring in support of the release. The band is heading out on the "What Lies Within" tour. The 31-date European leg of the trek kicked off on January 15 in Germany and will wrap on March 5 in Nottingham, U.K. Support on the tour is coming from DAUGHTRY and SEVENDUST. The band also announced a headline U.S. tour featuring FILTER or SEVENDUST and Tim Montana as support in select markets. The tour kicks off on April 25 in Orlando, Florida and runs through May 24 where it wraps in Tampa, Florida.