I PREVAIL's ERIC VANLERBERGHE Says Using A.I. To Create Music Is 'An Interesting Slippery Slope': 'Where Does Artistry Stop When You Start Using Tools?'

In a recent interview with Chris Williamson of the "Modern Wisdom" podcast, Eric Vanlerberghe, vocalist, songwriter and founding member of the band I PREVAIL, was asked for his opinion of artificial intelligence-generated music, particularly since A.I. or A.I.-assisted artists have regularly appeared on the Billboard charts in the past few months. Eric said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Oh, man. Don't get me started. It's a little frightening, man. I just came across… A friend of mine went on a rant and posted all these bands on Spotify that were A.I. bands. And whether it's a band that's feeding prompts and getting it and playing it or it's one guy that just used ChatGPT, Grok, whatever, to create everything, and then you go look at the monthly listeners and there's 700,000 monthly listeners. And it's not the fear that someone's gonna go, 'I'd rather listen to this A.I. band over a real human band,' it's the fact that it's just gonna get slipped into playlisting, and it's just gonna be on your playlist, and it's just gonna just accumulate more and more of all these other fake bands. And by the time you go and look through your playlist, you're, like, 'Oh, who's this? Who's this? Who's this?', and there's no real musicians. But my ultimate worry is that who's to say that someone who owns a streaming platform doesn't just start making music off A.I. himself or herself and feeding it into the playlisting, and now there's even less of the pie. Artists are getting fractions of a penny on the dollar for streams. Well, now that those playlists that these bands are fighting hard for, who's to say the CEOs of Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, whatever, aren't just making their own music, feeding it into the algorithm, putting it into the playlisting. And now how are we supposed to fight that?"

Eric also addressed the dilemma of A.I.-generated music as it relates to A.I.'s ability to enhance creativity, efficiency and personalization in music creation and the significant ethical, legal, and economic challenges it poses to human artistry. He said: "Yeah. That's an interesting slippery slope you get down, 'cause you like to think that inspiration you hear, like these bands [I grew up listening to] — yeah, I loved all those bands and I took influence from them, the style of music we wanna play, from lyrics to melody and all that. But back then there was no A.I., so it was something that they were inspired by and then that band was inspired by, and it just water falls down, cascades down into our creative process. And then it's up to us to put it through our filter and use our own words and generate the same emotion or feel that we're going for, that we are inspired by. But it all ultimately is through the human experience. And then you have the opposite where it's you just go to a computer and be, like, 'I'm sad. Write a sad song like MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE,' and it's, like, here's the options. And it's, like, well, now I'm just picking and choosing, like I'm going down the grocery store and going, 'I'll take that one. I like that brand. I'll take that one. I'll take that one.' Yeah, it's, like, where does artistry stop when you start using tools? But then at the same time Melodyne [pitch correction software] pitch correcting on a track or when you're demoing songs and you program the drums — bands have done that for the last 20 years — and you program the drums, and, 'Oh, man, actually, let's track the drums.' 'Well, the programmed drums, I think, sound better.' Well, you run with it. And well, where's that line? So it's a very blurred line right now."

I PREVAIL's latest album, "Violent Nature", was issued in September via Fearless Records. The LP marked a major turning point for the band as they usher in a new chapter, with Vanlerberghe as the only lead singer tackling both clean and unclean vocals.The entire record was produced by the band's bass player Jon Eberhard, and it boasts a total of ten hard-hitting tracks.

Brian Burkheiser had handled the clean vocals in I PREVAIL since the band's formation but was forced to step away from the group's touring activities due to his battle with Eagle's syndrome, a condition associated with the elongation of the styloid process or calcification of the stylohyoid ligament, clinically characterized by throat and neck pain, radiating into the ear. In Burkheiser's absence, co-vocalist/growler Vanlerberghe had handled the bulk of the singing in I PREVAIL, with the help of guitarist Dylan Bowman.

This past summer, I PREVAIL completed the "Summer Of Loud" tour alongside BEARTOOTH, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and PARKWAY DRIVE as co-headliners. Main support on the trek came from THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, THE AMITY AFFLICTION and ALPHA WOLF.

In October 2024, I PREVAIL released an expanded edition of its 2022 album "True Power", featuring one new song and three reimagined tracks. The updated version included the new single "Hate This Song", the band's collaborative track with ALL TIME LOW, along with reimagined versions of the album singles "Bad Things", "There's Fear In Letting Go" and "Deep End".

Rising to an arena level and receiving two Grammy nominations — "Best Rock Album" for "Trauma", and "Best Metal Performance" for "Bow Down" — I PREVAIL saw its "Hurricane" single top Billboard's Mainstream Rock Airplay chart in 2020, officially the top song on U.S. rock radio at the time. A number of their singles have since been certified gold and platinum, and they have been praised by press far and wide, including Forbes, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and NPR.