70.000 tons - Thematic Roulette with Lord Of The Lost
(NOTE: The parts that are marked with yellow were inaudible / not understandable.)
Summary:
Welcome to the show notes of this energetic podcast episode, recorded at an unforgettable location: aboard the Freedom of the Seas during the 70,000 Tons of Metal festival ‒ the heavy metal cruise in the Caribbean.
We missed the artist Blümchen in this episode, but like every festival, this show was full of surprises and intense discussions. Our unique format with a 7 minutes and 30 seconds timer per topic gives us enough room to dive deep into the subject matter and still stay rich in variety.
Our first topic was AI in music, a truly fascinating discussion. Is AI ready to step into the spotlight, or is it still confined to the background of album covers and booklets? Can human creativity and passion be automated? The answer is not simple, but we can say that the results are mixed. No one can do a live show as well as a human being... Not yet, at least!
A colleague’s work on an AI that writes songs and how AI is already being used to improve the quality of image editing were an interesting parenthesis. The debate about who holds the copyright for AI-created content and how the EU Parliament wants AI to be labelled in streaming services gave the discussion even more depth and relevance.
But there’s more to this episode: from “sound-alike” producers creating songs that sound like others, to AI’s ability to isolate different production elements in songs, to the founding stories of our band, and our exciting plans for the future.
Grab your drink, sit back, and join us on an anniversary tour of the music world that will definitely take you all the way to the USA!
PS: An AI has already been used to create this summary!
Guests:
Chris Harms (Lord Of The Lost)
Klaas Helmecke (Lord Of The Lost)
Gerrit Heinemann (Lord Of The Lost)
Niklas Kahl (Lord Of The Lost)
Pi (Lord Of The Lost)
Moderator:
Kai R.
Song in the outro:
Blümchen – “Boomerang”
Kai: So first of all, a hearty “moin moin” (Northern German for: hello) and good day.
Everyone: Moin. Moin. Moin.
Kai: Here...
Gerrit: With you in the sun!
Pi: Yeah.
Kai: Here at the Quiet Was Yesterday – the Time for Metal Podcast.
Chris: We are totally sorry that we do not have Blümchen with us today.
Pi: Yeah, that’s a real shame.
Kai: But luckily we had that last time – I had the chance at Wacken…
Chris: Yeah.
Kai: Ah, my girl… Never mind. I wanted to ask you: did you bring her along in a vase tonight? (Translator’s note: the name “Blümchen” means “flower/s”, thus the vase.)
Chris: No, she’s sitting there in my cabin, but she isn’t allowed to come out.
Kai: Okay, okay.
Class: But it would be funny if we had a vase, and would play with some flowers in it.
Chris: No, she is, of course, with us. She is always with us. Jasmin always accompanies me on journeys, where she is allowed to.
Gerrit: For her own good!
Kai: She is very shy of light, very shy of light, right?
Gerrit: For her own good.
Kai: Well, then. Before we start with what we always start with: a round of thematic roulette, I wanted to ask you: it’s your fourth time in my podcast...
Chris: Yeah.
Kai: … and do you want to tell us how it works?
Chris: Yes. A timer is set for a certain time span, which I can’t remember any more, and then we talk exclusively about that topic until the timer is over.
Nik: Cool.
Kai: Correct, right.
Nik: Alright, ……... [01:11]
Chris: And how long is that time span?
Kai: The time span is – unfortunately, because of the festival situation, we only have small slots – seven and a half minutes.
Chris: Yes, that’s clear.
Kai: During that, you can waffle on as much as you want. But if you think the topic is shit, then don’t say: “The topic is shit!” But just talk about something else.
Pi: *laughs*
Nik: So, as always.
Chris: We have learned about interviews, that…
Class: Shouldn’t we introduce ourselves first, or...
Kai: No, no.
Class: We talk about something else, until the seven minutes are… gone.
Kai: Yeah, until the seven minutes are…
Gerrit: We also have learned about interviews, that the question doesn’t really matter, only the answer does.
Kai: Right. And nobody is going to ask: “Why are you called Lord Of The Lost” any more anyway.
Class: I would very much hope so.
Kai: You know, they are this band.
Pi: There are enough people who still ask that!
Chris: If someone asks: “How was this band founded? Where does the band name come from?” I simply say, “By the way, we have just released an awesome new album!”
Everyone *laughs*
Kai: Okay. I press “start”, and the topic is: “AI in music.”
Pi: Wow, well!
Kai: You are the guests here, so – who wants to answer?
Gerrit: We actually have just reached the consensus earlier that AI is getting dumber and dumber, because it learns from humans...
Nik: Yeah, exactly.
Gerrit: … And that makes for a nice starting point somehow.
Nik: I’ve actually never really looked into it, because I find AI only functional to a limited extent. So, in certain areas it works quite well, for example in the area of image processing. There are interesting things going on there. But I think with music in particular – em... Nope.
Chris: Well, I have… Yes?
Kai: He raised his finger first!
Pi: Okay! Well, if we take the music industry as a whole, then it’s not just about making music as such, but also – like one band says: “Hey, I need an album cover. I need some graphics in general”... As you just mentioned image editing...
Nik: Hm.
Pi: I believe that then AI could play a role, especially in terms of album cover design and so on, and booklet design...
*approving sounds from others*
Pi: … Concerning making music: Of course there’s these TikTok videos where James Hetfield sings “Toxic” by Britney Spears and such. That works already. You can naturally hear/notice that it’s AI, also because it says so in the description. And, of course, he doesn’t sing “Toxic” normally, I think.
Gerrit: In the shower.
Chris: Or maybe he does.
Pi: Exactly, I was just about to say that. We cannot completely rule it out.
Gerrit: Also, because taking showers is not “heavy metal”.
Nik: It is.
Kai: Is Hetfield…? Never mind. Yes?
Gerrit: Then we aren’t heavy metal either, if you see it from that point of view.
Pi: But when it comes to the big point of a live show – I think, we all are here on this boat to see live shows – as well as festivals and concerts: AI just can’t do that.
Kai: Not yet, at least. So far, we don’t know of a medium yet in which this would be somehow transferable.
Pi: Exactly! And thus I believe, as this is such an essential part of it, that it still has a very long way to go, which it maybe doesn’t have to go anyway in the end.
Chris: If I think about what I do with AI, especially in relation to Lord Of The Lost, then we’re back at image editing. I’m responsible for a lot of things when it comes to creating posters, tour posters, flyers, and stuff like that. I’m kind of a hobby “photoshopper”, and since the very beginning I’ve been doing a lot of our graphic design stuff. And, for example, when it comes to enhancing backgrounds or something, because the Spotify profile picture has to be this big somehow, then I work with it, yes – that would somehow also be the music business.
Kai: Yes, it’s a part of it.
Chris: With ChatGPT, I also did things like: “Okay, we need a new – dunno – tour announcement.” Then I simply said: “Go, write a 300 words tour announcement in English for our 15th anniversary tour.” And then I had a look what came out of it.
Kai: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: I’ve actually taken excerpts from it, not all of it, because there’s also so much sh*t in there. But sometimes I think: “Gosh, that’s a nice introduction” or “That’s quite nice. Okay, I wouldn’t have thought of that myself.”
Kai: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: Sometimes I let it help me because... Why not? I’m not a copywriter, and I don’t feel like always asking someone. And then you say to yourself: “Then you let artificial intelligence help you.”
Kai: It’s great as an inspiration.
Chris: Exactly. As far as the creative processes are concerned, a colleague of ours, Bruno Kramm from the band “Das Ich”, a gothic veteran, who is developing an AI that also writes songs, has already done a lot of work on such seminal things. And I once got access to it, but couldn’t make it work for me. (Translator’s note: He words it as “I couldn’t get any access to it.” // Proofreader’s note: He means he could not get a feeling for it.)
Kai: Okay, okay.
Gerrit: Forgot the password.
Everyone: *laughing out loud*
Chris: I tried it – and it didn’t give me anything at all.
Kai: Okay.
Chris: Of course I can ask AI to show me the 20 most successful chord progressions from super hits. But I can also look them up myself. I don’t need AI for that, so… But I don’t think we’ve got that far yet ‒ that a song has actually been written by AI. Fortunately, there is enough coming out of the normal I[ntelligence] from upstairs so far... (Proofreader’s note: He says “I” to imply human intelligence in contrast to “AI”, but in German it has no reference to the personal pronoun “I”.)
Kai: It’s just basic I[ntelligence]...
Chris: It’s simply just I[ntelligence]...
Nik: I think you can say that AI is mainly limited to something purely visual at the moment.
Kai: Yes, maybe for you, but in general... Of course, lyrics are the biggest part, but the first albums have been released which have been to 100 % produced by AI. And now it’s the case that the EU Parliament has decided that this has to be marked in streaming provider services – like, it has to be made clear that this has been computer-generated.
Chris: Who gets the GEMA then? (German Copyright Law)
Kai: That’s a great question!
Chris: The one who has created the AI?
Nik: Um…kay.
Kai: So far, nobody yet.
Pi: Wicked.
Kai: Currently, you don’t have a copyright to it. Like… Who is the creator there? As the creator is…something or other!
Chris: Basically everyone.
Gerrit: All who have fed into it.
Chris: All of us have fed it. Principally, it should work like this... like with this black box at the GEMA, where all those DJ lump sums go in, which then get distributed among all of them. It should go in there as well.
Kai: And at some point, there will be a pay-out for everyone.
Chris: Basically for everyone, because that’s how it is: AI doesn’t create something new.
Pi: Theoretically, yes.
Chris: … AI is just a big blender out of which comes everything.
Class: Is this that unconditional basic income?
Everyone: *laughing out loud*
Pi: That would be a joke then…
Class: Yeah, but theoretically, if you…
Chris: It’s the same with all those AI music videos that some bands already have, in which everyone suddenly looks a bit like zombies or something... AI takes all the pictures it finds on the net, from Dali, van Gogh, I don’t know... to Mickey Mouse...and somehow assembles that anew.
Kai: What also comes to my mind, especially as you speak about AI-generated music, there are these so-called “sound-alike producers” who produce songs that sound alike, which often get used in advertisements, because they can’t get the actual songs. Or you need a series of songs for this and that kind of scene somehow, and they need to sound like this and that. You get a briefing, and what it says... And I think, if you feed AI with such kind of information, this really makes a producer “unemployed”. Stock-jingles or something like that.
*approving sounds*
Pi: Station ID for a radio station...
Kai: Yeah, yeah.
Pi: I can imagine that very well.
Chris: I can think of one more thing: cover albums. Meanwhile, there’s AI which is able to separate production elements from each other...
Pi: Oh yeah, right!
Chris: … You suddenly have drums, bass, blah… And we have actually worked with this, too. So, when you transform a cover song to your own song, so that at first you have a – dunno – Lord Of The Lost track in which Sia is singing, before I actually sing it. As I have isolated her voice beforehand.
Kai: But it’s cool that it works.
Chris: Yeah. Moderately. It’s noticeable that it is artifact-ridden somehow, but anyhow.
Gerrit: For creative work, demos…
Kai: For a podcast, it goes so far that... There’s a tool that...
Class: Stop! Stop!
Kai: We still have time, though?
Class: Seven minutes?
Kai: Yes, it’s seven!
Kai and Class: *laugh*
Kai: The tool uses the transcript to ensure... I look at the transcript before podcasting. For example, if I have said “shit” at one point, but I want to say “Blümchen” at this point, I delete the “shit”, type “Blümchen”, tell it to “generate”, and then it generates that with my voice...
Chris: Ask it to generate a whole podcast for you!
Kai: That would work, but...
Nik: With Lord Of The Lost – about the topic AI!
Kai: I think, that would create a black hole.
*timer rings*
Class: Aaaaand… Stop.
Kai: Now I’ll just ask into the group: How did you found your band?
Gerrit: We thought about AI.
Chris: We released an awesome new cover album.
Kai: That’s exactly what I was getting at.
Chris: How did you found yourself? Have you been along for the ride?
Kai: Yes, but in a totally different form.
Nik: So you have a rebranding background! [9:50]
Kai: Exactly, right. I kind of transformed myself.
Nik: But not only after ten years, because that’s when we…
Kai: But I am not sure, if…
Gerrit: But did your parents have to overcome cast changes or...?
*laughter*
Kai: Could be. But, I’m not quite sure.
Nik: It’s always the answer that matters, not the question.
Kai: Didn’t I say: “Could be”? That includes everything. What can we expect from you in 2024?
Gerrit: The 15 Years Anniversary Tour, which will start soon.
Nik: And the US tour.
Chris: We’ll be doing our third Lordfest. The second one was sold out with 4000 people. We are now going to the venue which is the next size up, the Sporthalle Hamburg. It holds 7000.
Kai: That’s a joke?!
Chris: We’re looking forward to that. Besides that, we’ll go to the studio, for an album production for summer next year or maybe for later.
Pi: So that we can continue to answer the questions so nicely. We run out of answers.
Chris: Exactly. The thing is, we have just released a cover album, with REAL songs, and next up we’re going to make an album with songs that we just made up.
Gerrit: So, not real songs.
Kai *laughs* Exactly. In any case, if you’re up for it, come by!
Chris: Nope.
*laughter*
Kai: You want to get 7000 people to Hamburg, so come by. There’s a cool concert in the Sporthalle. Besides that, while you’re on tour in the US. Other than that, when you’re on holidays in the US ‒ maybe go to one of the shows there.
*approving sounds*
Pi: Maybe we will even spend it in a cell, because we will be detained.
Nik: Yeah, who knows.
Kai: It’s said to be the same for with other bands.
Nik: We just went past Cuba very closely. Who knows if we ever make it back to the US to fly back home.
Kai: You know how the ending of the podcast works. You can pick a song which we will be playing as the outro. We are paying the GEMA for that. We are paying into that big black box, so that our guests may wish for something. You may now…
Nik: Gerrit has something.
Chris: We can all name a song on the count of three?
Kai: Yeah, okay.
Class: But of course it has to be one of our songs.
Chris: No, no matter by whom.
Chris + Kai: One! Two! Three!
Everyone: * naming a song at the same time, totally indistinguishable*
Chris: I said: “Boomerang” by Blümchen.
Gerrit: I said: “Herz an Herz” by Blümchen.
Nik: I said: “Enter Sandman”.
Gerrit: By Blümchen?
Class: I said: “Living on a Prayer”.
Pi: I said: “Schatzi, schenk mir ein Foto” (“Darling, gift me a photo”)
Chris: You can choose one.
Kai: Okay! Thank you!
Gerrit:… Greetings go out to you!
Kai: We’ll do that!
Class: Thank you!
*outro music plays* (“Boomerang” by Blümchen)
Gerrit: Perfect!
Woman?: Just in time!
Pi: Who is that Justin?
Nik: Justin time for metal!
Translation: Margit Güttersberger
German Proofreading: Jari Witt, Elisabeth Czermack
English Proofreading: Katharina Hagen