Viral band Velvet Sunday, with over 1.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone, confirmed that the musicians behind the music do not really exist, rather the songs are the result of artificial intelligence.
After stories broke that the band may not exist, the band’s Spotify bio was updated to read, “The Velvet Sundown is a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence."
“This isn’t a trick — it’s a mirror. An ongoing artistic provocation designed to challenge the boundaries of authorship, identity, and the future of music itself in the age of AI.”
The profile boasts that the project “lives somewhere in between” human and machine but is “not quite” in either category.
Behind the Velvet Sundown social media
The news came after an apparent hoax in which a man using the name Andrew Frelon claimed to be the band’s spokesperson and ran social media pages posing as the band, according to Rolling Stone, which interviewed Frelon before the deception was known.
Frelon was identified by CBC, although the Canadian media outlet elected to withhold his identity from the public, citing concerns for his well-being and job.
"I didn't mean to do it maliciously, although obviously some of the techniques I used were underhanded and not very cool," he said. "I recognize that, and I apologize for those people affected."
The band first appeared in June, but the AI-made songs were quickly found on popular Spotify playlists. Glenn McDonald, a former “data alchemist” for Spotify, told Rolling Stone last week that this was likely possible as Spotify now allows payment for upgraded playlist positioning.