Rob (ButcherBird – guitar)
SPB: How do you draw the line between taking influence vs. mimicking?
Rob: When it comes to human creativity, almost nothing is truly and completely new. There’s a song by Iron Monkey called “House Anxiety” which has an absolutely crushing riff in it -- and it’s essentially the same riff as “Son and Daughter” by Queen. Did they rip it off from Queen? Maybe. Does it sound amazing anyway? Yes. Similarly a whole bunch of the cool-as-shit vibe from The Shape Of Punk To Come by Refused is super similar to Plays Pretty For Baby by The Nation of Ulysses. Both are killer records though. Ultimately it's all about intention -- if you're setting out to just copy something else then that probably has less value than if you're adding your own experience to it.
What’s interesting to us nowadays is AI-generated music and art: We’re not seeing it in punk because there’s no money in punk, but lo-fi beats and trip-hop artists are getting absolutely screwed as some AI engine consumes their back catalogues and regurgitates another dozen generic tracks to fill up Spotify playlists or create backing tracks for adverts. Yeah, the output may eventually be indistinguishable, but without the human input, there’s no unique experience and artistic expression in there. So until genAI drains us dry, we’re still going to keep making filthy noises and writing songs that sound like real human emotions.
