Better Than Ezra's Kevin Griffin on Songwriting and Ethical AI - Music Production Podcast #423

podcast
Written By Brian Funk

Kevin Griffin is the frontman of Better Than Ezra, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, and Co-founder of a new artist-built AI music platform Soundbreak. Better Than Ezra contributed to the soundtrack of the 90’s with hits like “Good” and “In the Blood.” Kevin’s music has been performed and recorded by artists like Meatloaf, Taylor Swift, and Blondie. 

Kevin and I spoke in depth about the art and magic of songwriting , collaborating, and touching peoples’ lives with music. We discussed the future of AI music and how his company Soundbreak is helping artists license their musical styles for generative AI music. 

This episode is dedicated to (not sponsored by!) Darwin Audio and his awesome vintage soda/beer can microphones: https://darwinaudio.net

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:00.534)

Welcome to the show, Kevin. Nice to see you today.

Kevin Griffin (00:06.091)

Thank you brother, I'm glad to be here on this beautiful spring day.

Brian Funk (00:11.808)

Yeah, as I was telling you before, Better Than Ezra is definitely a household name around here. Part of my growing up in high school is when that song came out, so we all knew it. And personally, I think the 90s was one of the great musical decades, and to have a song be that popular at that time is a real statement to you as an artist, to the band. And thanks for making cool stuff.

Kevin Griffin (00:39.955)

Well, thank you brother and your opinion it matters highly, know, and I'm a fan of what you do as well. Yeah, you know, when we were in the 90s making the music, you always think that this will never sound dated or of an era. And then time goes by and I look back at it now and I look when I listen to our albums or maybe lithium, you know, on Sirius XM, I'm like.

It has a sound. It was a sound of bands, maybe a three-piece, we were a three-piece, a four-piece, in a studio making music.

Sometimes there's a click track, others not, but very little post editing because it really wasn't possible. We were still in the world of analog recording and it had a sound. There was that compression that was...

we were using and things just had the sound. And the good news is that it aged really well, I think. It sounds really refreshing and it's funny, know, a lot of my time is spent writing with young bands and young artists. And so many of them are trying to, I think they're kind of scared when they're working with me. They want to say, we want a 90 sound, you know, but they don't even know how to articulate it sometimes, but I can tell like, oh, you want this kind of sound. And I was just working with a kid who just got signed

Warner Records and he said, kind of want to do something that feels like this and he pulled up circles by soul coughing. And I'm like, I can do that in my sleep. Just that sound, so thank you. It was such a cool time and I'm happy to be on here and we can talk about that and other things as well.

Brian Funk (02:20.061)

It's my wheelhouse.

Brian Funk (02:31.744)

I guess part of what happened in the nineties is we had the eighties and like drum machines and synthesizers and know, gated reverbs on snare drums and all this over the top production. And then there was a pushback of, Hey, you know, let's dial it back a little more authentic to what the band actually sounds like. And I guess that that holds up because that's what a band sounds like. It doesn't have all those maybe

kind of time stamped production techniques on it.

Kevin Griffin (03:03.729)

Yeah, mean, you're absolutely right. The 80s, whether it was more like New Wave, like...

well, just new wave artists, there was that gated reverb, whether it was in pop like Genesis or it was a lot of the British bands, know, Depeche Mode and stuff like that. It was so synth heavy, even going back to the early 80s with Thomas Dolby. But, or the big rock bands at the time, I those Foreigner, Journey, mean, was so, in Mut Lang, it was so incredibly produced that it was daunting, you know, because I couldn't sing

those notes. We didn't have that production. So I think coming out of the college radio scene was a reaction to it and it came out with bands like R.A.M. and even though there was some gated reverb, know, snare, like on the Murmur record, but then bands like the Pixies and stuff. And then you get into the early 90s where it's a complete

turning of the back on over production. And when we were making albums, was like, we were really overt as like, if we had any BVs, they had to be buried. Anything that smacked of over production was really repellent. And it needed to feel really raw and immediate and maybe a refutation, is that a word? Of what...

we had grown up listening to. And maybe it was probably because we didn't like it stylistically. Though still respected it, but honestly, we didn't have the ability to do it. So for me, was like when bands like REM and Pixies and the Smiths that were really influencing me came along, I was like, my God, I can make this kind of music and I can sing these kind of songs. And that was really exciting because it really felt hopeless for a

Kevin Griffin (05:15.027)

time.

Brian Funk (05:16.908)

Yeah, well, growing up for me in the 80s, I was born 1980, and I mean, all of those bands, they seem so larger than life. It never occurred to me that I could play music if I got a guitar until like the 90s came along. And then it was like, hey, that's not that hard. It's not finger tapping and crazy solos. And like you said, it was like accessible. Like we could play power chords.

Kevin Griffin (05:41.097)

It was really, it's really, you could play it. You could play it and look, don't get me wrong.

I'm a massive 80s fan, you know, and I love that. I love that music, whether it is crazy produced stuff that, know, Mutt Lang did with with Def Leppard, you know, and all that kind of stuff. But my heart is really in the prior years with maybe a tradition of like Creedence Clearwater, you know, and those bands that were more simple, just just and Tom Petty, you know, just great songwriting, but it's stripped down.

Brian Funk (05:50.748)

I love it too, yeah.

Kevin Griffin (06:17.858)

Stuff that for me, like you said, I didn't have to have the talent on guitar like Eddie Van Halen and the finger tapping and stuff. And it felt really accessible. And honestly, know, I very early on, like Good was really an attempt to write a song that was the same four chords, just using dynamics. That song was built on a DNA of a Dylan song meets a Pixie song. Let's use distortion.

loud, quiet, loud to make those segues and those transitions between parts. And man, I tell you, I love...

I love that in my own small way for kids of a certain generation, good is one of those songs you had to learn in your first band because it was so easy and it sounded so great with minimal talent or minimal proficiency on your, not talent, but minimal proficiency on your instrument. And then you throw it into C7 and suddenly it sounded like 90s rock. It's G major, D major, E minor, C major seven.

and then suddenly you were making you had to have the evil chord Brian there had to be an evil chord in the C major 7 added the menacing evil that I was looking for

Brian Funk (07:32.8)

Yeah, something a little menacing.

Brian Funk (07:41.708)

Yeah, I can remember realizing that chord actually being like, ooh, that's like a little out of the key kind of. cause that bass line, I mean, the first time I think I picked up a bass, that was like one of the go-to bass lines to play of the day. You know, you had like, maybe like long view by green day and, violent femmes, a flister in the sun.

Kevin Griffin (07:49.622)

Ugh. I didn't even know where I got it.

Kevin Griffin (08:03.42)

Yeah, it's crazy, you know.

You know, those classic records and you know, Tom, he was playing a Spectre bass and that Spectre was the sound of the 80s and the 90s. It just has such a sound to it. You know, simplicity, the hardest thing to do is write a convincing song that's just super simple. And especially as you get older, you're always wanting to impress yourself and not repeat yourself. So keeping it simple. mean, going back to Tom Petty, he was the master throughout his career of doing

deceptively simple stuff but it's just brilliant and that's kind of where I'm always trying to get to cut away the fat and get to what really matters with this song or the production.

Brian Funk (08:51.636)

I like that you bring that up because this is something I deal with almost every time I try to put a song together. There's the part of me that wants to be a little clever, have something unusual happen, you know, maybe to prove to myself that I've been playing music for all these years or whatever it is. But yeah, you want something in there, but it's when I'm thinking that way that nothing happens. But when I just decide to let it be simple, not worry about that stuff.

Kevin Griffin (09:08.245)

Right.

Brian Funk (09:21.632)

then things can come together. Most of my favorite songs are relatively simple. Maybe there's a little twist here or there. But it's kind of tricky to find that spot that you're mentioning. And something I wanted to ask you about songwriting too is just finding that zone where... Because you have to be somewhat judgmental to what you're doing, but you also have to kind of open up and be vulnerable.

Kevin Griffin (09:47.997)

of this year.

Brian Funk (09:51.109)

find what's going on. It can be a hard place to find. It's almost two places at once.

Kevin Griffin (09:55.635)

It, you know, early, early on writing, you know, my first song I recorded, was 12, I was in a band called Aces Up, a very junior high band name, and we won a songwriting contest.

a band, battle of the bands for a country music station in Monroe, Louisiana and we won it and we got to record a 45 and on Side A was a song I wrote with my guitar teacher called Seek, Find, Destroy about aliens of course coming to the planet.

Brian Funk (10:30.444)

Nice. Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (10:30.62)

I was ahead of the curve, Brian. And then this B-side was a cover of Cold Gin by Kiss. But the point is, I started off, but then I kind of languished, and then the real songwriting happened with Better Than Ezra. when you start off, you're not trying to outdo your old work because you don't have any old work. So those songs were just simple because that's all I knew. I think later I got

to where I was like okay have I done this before have I done this chord progression is this a evolution for me as a songwriter is this cool you know and all those questions make you second-guess for me the challenge is I don't want to get wrapped up and bogged down by second-guessing myself but before the idea even comes one thing that really helped me is you know

five years after our debut album came out nationally, that's when I first started co-writing. And co-writing allowed me to, all those considerations, I just left them behind. And suddenly when I was co-writing, I was just...

writing with somebody for the first time and it was this freeing experience of let's just write the best song I don't really know much about you let's just write this great song with no other considerations and suddenly it re and not only made me a really good co-writer but it reinvigorated my own writing to where I was reminded because I was having success as a co-writer I was like shit quit overthinking it just have fun and just dumb it down and just and

Brian Funk (12:06.188)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (12:17.662)

And when I say dumb it down, it doesn't mean make it less than, but just get rid of the BS and just judicious editing. So I'm constantly, I would say...

That was for me, working with other people has been the key for me to continue to keep learning new tricks, because I'm always working with different people. And a lot of times they're younger than me, and that bag of tricks, they grew up listening to, maybe they grew up as an emo kid, maybe they grew up listening to bands that, know, bedroom pop or whatever. And so I'm constantly picking up new tricks, new corporate records.

you know, lyrics fresh. And so, yeah, collaboration keeps me, to your point, keeps me keeping it simple and keeping my eye on the prize, which is just, you know, I've written so many, I've written those songs that have the time signature changes and the modulations, and nobody likes those. Well, you know, a small group does, but they're always like,

Brian Funk (13:24.266)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (13:30.056)

What about this song with two chords about your dog? I'm like, not that song, but yeah.

Brian Funk (13:36.31)

Hmm.

Yeah, the intellectual stuff. And half the time it goes unnoticed. Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (13:40.873)

Yeah, which is great and I love it. But yeah, it's just about getting to that essence and what really just hits you in the gut. And when I can lose all those considerations like I mentioned, and then I'm riding from a position of just what feels good right then. And that's when I'm way more liable to catch that.

Brian Funk (13:46.124)

.

Kevin Griffin (14:08.582)

crazy song that's floating around in the room. know, I have a little piece of paper on my monitor of my studio that says the song is always there because I really believe that. And if I can be in tune enough to get that song that day, then...

to win. And then there are those people like Paul McCartney whose their antenna is just better than all of ours. know, they're going to get that, they're going to find that inspiration in the room way more often than the rest of us. But the goal is just to keep trying.

Brian Funk (14:32.364)

you

Brian Funk (14:40.748)

I felt like that too, that it's almost like fishing or something or swinging a net around in the air and trying to catch them before they get away. And the thing that lets them get away is the second guessing. It's the judging it before it's even had a chance to become anything.

Kevin Griffin (14:46.782)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (14:59.646)

It's funny, you're right. And there's some writers I work with here in Nashville. They're so damn talented. But I don't collaborate with them as much anymore because they're so full of self-doubt and second guessing and full of wanting to talk about the futility of the music business before we even write a song that I'm just defeated by the time.

You finally say 45 minutes into the session, well, let's write a song, even though it's pointless. You know what I mean? So I'm just, I just, the more I can just be playful and full of wonder about writing it and just like saying, fuck, why wouldn't we do this? Let's just do it. Then it gets really fun. And that's when you just get lightning in a bottle.

Brian Funk (15:50.068)

Yeah, I like that and collaborating has been a huge help. The band I play in right now is a three-piece band and we don't bring songs to the band. We just play and see what comes out and you blabber lyrics and sometimes you say something or someone else says something or they thought you said this and all this weird interaction happens. And the goal has become so much more. We just want to keep playing. We just want to play. So we need something and

Kevin Griffin (15:53.983)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (16:06.334)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (16:18.75)

If it's an idea I love and someone else doesn't like or whatever, who cares? Fine, move on. Nothing's precious. The goal is the long game of playing together, not I need this guitar part in a song.

Kevin Griffin (16:31.712)

it is the long game and I say that a lot when I talk about songwriting is that I'm really at the point, maybe there was a time where I was more protective about my songwriting, but now I'm just like.

Who am I writing with today? Is it one person or am I writing with the whole band? And some people, there would be a time where I'd be like, wait, I'm writing with the five piece, there's gonna be six people in the room. Why am I doing it? I'm splitting a song six ways. But now I'm just like, bring it, man, because let's write a great song together and it's the long game. The biggest dividends in a music career are...

working with people that you love over and over again, know, repeat business. And I'd rather have a hit that was a six-way split, or these days in the pop world, it could be a 20-way split, you know, and work with them again and have a hit to my name as opposed to, you know, like, just being me or me and another person, and that song just sits on a hard drive somewhere because it's not as good as it could have been, you know?

Brian Funk (17:45.6)

Right. That's, guess, ego, right? Letting go of that. It's so important.

Kevin Griffin (17:49.473)

Yeah, is ego and getting ego as a friend said to me, my ego is not my amigo.

Brian Funk (18:01.1)

There's a song in there.

Kevin Griffin (18:02.462)

You know, that should be in my studio too. You know, just lose the ego, man. And that's when stuff gets really fun.

Brian Funk (18:09.772)

So you make me think of, I wrote this down, I guess it's the, I don't know if it's forward, but in the beginning of your book, the book is The Greatest Song, which I just started listening to, so I'm already like, okay, cool, I'm gonna like this. Yeah, yeah, because I saw you were reading it, so was like, yeah, I wanna hear you tell me the story.

Kevin Griffin (18:26.144)

good, you got the audio book.

Kevin Griffin (18:34.126)

dude, I had so much fun making it. I did that with a guy who is a great producer of audiobooks and it's Mark. god, I'm spacing. I'll get the name. It'll be in the credits. And he did a great job with all the foley, all the sound effects. There's original songs. And then there's my...

accents that I used for the different characters. I don't know if you've gotten to those yet. I kept asking him, I was like, am I gonna get canceled for any of these accents that I'm doing? Am I clueless and being really offensive? And he's like, no, it sounds great, go, go.

Brian Funk (19:17.516)

Yeah, right. I guess you had to think about that. But you got the Picasso quote about all children are artists and something they got as the struggle is staying an artist or something along those lines.

Kevin Griffin (19:20.294)

sorry, but you were saying, there's, beginning of the book.

Kevin Griffin (19:26.485)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (19:30.91)

Yeah, we're all born artists. The challenge is how do you stay an artist as you get older? Or put another way, how do you grow into your creativity as opposed to out of it? You know?

Brian Funk (19:42.592)

Yeah, I find that childlike wonder is the best place for me to be making music. And I don't think I mentioned it, Steve, but I teach high school English. That's my grown up job here.

Kevin Griffin (19:56.146)

I'm an English major from LSU at LSU. Go Tigers. I have such high respect for you. Good for you being a teacher.

Brian Funk (19:59.508)

Okay, nice. Very good.

Brian Funk (20:06.268)

thank you. We're on break now, so it's great. now we just took a break.

Kevin Griffin (20:10.496)

I'm so happy there's no school, no work tomorrow, Good Friday. Did I just ruin the impression that this was a brand new? I can say that it's... Okay, good. You can edit that out.

Brian Funk (20:15.061)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (20:22.066)

No, it'll be relatively new. That's fine. These are evergreen things, right? But I was in the ninth grade when I started playing guitar and I see a lot of kids that have already decided, I can't do this. I'm not this kind of person. I'm not artistic. I'm not that. Like they already kind of let go of that. And this year,

for the first time I've taught a few middle school classes and they're a little bit younger and they're a lot more willing to just try it and just play with it and draw. Yeah, can we draw pictures today? Okay, cool. Not where the high school kids say, I don't know how to draw. I'm not good at drawing. It's funny how, and it's probably school that does it, but somewhere along the way it gets kind of beaten out of you. it's that same thing we were talking about before. Is this song complicated enough and intelligent enough?

Kevin Griffin (21:18.377)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (21:19.05)

then we think ourselves out of the fun of actually making it. Great quote to open the book with.

Kevin Griffin (21:23.04)

Well, there's a great TED Talk. If you get nothing from listening to this today.

watch Sir Ken Robinson or Sir Kenneth Robinson's talk, it's his TED Talk. It's one of the most streamed TED Talks ever. He was a educator who passed away maybe five or six years ago. And the whole talk is about how our education system beats creativity out of you. And he said, and I love this and I use it in the book,

that you'll never come up with anything truly groundbreaking unless you're prepared to fail, that the people I know who are the most successful are, I call it dare to be stupid, know, just lose the filter and just throw crazy ideas out there and don't second guess yourself. That's when you get the great ideas. That's when you get hit songs. And some of the biggest songwriters I worked with in Nashville, they don't have a filter, man. They're lyrically, musically,

Brian Funk (22:16.684)

Weirdo.

Kevin Griffin (22:33.154)

Basically, the top line, they're just throwing shit out there without any care in the world. And a lot of it is just junk. And then suddenly you're like, wait, what did you just say? Heavy metal, she was a heavy metal pedal steel player. I'll never forget when JT Harding, who's a successful songwriter, said that to me in a song. We were writing a country pitch.

But yeah, just keeping that childlike wonder is key. And I'm always just coming back to that when I'm writing. I'm just like, what is silly? What is fun? And it just serves, it continues to serve me well. And also, I think there's a real gift we have as songwriters that we get. And we're able to see...

at a very young age, you're writing songs, how an idea is ephemeral and...

intangible as a song, just an idea, a melody you're singing, how that can turn into, go from an idea, just a hook into a song, and then the song can become a song your band plays, and then that can become a recording, and then that can become a single, and that can become a hit single, and then suddenly it can be a thing that started in your bedroom as this silly little idea, it could change your life, and not only change your life, but

but a lot of people's lives. as songwriters, we get to see that all the time. So being a songwriter has served me so well in my life because I do, whether it's starting a music festival in Franklin or doing other business things or doing an AI music platform, I'm like, I know that if I have a great idea, if I just don't quit and I just keep doing the next best thing,

Kevin Griffin (24:35.006)

I'll get there. And songs writing has proven that to me.

Brian Funk (24:40.876)

Sure, because you're pulling it out of thin air. It didn't exist. And it's a magic trick pretty much.

Kevin Griffin (24:43.988)

Yeah, you know, and it is, it's crazy. It's a magic trick and it's awesome. I don't get tired of it, man. Other people I know who are my age are all talking about retiring and I'm like.

Kidding me? This is my dream. This is the dream I dreamed of when I was 11. I'm getting to do this fucking stupid thing I get to do. It's awesome. Even playing live.

Brian Funk (25:14.06)

Let me ask you about those moments. If you take a song like Good or even some of the other singles and hits you guys had, are you aware of it? You're in the studio, you're writing it maybe with the band. Are you guys like, this is going to be the one, we've got something here. How does that feel?

Kevin Griffin (25:40.541)

You know, there are certain songs that the minute... Well, there's a lot of... There are certain songs when you write them, you're like, my God, this is a hit course. This song is by all definitions, the boxes you need to check, it's a hit. We knew with, with Good, that was written, those, the wah-ah lyrics aren't even the finished lyrics. That, we played it the...

two days or the night that I played it for the band the first time. And we were like, let's just play it. And I'll just mumble. I've always had a great propensity to make up gibberish lyrics as I go along. So not having a lyrics finish has never been a hindrance to playing a song live. And we knew that night we finished our set. played like, back in the day, you play for four hours. You're playing your few...

Brian Funk (26:26.667)

Right.

Kevin Griffin (26:36.614)

originals and then you're playing tons of you know covers and we were playing Hoodoo Gurus and Smiths and Pixies and REM and Replacements, Husker Du, Better Than Ezra and we got off the stage we were in Jackson Mississippi and people came up to us they didn't say what was that song and they're that's

unsatisfied by replacements or that's pop song 89 REM. Nobody was asking about those songs. They were all asking about this song. What's that's wah song. I was like, that's our new song. So I knew then, then there's songs like, you know, stuck like glue. I knew when, when we, when I brought that demo home that day from the studio, I knew that was a hit song, but you know, collide. knew collide how we day was a hit. but I gotta say,

Brian Funk (27:09.268)

huh.

Kevin Griffin (27:28.852)

I've been doing it long enough that there have been a lot of those that I'm like, this is a hit song, but now comes that weird alchemy of things happening that you can't plan. Like number one, the song has to be at that level to be a hit, but then it's gotta be, the band.

Brian Funk (27:40.204)

you

Kevin Griffin (27:52.865)

Is the artist on top of their game? Are they going to bring it home? Is the label in a position to make the single happen? Is the management on, are they clicking? There's so much stuff that has to happen. And then there's just the, then there's just the, the luck, you know, the PD, the program director at the station, he just happens to start playing it. You know, so, so I've come to terms with

hey, I've written a lot of songs that could be hits. I've been lucky to have some, but there's a whole chunk of them that if those things that would have happened the right way, those could have been hits too. But you do know the ones that are really good. And the challenge is not getting cynical because the songs that should have been hits weren't.

Brian Funk (28:28.086)

Hmm.

Kevin Griffin (28:41.094)

And the kiss of death in the music business, maybe every business, but I only know this one, is getting cynical and bitter about how hard it is. At some point I just was like, next, move along. And worst case, if that song didn't become a hit for somebody, I'll just record it myself. I always love giving songs second chances.

Brian Funk (28:52.278)

Uh-huh.

Brian Funk (29:03.756)

Hmm.

Yeah, that's cool. Well, those are factors you have little control over. All the planets aligning and the timing and you never know something happens in the news that day and it's released and it just... Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (29:13.48)

Yeah, they really do a lot. There's so many stories.

Or the right placement. mean, you know a couple of great examples. Goo Goo Dolls, their album had come out. This is 90s. They were this close to being dropped by Warner Records and Kevin Weatherly at K-Rock heard name on the second side of whatever, maybe a boy named Goo, I'm not sure.

and started playing name, not because just because he loved the song. Boom. It was a hit. K rock, the biggest station in alt rock at that time, you know, train, hey, soul sister. It wasn't reacting. Then they got a placement in, I think it was a Sanyo or a Panasonic flat screen television commercial. Boom.

it happened that way and you can never, you can't predict those things, you know, and you got to be good with that. Otherwise it's a very soul crushing business.

Brian Funk (30:21.196)

Those are out of your control and luck. Somebody just decides, gets placed here or there. That's, guess, what you do and you just keep shooting, keep shooting the shot. Even though the net is moving constantly, it might not even be there today.

Kevin Griffin (30:30.047)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (30:37.236)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (30:44.764)

Absolutely, you know, and at the same time, you try to make the, you try to produce music that's, that is, you know, timeless in the studio, work with great people and just make, at the end of the day, and this is a cliche, it's just like, you gotta satisfy yourself. If you're satisfied, that's the bar.

Satisfy yourself. So whatever happens, you don't have any regrets and you can always go back and go, that's fucking rad. I love it. I've got so many songs that, know, such high hopes and nothing happened on a big scale, you know, and, and, I'm, I'm fine with it, you know, because that's just, it is the, it is the lottery. It is the, the, the gamble of this business, you know.

Brian Funk (31:39.756)

But the payoff is you get to do it. You get to make that stuff. So, yeah. You get to show up and that's work. Right?

Kevin Griffin (31:41.689)

Ugh, that's the best.

Kevin Griffin (31:50.561)

I love every day man. I love what I do. And I'm always you know, there's a guy Have you worked have you had John Feldman on your Podcast Feldman's a lead singer songwriter of Goldfinger He's also a big songwriter producer for you blink 182 and a lot a lot of other people

Brian Funk (32:08.724)

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Brian Funk (32:19.478)

Hmm.

Kevin Griffin (32:20.082)

And he is just like, he's a huge personality. one time we were working together and he was like, Kevin, walk out with me to the balcony. And I walk outside with him and he's like, look at everything I've got. He said that, but he goes, say this with me. And I'm like, what? He goes.

Brian Funk (32:38.252)

you

Kevin Griffin (32:45.054)

And he screamed, he shouts out to the woods, I love my life. And I'm like, he goes, say it. I'm like, I love my life. And he goes, no, say it like you mean it. And I was like, I love my life. And there is a transformative power to speaking something that you really feel.

There's a saying like when you spell something out you're casting a spell words really matter and and all the time if If I'm feeling like what do I got today? I got to write with that band. I'm like, are you kidding me? I got a right I get to write I get to do this thing that I love to do and that's I go off fucking love I love my life even on shitty days, you know, it's such it sounds so stupid You know, but but but it you know, there's that whole manifold

Brian Funk (33:32.864)

No, no.

Kevin Griffin (33:36.636)

thing, the longer I've been around the more I believe in all the stuff that I used to roll my eyes about.

Brian Funk (33:42.54)

Well, I mean, what is the ultimate goal here, right? You you want all the success we strive for. We want to love our life. We want to be happy. There's the John Lennon quote I have on my classroom. It's something to the effect of when I was younger, the teachers asked me what I wanted to be. And I said, happy. And they said, you don't understand the question. He said, no, you don't understand life.

Kevin Griffin (33:54.496)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (34:06.56)

Brian Funk (34:10.121)

If you got that on the wall for the kids, just... and me. Remember that. What are we doing this for? Trying to be happy.

Kevin Griffin (34:12.82)

Dude, it's all true.

It's true, you know, and I think it's a really noble, making music, producing music, writing music, performing music. It's a noble path. You you bring happiness and memories and stuff to people. You get to be a part of their life in a really cool way. It's really, it's a real privilege.

Brian Funk (34:42.536)

I agree. And I've been through times where I wonder, you know, the self doubt can creep in and there's so many problems in the world and here I am making little sounds and silly songs. And there have been times where I've been pretty down about it even. it's ironically music that pulls me out of it. It's putting on some music and then you realize this is powerful stuff and

Kevin Griffin (35:05.365)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (35:10.332)

how many times in just my own life and people I know's life where a song brought them through it or something happened and you hear the music and it changes how you feel and see things. It's, you know, we might not have the ability to quantify it but it is, it's real. There's not a number or a statistic.

Kevin Griffin (35:32.161)

No, it's, you know, and people have tried to quantify, know, MRIs while listening to music or what classical music or different types of music does to the brain and in the chemistry of the body, it's real, you know. Yeah, you know, but also to your point, you know, getting deflated and stuff, you go through phases, you know, where,

you're more productive or more creative than others. Sometimes the best thing to do when I'm in one of those funk, especially just a day when I'm supposed to be writing, some days you're just on and some days you're off. My thing is lately I just like, okay, it's one of those days. It's just not in the room. just, I won't force it or what I'll do is I'll just stop trying to make music and I just listen to music, you know, and

And that just kind of unlocks, usually it's the Beatles. It just unlocks this thing that then suddenly I can write again. Just listening to amazing music to me always inspires me in my own music. Yeah, you can't force it. I can anyways. But I also just don't get down. I don't get down when, you know,

Brian Funk (36:56.982)

I mean,

Kevin Griffin (37:01.618)

Some days I bring the heat, some days I don't. And I'm depending on that other writer. I hate it when it's that way, but it was just meant to be.

Brian Funk (37:12.3)

Hmm. Well, and speaking about like collaborating and writing for other artists, do you find anything different going on with you in your own process when you're writing a song for you, for the band maybe, compared to, okay, we're working with this artist and we're collaborating and it's, you kind of know that it's going to be their song to sing and perform.

Kevin Griffin (37:34.047)

Yeah. Well, for sure. You know, like what I was saying earlier, it's way, way more freeing when I'm collaborating with someone.

it's way easier to write, because I'm not thinking of all that internal bullshit that I have. Have I done this before? Is this cool? Is this different than anything I've done in the past? Because that really trips me up. So what I'm writing was with another artist. And it's funny, because I get to see them with their own internal struggle, like...

Is this cool? Have I done this before? When we're writing it, and I'm just this, I'm like a fire extinguishing, I'm like a fire hydrant that's been opened. I'm just spewing out these ideas and melodies and stuff.

Brian Funk (38:14.987)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (38:33.33)

as something in collaborations because I'm just not thinking about all those other considerations that trip me up. So it's way easier to write and finish a song when I'm collaborating with another artist. I love getting kind of...

But I do a lot of due diligence when I work with another artist. I listen to their music and see where they're coming from. Because I think my job is to help them do what they do, maybe not better, but just differently. Just be that band member they don't have. because I'm such a fan of music, I'm pretty good at wearing different hats.

stylistically, whether I'm working with a band that's an East Nashville band and it's like indie garage or it's super minimalist, you know, bedroom pop. I've used that term once before. When I'm writing for myself, I just know songs that are only going to speak to me, you know.

And I just, on my iPhone, on my voice memo notes, I just say BTE. BTE. Some ideas I know are for me, but collaborating, writing for others is way easier than writing for myself.

Brian Funk (40:02.368)

Hmm. It's nice to have a little feedback and a little kind of a, no, that's good. That's good. Stop worrying about it from another person or, even when your energy gets a little low. I've had this a lot with the band where maybe I wasn't going to write down the lyrics today. I would have done it tomorrow, but they're like, let's just get this thing done. I'm like, okay, okay. Like let's, you know, that little extra push the energy when you don't have it.

Kevin Griffin (40:12.424)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (40:23.957)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (40:29.226)

There's a real cool discipline about, and I love this, going in at 11 a.m. in Nashville and leaving at three o'clock, four o'clock at the latest, and you've got a song that didn't exist before. And whatever you can say about the music industry, every time you go into a song write, you have the potential to leave that room with something that will change your life.

And that is, and I think Jonathan Daniel told me, said that. And Jonathan Daniel as a music manager at Crush, he manages Weezer, Panic at the Disco when they were together, Sia, Miley Cyrus. He's a great guy. He's a musician himself. But it's really true. Every time you go in, you don't know.

you you have the ability to do something that will change your life. You know, and that keeps me coming back. You know, just that, you know, roll of the dice is really cool. As opposed, it really is. mean, you know, and I love writing a song with a band.

Brian Funk (41:35.304)

That's a great attitude to step into it.

Kevin Griffin (41:44.255)

You know, and then an hour later the manager calls me, you know, the band loves the song, you know, that's just the best, man. And I'm like, well, that was a good day. You know, check the box. I did something. I accomplished something. I wrote a song. It's cool.

Brian Funk (42:00.14)

I don't know her.

Kevin Griffin (42:03.359)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (42:05.516)

Well, speaking of the direction of the music industry, you are, and you've done this throughout your career. You've pivoted, you've adjusted. I've, I heard you speaking about even just with Better Than Ezra at one point where I think you said the label had dropped you guys and now it's like, what are we going to do? And that's part of the collaborating songwriting with others. You've managed to carve a career.

Kevin Griffin (42:09.96)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (42:30.016)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (42:35.506)

out of not just one aspect of it, but multiple angles, instead of just, say, playing in the band. And now you're in a new one. You've kind of jumping on what seems to be an unstoppable wave.

Kevin Griffin (42:53.726)

Well, yeah, to answer kind of our comment on, you know, I tell people like, look, if my career, if I had been in Coldplay or Green Day, which was an all consuming entity, then I wouldn't have felt maybe the need are to...

figure out other things I can do within music, know, whether it was collaborating or publishing or managing or starting a music festival. because Better Than Ezra is awesome and I love, we just got back from a tour that was great of the Northeast. Because it wasn't some arena stadium juggernaut, you know, even though we should have been, Brian.

Brian Funk (43:44.672)

This carriage of justice right there.

Kevin Griffin (43:45.889)

You know, I've done other things and my career is, I've had a great career because I have so many irons in the fire and I love just wearing different hats and learning new things within this industry. Because what's really cool, we're in the music industry, but until you're...

a festival producer or a music producer or a collaborator, it's a whole different discipline within one industry. So I dig that. But yes, the latest thing that I'm involved with and co-founded is a AI music startup that

was really begun as a response to seeing Suno. Let's talk just about Suno and UDO.

come into being in 2024, that's when everybody heard about it, April 2024. I saw what I immediately recognized as the potential to be this new and even more powerful thing that was gonna diminish my livelihood as a songwriter in a lot of the ways, but I think even more powerfully, that streaming did to songwriting royalties with Spotify and how little we get paid. almost two years.

ago, I became determined to start an AI platform that advocated for artists and songwriters in the AI world that would empower us to kind of call our own shots and help elevate the IP, which is how we write in this world. And we launched it a month ago. It's called Soundbreak AI.

Brian Funk (45:42.22)

This is a huge thing, think, for songwriters especially. mean, it's in every industry really. see it in my English classes with the papers students are turning in that are generated.

Kevin Griffin (45:54.807)

my God. I can only imagine. Do they know? Are they savvy enough to get rid of the long hyphen? That gives away the dash.

Brian Funk (46:01.068)

Yeah, they have Dash.

Sometimes it depends how much effort they want to put into it. Sometimes they get a little clever and they edit it. But sometimes they just hand me these like brochures, you know, talking about their colleagues at work. like, so your colleagues at work, huh? But yeah, with music as well. On one level, for me, I've not been

Kevin Griffin (46:22.41)

Jesus.

Brian Funk (46:33.6)

so worried about it because I like making music. I like playing the guitar and figuring out this puzzle and seeing what happens. So it's not necessarily just the outcome. So I know it can't take that from me, but what's happening with something like Suno that just is taking everybody and learning from them and no one gets credit for it.

Kevin Griffin (46:38.975)

Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (46:50.634)

feel the same way.

Brian Funk (47:01.832)

is definitely problematic and it's nice to see you guys taking some effort to deal with that and find a way to work with it. It seems like this is not going away. know, history has told us enough, right?

Kevin Griffin (47:04.136)

I agree.

Kevin Griffin (47:17.556)

No, no, it's only...

Yeah, it's only going to get bigger, you know, and just to kind of, a little history, know, Suno came out.

Really in April 2024 is when I first heard about it, Suno and UDO. But if you only talk about Suno, Suno is the big dog. Now it's valued at almost $2 billion. And they scraped the internet without any license, every piece of music they could and they continued to. And then they built an AI model on unlicensed music, mine, everybody's. And they came out with an AI platform where you could type

been a prompt and even version one was crazy compelling. You know, the RIAA Recording Industry Association of America on behalf of the major labels sued them immediately saying this is not fair use. You are infringing on our copyrights and that lawsuit probably will never, it'll get settled out of court. But when that happened and I started playing around with it and going to other songwriters and like, have you messed with this?

way was, like you said, this isn't going anywhere. It's too powerful. There's too much money to be made. So if I don't think of a way to advocate and be a voice at the table for songwriters, we're going to get left behind just like in the streaming world and more history. I immediately thought of 1998, Napster came out.

Kevin Griffin (49:03.658)

then it was.

BitTorrent streaming, LimeWire, and all those illegal sites to stream music. The labels sued. Spotify came out. The labels sued them. And guess what? They settled with them to settle the lawsuits. They said, just give us some equity in your company, Spotify. And so all the major labels own a part of Spotify. And the part that they care about, the master side of streaming, well, that pays very well.

And everybody, if you're a producer and you're listening to this, you know that you can upload your own song to DistroKit or TuneCore. The master side, can make some good money if your song is popular. But the songwriting side is criminally low. when Suno came out, I was like, okay, they're already indiscriminately, this is the same playbook. I know what's gonna happen and it's happening now. The labels are settling with Suno and UDO for a piece of the action and songwriters are gonna get left out. So I was like,

like why can't we build a platform that creates an AI version of your favorite songwriters and artists? Because my aha moment was when I did a little due diligence on AI. And the real simple explanation of AI is the ability to take a ton of data, whether it's language, like chat GBT, or music.

and be able to predict patterns. If you learn enough about anything, you can tell what the next thing's gonna be, whether it's language or music or mathematics, and music is mathematics. So I was like, wait a second, songwriters, we're all just a series of patterns, what we've learned, who we listen to, and people tell me all the time, they'll ask me, did you work on whatever song? And I'm like, yeah, how'd you know that? And they'll be like, I could tell when it hit the chorus, sounded

Kevin Griffin (51:01.034)

like one of your songs. And that was my aha moment. Like, well, songwriters were a series of patterns. I can change up the patterns, but as much as I want to believe I'm a jack of all trades, I do something kind of one thing really, really good. So I was like, wait, if we could create AI versions of those patterns unique to me, unique to Sam Hollander, Fitz and the Tantrums, all these different artists and create a platform that was trained on music that was licensed.

that were the rights holders of those masters were getting paid, unlike what Suno did, which is do it without any permission or pay. If we could create a way to pay the artists with subscriptions and ownership in the masters that their AI created, then at least in this world that isn't going anywhere, we could advocate and create a whole new income stream for musicians, for songwriters, for producers. And that was the lofty goal. And I got together with some guys in Nashville

who shared that same vision and had the technical know-how to do it. And that's what we've created with Soundbreak.

Brian Funk (52:09.228)

So you're able to go in to soundbreak and I did this earlier today and I picked you as the artist and I was able to create a song and I took a quote I heard you say, I think you said your father said it to you, nothing changes if nothing changes. I was like, I want to make a song called Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes.

Kevin Griffin (52:17.383)

yeah.

Kevin Griffin (52:30.218)

Yeah. I love that.

Brian Funk (52:35.144)

I told I wanted it like a 90s alternative sound, but with some modern elements. And it pumped it out. They gave me a couple examples and then it asked me if I wanted to revise it a little and I did a little revision to it. And it's amazing. It really is amazing just how we can create stuff like this. And I guess this is now taking kind of just is it

Kevin Griffin (52:40.329)

Right?

Brian Funk (53:04.84)

analyzing just your songwriting, your music and kind of...

Kevin Griffin (53:09.438)

Well, there's some, first off we have like a general AI model that's been trained on all the music that we license, you know, a bunch of different genres, and then we get together with every artist and we go through a series of verbal cues or prompts behind the curtain. And then we take masters that you own, that I own.

and we use that to refine the output. So it's a, there's some other stuff too, but behind the curtain.

The goal with every artist we have on Soundbreak is like if I type in, this is my go-to prompt, as lame as it sounds, write a song about my favorite pair of sneakers, call it I Love My Chucks. And if we've done our work right, mine will sound like, I decided I'm gonna be 90s, I'm gonna be in 90s indie rock. So if I've done it right, that I hit render, and it's gonna give me a song that sounds like that.

And if you're on David Ryan Harris, you're going to hit it, put that in, and it's going to sound like cool pop with a soulful back beat. So that's really the DNA of what we're building. And then you can download stems, take what you want, and really.

The play, the big thing was sound break. And we can get back to something that Suno does really cool that we don't do, but we're about to come out with, though it's a small part of the business, is if AI is not going anywhere and it's either lead or get left behind, I would rather make an attempt at leading and advocating for us in this new world. And I think there is a way.

Kevin Griffin (54:59.528)

to have a whole new way for artists to connect with their fans. And that is a way like, how cool is it if your favorite artist said, they go on their socials. Hey, come write with my AI on sound break. I'm going to be listening to the songs you make. Every month, I'm going to take my favorite song that you guys are.

written, I'm gonna play it on acoustic, I'll get your feedback, who knows, I might even record it for my new album. You know, when you start having stories like that, even, that's what Better Than Ezra's just done, we've just said, hey, write a song with us May 15th, we're gonna announce our favorite song and we're gonna record it as Better Than Ezra's next single. But we've been around a while, when we get artists that are, let's just shoot for the moon, when Harry Styles does something like that,

It's going to be a revolution in fan-artist connection. And it's going to create new creators. It's going to create a whole new creator class, like YouTube has done for video creators. I mean, before YouTube came along, the barriers to making video...

were so expensive that most people couldn't do it. YouTube came along and with an edit, with editing suite and different things on the iPhone, suddenly look what we're doing right here. You know what I mean? it created a whole new creator class. And I think that AI has the ability to do that with AI, with music. And there's going to be a whole group of people who are so savvy in the way they prompt and upload their own lyrics and massage the output of AI, maybe putting it into Ableton and

putting their own vocals. It's going to be really exciting. It's going to be different, man. It's going to be scary. But we got to get in there and as songwriters and be a part of this revolution. I think it's really cool. I'm already having dialogues with our fans that I've never had before. And it's really cool and how creative people are.

Brian Funk (57:00.428)

I think that is a really cool thing you guys are doing with inviting the fans to make something and tag it BTE so that, so you know, and that, hey, like we made this song, it'd be kind of cool if you guys played it almost or you guys took it and, you know, do whatever you want, I guess, interpolate it or maybe it's whatever you want. But that interaction is, that's a fun layer.

Kevin Griffin (57:10.09)

So we

Kevin Griffin (57:23.113)

Yes, you.

It's really, really cool.

It's really, you know, I've, and we have a way to communicate on soundbreak with, with users, or I can just direct message them on Instagram because you put in your, your, your Instagram username, you know, and I've, I've loved doing that. There's whole new fans that I didn't know were fans of the band and whether I'll repost, you know, a song somebody's done, but we're gonna, we're gonna take our favorite song and we're gonna, we'll re record it.

our way with our real humans playing the instruments, probably change the lyrics some. If there's any limitations, if you've tried to write lyrics using ChatGPT, it's hit or miss, it sounds like eighth grade poetry. Though, if you refine it, like, the few times I've used...

It's really just more advanced version of Rhyme Brain or Master Writer. You know, if I say, write me a song about going out on a Saturday night, well you get a, and call it, call it, till the sun comes up. The first thing you get back is really crappy. And then you say, write me a song about going out on a Saturday night with friends and getting crazy called till the sun comes up.

Kevin Griffin (58:53.906)

And that is little better. And there'll be a nugget or two, but then you say, okay, this is good, but make it edgier. Make it about going out in the East Village, New York on a Saturday night, staying up and watching the sun, make it dangerous, young and indie sounding. Then you get something that's, wow, that one line is fucking dope. And then that leads you to a whole lyrics you write. So.

The point of the reason I'm saying that is that we have that loop of refining that's behind the curtain on sound break is that...

in order to get our lyrics better, there's several different generations of lyrics that happen before you actually get your song. All that to be said is I know there will probably be some lyric, a lyric I won't want to change ultimately when Better Than Us records it. But I'm super bullish on it. I wanted to give musicians more freedom in this new world.

and selfishly a new income stream as artists. And there's a part on the platform where you can onboard yourself as an artist yourself. You don't need us to do it. You build your own studio. It's just really cool. It's just very personal.

And again, at the same time, it's a moving target. We're learning as we're going along. We're trying to do the right thing, being super transparent with all the artists who are on it, whether it's the artist agreement. And it's just like, it had to be something that I, as an artist, would want to be a part of.

Kevin Griffin (01:00:38.088)

I know I'm going on. I know I'm talking a lot. Just shut me up.

Brian Funk (01:00:38.358)

Well that's what I've-

Brian Funk (01:00:44.012)

Well, that's why you're here. I think the best one of these is when I say the least amount when we do these podcasts. you know, it's that's what I found interesting, you know, because there's a lot of AI, this and that coming out for all different sorts of stuff. And I get contacted about some of that once in a while. But hearing it's you behind it and you're a songwriter, you have an invested interest in songwriting and you're

built your life around it. You understand its importance and the humanity behind it and what it is for expression. as you said earlier, how your songs can affect people's lives. there's a lot that I guess some of the other plant, feels like that's all who cares about that stuff when you see some of this other AI things. It's just, yeah, make it, the computer makes a song and yeah.

Kevin Griffin (01:01:41.171)

Yeah, because artists, take, their billion dollar companies are built on our backs. They're not paying.

the rights holders and when I say that that's the masters that they they went on indiscriminately onto Spotify, YouTube music, you name it, SoundCloud and they just were a Hoover, a big vacuum and they just sucked it all up. Every artist we've already been off so my thing was yeah

They can't do that, you know, and if they're going to do it, meaning the labels get in bed with them and try to dictate. just, I've seen it happen before and I was just like, no, I can't, I won't be, I won't be asleep well at night if we didn't do something to advocate for ourselves. I don't want to be left behind like we were left behind and streaming.

Brian Funk (01:02:41.792)

How have you found the response to be so far?

Kevin Griffin (01:02:45.229)

you know what? Dude.

Brian Funk (01:02:46.676)

especially in the songwriter community, because I imagine there's got to be people that are on all sides of this debate.

Kevin Griffin (01:02:52.196)

They're on all sides of it. You know, I can tell you if you look at the everybody that's on the platform are friends and and the the bar that I wanted to get for these initial artists were unimpeachable Working-class songwriters people who have had Grammys Grammy noms Musicians and artists that no one could slag because they're the real deal

And I knew that when I told them what we were trying to create, my hope was that I've been blown away by once I said why we're doing what we're doing and what we're doing. Everybody's like, I'm in. Let me, you I'm in. And then when we...

got our talking points about why we're doing this, what soundbreak, why we're different, even though I knew that all of them, it was bulletproof because it is, we have legal counsel and we're like, tell us why this idea won't work. This is a year and a half ago. And so every little thing that we needed to do, we've done to protect the people who made the music and get them paid.

All that said, when we launched, I really expected to get slagged because AI is super polarizing. Most people though, react out of ignorance because they don't really know what's happening. They just say, AI, it's killing us, it's the death of creativity. You you suck. was good, you know.

But if you look at what's really happening and you educate yourself, then you're like, okay, this is rad. I get it. Good for you. All that said, I expected to get.

Kevin Griffin (01:04:41.566)

really railed on when we when we launched because I've learned a lot of times people like when I'm doing pilgrimage festival, I've learned that people usually and I'm guilty of this too. Like you know, once I've ever read something and you're like it doesn't say anything like you get an email from somebody like you didn't say anything about what I asked for and they go did you read my reply and you go yeah, we'll read the reply again and you didn't look at what they read at all. You didn't read it, you know, when you're reacting.

from ignorance. So I expected to get slagged. We did this big push with PR a month ago and I got one person on Facebook of course that was like, well it was good being a fan, unsubscribe. Other than that,

it's been amazing. There's been a few people, you know, like you guys, you guys always sucked. You wrote one song 30 years ago, you suck. You know, I'm like, fine. Delete. but here's a good example. yesterday I'm, I'm, I'm on the, you know, I'm a voting member of the Grammys, you know, and, and,

Brian Funk (01:05:36.62)

air.

Kevin Griffin (01:05:53.151)

And on the same day we launched a sound break in the morning, that day I was writing a bluegrass song with a bunch of great bluegrass people and we recorded it that day. No technology involved other than a microphone and Pro Tools, I guess. But yesterday I was on a panel talking about AI. It was a music advocacy panel at the Hermitage Hotel to a bunch of musicians, producers who were part of the Grammys, but just interested people and a lot of state legislators.

who were legislating on what's going on with AI. And I was like, one of the things I said was, guys, AI is just a new tool. If you look back, go back to the Beatles. They got...

They got slagged when they were multi using multi-track recording. They had a four-track recorder and they were using a string quartet and bouncing, do a pass, bounce it down, bounce it down, bounce it down. You know, they were using four people to do what they normally would have had a huge orchestra to do. And they did have orchestras, but this is one example. So they got slagged in the sixties for taking jobs away from musicians, even though they didn't. In the seventies, Queen...

on the back of every Queen album, if you have old Queen vinyl albums, it says in bold letters, no synthesizers were made in the making of this, used in the making of this album until the game, like their fifth or sixth album, and it was all synthesizers, you know. Then you go to Pro Tools, know, and it got slagged. Ricky Martin had the first number one with Livin' La Vida Loca. Then AutoTune, now there's AI. It's just, it is just a new tool.

Brian Funk (01:07:20.097)

Mm.

Kevin Griffin (01:07:39.283)

that can be really powerful and make you more productive as a producer. And we can talk a little about how I am using Zuno, even though I don't like it, but it helps me with my workflow. I just think it's a new tool, but we've got to, it's a new tool that we have to advocate as songwriters. And I think we'll look back in three or five years and say, yeah, AI, I use AI in my workflow. I'm kicking ass as a producer or a songwriter.

but it wasn't in the of the world. And hopefully we look back at that time and say, we got protected as creators in this new world and compensated.

Brian Funk (01:08:19.66)

Hmm. Yeah, that would be a first, right? That'd be a nice change of pace.

Kevin Griffin (01:08:22.718)

Yeah, can tell you right now the thing that nobody is really talking about is how AI is really being used daily by music professionals in Nashville, in New York, everywhere. And it is a part of Suno that they don't even care about.

The main revenue source for Suno is doing our verbal prompts, mean written prompts, write me a song about my cat, you know, and you could do that on Soundbreak, but the thing that the music industry is using it for is the cover or remix function. Are you familiar with that?

Brian Funk (01:09:07.42)

I've not used that, no.

Kevin Griffin (01:09:09.164)

Yeah, so on Suno, they have a function, it's called cover or remix. And that, what Nashville is using it for, and we're about to introduce that in about three weeks on sound break, is you take, I'm in a songwriting session, at the end of the songwriting session,

you do a voice memo on your phone, you know, vocal acoustic, then you can upload that into sound and to Suno and say modern, modern country song, dry vocals, stomp clap or whatever you want it to be, you know, indie rock, swampy blues rock. And you can hit render and just like that, you get an incredibly compelling produced version of the song that was

just a vocal and an acoustic guitar. And then you bounce those stems out, you usually get seven to eight stems and you pop them into Ableton or whatever your logic for me is Pro Tools. Then you say, well that's a rad bass part, that's a cool drum part. Let's recut the vocal with a human, the person that I wrote this with, maybe it's me. And then you do that and then you send it into the label, the label goes, awesome, they just want a great demo.

happening in Nashville and that's the reason why most professional songwriters you know have the pro subscription to Suno. That is a feature that we're bringing into Soundbreak but quite honestly isn't the money generating part of either platform. But it is a really compelling thing. That's what

That's so, and for me, like I'm a producer. I produce stuff, I produce quite a few albums. I produce a lot of singles, just doing a whole album for me. I'm so slow, but there's a, I don't come from the generation of, I'm not one of those super fast.

Kevin Griffin (01:11:10.997)

producers on their laptop, that I work with a lot of younger producers who are so damn fast. we're writing this, say it's me, you, and a guy who's on laptop, you know, we're writing the song, we're doing the top line and the lyrics, meanwhile he's cutting bass, programming drums, and by the time we leave that session at three o'clock, the demo's done.

You cut that vocal, you drive your three blocks from the studio or his house or her house, and you get a demo, you're like, holy shit, that's amazing. There's that skill set. I don't have it. So, and most people don't. where the AI world is happening is you write a song for real with humans, then you upload it and you get a fully produced demo that gives you really great pieces that you can use for a demo and you can be

lot more productive and knock out a lot more demos in a shorter period of time. That's what some of the biggest producers in the business are using it for.

Brian Funk (01:12:15.564)

Well, that allows you to put the clothes on the song and see how it plays.

Kevin Griffin (01:12:20.445)

Yeah. And also to take a song that you wrote as a country song and like, Hey, make this a R &B song, make this Americana roots, know, make this an EDM song. It's crazy. So suddenly if you have a great idea, you could, you can suddenly have five different pitches in an hour.

That's how AI can really help you and that's what we're incorporating into Soundbreak. But just in full transparency, that's kind of with the lay of the land out there. But again, that makes up like one or 2 % of the revenue for Suno. But to me as a producer, I find that super compelling.

Brian Funk (01:13:12.716)

It's not a lot different than Logic has the drummer. It's got the bass player and the keyboard player. Ableton Live now has MIDI generators, which will create things. And some of them that are more like third party are really advanced in that they'll produce beats and bass lines and things like that. They'll recognize chord progressions. So it's not that far off from...

Kevin Griffin (01:13:40.298)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:13:41.514)

what's being built into the DOS anyway.

Kevin Griffin (01:13:43.871)

And think about it. mean, we've, we're so used to using samples now we're so used to working with splice, which is samples, you know? I mean, there was a time where he was, who was the guy that was doing the drum packs on splice where every song you heard was like, I know those drums. I want to name, I want to say Chromio. Was it, it was Chrome beats or something like that. you know what I'm, you know what?

Brian Funk (01:13:49.004)

It loops, drop them in.

Brian Funk (01:14:08.376)

was Beats That Knock maybe. Beats That Knock de-cap. Yeah, there's a couple of them. Yeah.

Kevin Griffin (01:14:15.648)

You know, we all know, and then there's Arcade, know, Alphard makes Arcade. You know, so, they're just new tools. know, I think what's unique about Soundbreak is that we're doing something that other AI companies aren't doing, and it's a new way for fans to collaborate with artists. And that is super compelling and exciting to me, because I'm always looking for new ways to connect.

Brian Funk (01:14:27.169)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:14:44.586)

And I'm seeing you guys have, I could download these songs, look at lyrics. It says send to radio and distribute. What would that be?

Kevin Griffin (01:14:53.938)

So you can send to Soundbreak Radio and then the idea is for the artists on the platform to see the songs you've written.

Brian Funk (01:14:58.698)

Okay, I see that, yeah.

Kevin Griffin (01:15:08.456)

You can send links to your friends to upvote your song so it performs better at Soundbreak Radio. So, so I get to eat every artist on Soundbreak gets an email once a week of your top 10 performing songs based on how they're performing at Soundbreak Radio. But what's cool. And I think that's even more exciting than that is that we're the only AI platform in the world where you write a song on our platform and you dig it. You can hit distribute.

and you can distribute to all the DSPs, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, within our platform. There's no other platform that has that. So you can be a fan of whatever artists on sound break, write a song with your AI, you dig the song.

You can, in 10 minutes, you can upload your song and have a song that you wrote with the AI for insert artists. And you could be an artist on Spotify. You could be streaming music around the world. And that's, that's, that's what I'm talking about. Create a whole new creator class and the, and you as a user.

You get 50 % ownership of the master, the artist gets 25%, and sound break gets 25%. That's what the splits are. So that's crazy.

Brian Funk (01:16:36.044)

Yes, I mean that means you could have people uploading songs they wrote with your AI and that's another little bit of a potential income stream.

Kevin Griffin (01:16:37.236)

You know, I...

Kevin Griffin (01:16:51.06)

Well, what I talk to artists about and think about this, and this is whether you're user or you're an artist, is if you're on sound break.

You've spent a lifetime building a sound, you know, and you're always gonna make music, you know, the traditional way. I know, if anything, I'm gonna lean personally as an artist, I'm leaning more into more organic, you know, and live and playing live than ever before. But you've built a sound, it's not going anywhere, but there's a whole new, there's this new technology that's gonna steal that.

Brian Funk (01:17:20.02)

Yeah, me too.

Kevin Griffin (01:17:26.272)

unless you advocate for yourself while on soundbreak, you can get out of bed, look on your phone, onto your soundbreak dashboard and say, my AI wrote 3,200 songs last week. And I've got this much, and I can see, I made this much money from subscriptions and...

The song that Hello Kitty 932 in New Delhi, India wrote with me last month has got three million streams on her TikTok.

and I'm getting that revenue flow and it all comes through Soundbreak. And at the end of every month, Soundbreak artists get a royalty statement. So the IP that you spend a lifetime building can work for you while you sleep and connect with fans in a way you've never done. then also in three to five years or whatever, you can turn around as an artist and you've got this whole new

Brian Funk (01:18:03.82)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Griffin (01:18:29.291)

catalog of masters, of AI masters. And right now we look at AI masters, we're like it's AI slop, stop the slop. That distinction is gonna, as we speak, is becoming blurred less and less. it's coming this year, there's already been number ones that were AI songs.

You know, those stories are going to happen more and more, whether they're a hybrid, maybe it was AI lyrics or AI, you know, whatever drums. But those AI catalogs that started on say like Soundbreak are going to become really valuable and they're going to have, it'd be a whole new income source. Again, this whole thing started as me like, okay, I'm a lifetime musician. You know, how can I...

How can we as artists make money and monetize this thing that's coming, whether we like it or not? And this is the best idea that we could come up with.

Brian Funk (01:19:27.468)

I like it a lot better than this just taking everybody's music and no one gets anything. I mean that seems criminal.

Kevin Griffin (01:19:34.878)

I think it is. I think it is. And I think it's BS, but you know, the labels, Warner's done a deal with Suno, Universal's done a deal with UDO. Baby, it's big business. cash money is the bottom line with these companies. You better believe it.

And so we got to get in there and advocate for ourselves. And that's what we're trying to do with Soundbreak. But yeah, to me, to your point, was unconscionable what Suno has done. And if we don't...

if we're not a voice at the table, or at least giving an alternative. My thing is, here's what I think is gonna happen. The futures, you're gonna sign to Warner Records. And I, look, I was signed to Warner and stuff, I had a great relationship with them, but I'm not signed anymore. They're gonna have their own AI platform for their artists and...

you know, and hopefully they're doing it like we're doing it. But there are way, way more independent artists like me now and like you and people who will never be on those labels. There's way, way more and they need a place to be and that's what Soundbreak's about, you know.

Brian Funk (01:21:05.182)

And I hope people that are doing this recognize that ethical decision to go to a place where artists are treated fairly and compensated. And you know, like that's the ultimate way we get to vote really is with our dollar. You know, we do that every day. We get an election every once in a while and most of us feel like we have no impact on it anyway.

Kevin Griffin (01:21:14.102)

You know.

Kevin Griffin (01:21:29.173)

Dude.

Brian Funk (01:21:32.694)

But the dollar, what you buy, where you put your attention, that speaks.

Kevin Griffin (01:21:37.408)

Well, know, you know, when people, when Spotify came out, you know, not to repeat myself, but to repeat myself, you know, people are like, why would you pay to get what you can get for free? Meaning, you know, there was LimeWire and all that stuff. And the success of Spotify, regardless that they're screwing the songwriters, proved that people want stability.

They want to ultimately do the right thing by the artists who were saying, don't use those illegal BitTorrent file sharing platforms. Use Spotify. People want to do the right thing. And as jaded, as cynical as the world can get, do think that given a choice with two comparable options, I'd rather do the right thing that supports the artists I love.

I'm going to do that. And that's what we're banking on. And that's why we built this. And yeah, and we're super excited. And the momentum we've gotten has been really rad. And it's super cool.

Brian Funk (01:22:51.564)

I think it's clever what you guys are doing with Better Than Ezra about having fans create the songs. That's a nice kind of unexpected turn for some of this stuff. You know, something I hadn't thought of, but it's a great alternate way of interacting with your fans and learning about who they are and letting them participate in the music to some degree.

Kevin Griffin (01:23:16.129)

Well, here's the deal. I've been thinking about this. Well, you could say, what was to stop you before from saying, let's just write a song with a fan? Well, then the world of music.

and rights and ownership can be really sticky, really fast and complicated. You know, the cool thing about doing it through Soundbreak is that...

with the user agreement and what we've done, everything is already spelled out. So it's just so easy to do. And that's why I think it's super compelling. And why I think artists, better than us being the first, will do it more and more. And once that happens, then it's just gonna get crazy. I think that platforms like Soundbreak,

can end up being one of the biggest income generators for artists in the future. I think it's that powerful.

Brian Funk (01:24:31.244)

Yeah, people might want...

Kevin Griffin (01:24:33.195)

Which is really important when touring is more and more difficult, when streaming as songwriters, you know, the middle class of songwriters has been eviscerated by streaming, you know, it's not easy. Especially now for younger artists, it was way easier back in the day when I started to have a career and be really happy with it without being the top of the top, know, being Beyonce or Ed Sheeran.

you know.

Brian Funk (01:25:03.884)

Yeah, and people can make a song for their friend or their loved one in the style of the artist they choose. Whereas it can be much more direct that way with what you guys do as opposed to something else where it's sort of known that it's in that style of the artist, but it's not really like official and

then the credibility and the royalties still go to the actual artist that we're trying to. I want better than Ezra to sing, you know, congratulations, you passed your road test or something.

Kevin Griffin (01:25:41.321)

Yeah, I think it.

Kevin Griffin (01:25:48.928)

Yeah, I just, I think it's just exciting and fun, the whole thing. love the people who are writing the songs. They're super excited about them. I'm having fun listening to them and I'm blown away how great some of this, AI still blows me away what it is and how it does it. I still don't know. Look, I got my dog trying to get to me. And they're good songs.

Brian Funk (01:26:13.516)

Hehehe.

Kevin Griffin (01:26:17.737)

I mean, it's been 24 hours or 36 hours since we launched this Better Than Ezra thing on soundbreak. And there's some songs I like, that's rad. That's a fucking hit chorus. I can't wait to see what we eventually decide on and what we do when we record it for real.

Brian Funk (01:26:41.996)

Well, as you said, every time you go in there, you have the potential to change your life. Could be. Could be another example of that.

Kevin Griffin (01:26:46.708)

Yes.

Kevin Griffin (01:26:52.203)

Absolutely.

Brian Funk (01:26:54.717)

Listen, I definitely want to be mindful of your time and you've been really generous to hang out for the afternoon.

Kevin Griffin (01:27:01.981)

Absolutely and I kind of do yeah, my kids are about to get back from school and I got a got a day It's been pleasure Brian yes and we didn't talk about those old records, but maybe that's for round two

Brian Funk (01:27:08.172)

We'll wrap this up. Listen, thank you. Going all the way back to the 90s.

making the soundtrack of our lives.

Brian Funk (01:27:23.744)

Yeah, that'd be wonderful. Yeah. We will check in down the road too with how everything's going with the sound break. And I think you guys are touring again, I saw later this year.

Kevin Griffin (01:27:36.066)

We're doing a lot of shows, lot of festivals this year. Bottle Rock is gonna kind well Jazz Fest and then Bottle Rock and Napa. And then we're gonna be out, we'll do Ocean's Calling in September. Kind of up near you, Ocean City, Maryland. Well, not too far from you. yeah, Better Than Ezra will be out making music.

Brian Funk (01:28:05.216)

Nice. So the site is soundbreak.ai, if people want to check it out.

Kevin Griffin (01:28:09.813)

Yes, soundbreak.ai, you can check it out. can make 20 songs for free. Go on it, write with a different artist, upload it to the radio.

send it to friends to get them to upvote it. It helps you go up the charts to top tracks. And that's how, I mean, I see all the songs, but that's how I really see the latest songs that people are reacting to. And that's how I know how to listen to them and shout them out. And I do that, actually all the artists are doing that, just shouting out their favorite songs for the week.

Brian Funk (01:28:46.484)

And what's the deadline for the Better Than Ezra

Kevin Griffin (01:28:49.395)

May 15th is, we're gonna go out to Friday. Tom and I are gonna go on live on our socials and say, we'll probably do our favorite five, but the number one song we'll record, and it'll be our next single. It'll be our single for the summer.

Brian Funk (01:29:05.642)

Nice. people will be able to participate in that if they want. Totally free and it's fun. Give it a shot.

Kevin Griffin (01:29:12.435)

Yeah, do it.

Brian Funk (01:29:15.582)

All right. Well, thank you so much. Really great talking to you. if you ever want to it again, the door is open.

Kevin Griffin (01:29:21.675)

Dude, I would love it and continued success with the podcast. dig it. And when I told my partners who are musicians as well, and you know, in soundbreak, they're like, I love that, you know, super cool. thank you.

Brian Funk (01:29:35.286)

Nice. Well, thank you and thank you everyone for listening.

Kevin Griffin (01:29:39.254)

You got it. Bye, guys.

Brian Funk
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Developing an Authentic Sound with David Paul Newell - Music Production Podcast #422