Columbus producer pulls back the curtain with ‘Storm9000 and the Robot’

Storm9000 listens to at least 50 new songs a day, taking time to catalogue each that contains some element that grabs him – a drum break, a vocal harmony, a synthesizer melody – by creating sound-specific playlists to which he can later return.

“If I like a key change, that goes in the key change playlist. If I like the drums, that goes in the drums playlist,” the musician and producer said by phone in early February. “Of course, if I don’t like something I’ll skip past it, but I’ll do that throughout the day until the music genie visits me.”

Once this inspiration strikes, Storm9000 will sit down and record, aiming to craft two new tunes a day, which he then groups by theme, allowing time and space for projects to develop more naturally. New album Storm9000 and the Robot, for instance, emerged from a two-month period in which the producer created more than 1,000 songs with the help of AI software, the first 500 serving as pure experiments – “I still didn’t know how to work the machine, how to operate the controls to the video game,” he said – and the next 500 as a means to sharpen and refine his skills within that realm.

Having grown up with a deep technological fascination, Storm9000 approached AI without trepidation, linking his embrace of the platform with a long-held desire to create “with all 64 crayons in the box.” “For me, it’s a tool,” said the musician, who would craft beats using traditional means and then upload them to the AI software to add vocals – developing a digitized singer he referred to as Shea AI. “It’d be like, ‘Hey, I’m about to boot the robot up. I’m about to turn Shea on. … And I know there’s somebody still rolling around on the ground fighting over using an old-school typewriter versus spellcheck, or going to the real, human cashier versus using the self-checkout. There are always going to be those battles. But for me, I’m trying to steer [the technology] how I want. I’m treating it like a keyboard.”

Some of those within the producer’s orbit expressed skepticism about his embrace of AI. Drummer and composer Mark Lomax labelled early generated vocals “soulless,” Storm9000 said, while poet, cultural critic and occasional Matter News contributor Scott Woods announced that “AI is evil and Storm is the Devil” as the musician composed AI-generated tracks during a visit to Streetlight Guild, where he will host a music lab breaking down his creative approach to Storm9000 and the Robot on Sunday, Feb. 16 (registration required).

“For me, the technology allows me to finally move at the speed of my ideas,” said Storm9000, who then theorized that musicians’ willing embrace of tools such as Auto-Tune helped to prepare audiences for this new digital frontier. “Singers and creatives have been relying on Auto-Tune so much that they’ve taught consumers to be used to a tone that’s perfect and robotic. So, the side effect now is that AI sounds even more believable, because the same people threatened by it are the same people who use Auto-Tune to make the pitch of their voice perfect. … Musicians have been using these tools way before AI. The first computer ever used to sing was made by IBM, and it sang ‘Daisy Bell’ in 1961. Siri talks now. The 9000 in my name comes from [the talking computer] Hal 9000 in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’ None of this is new.”

Collectively, the tracks on Storm9000 and the Robot traverse uniformly serene waters, the producer crafting gravity-defying beats on the airy “I’m Lost in Space” and ushering in summer vibes on the sun-kissed “Stack Good Moments.”

Things are more turbulent than they appear on first glance, though, these internal tensions arising in the musician’s fondness for pairing his virtual voice with yearning, humanistic lyrics. On “This Dream,” Shea sings of their desire to discover “a place where my heart can finally be free,” while “Almost Alive” strives for something approaching sentience. “These human singers are worried about me,” Shea sings. “But I’m gonna live and thrive/I’m almost alive.”

“I sent that song to another singer from here and she busted out laughing, like, ‘She can’t be alive,’ and I said, ‘Well, that’s just like you calling her she,’” Storm9000 said, and laughed. “There is no she. … And I’m purposely writing to that, almost in jest. And it was fun to me until I played it at an open mic, and they all looked at me like it was the Terminator singing. … For me, Storm and the Robot is my Turing test. I am controlling it, a human being. A software engineer made it. This is not mystical. At the same time, what does it all mean for ‘organic’ artists? I don’t know. And I’m one of them. But I prefer to embrace all the toys so that I can understand all the toys. I wanted to demystify AI. And that’s why I’m going to have a masterclass [at Streetlight Guild] instead of a listening party. I’m going to be like Richard Pryor in ‘The Wiz’ and pull the curtain back.”