Alice Cooper has issued a stark warning about the future of rock music, claiming artificial intelligence is now capable of creating fully-formed “rock stars” who don’t actually exist – and could even release hit albums without a single human emotion behind them.
Appearing on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, the 78-year-old shock rock icon said the technology has advanced so far that a convincing, marketable artist could be generated from scratch.
He explained: “Well, here’s the deal. I could right now create a rock star. I could create a Yungblud, a guy that’s really appealing, rock, tough, cool looking. I could create a guy named – I don’t care – Starboy or whatever, and make him look great. He doesn’t actually exist.”
The Poison hitmaker went on to describe how AI could be instructed to mimic legendary voices and write entire albums without any human involvement.
He said: “I could tell the AI, ‘I want him to sound like Tom Petty and Freddie Mercury. And here’s what the album’s about. Write the songs.’ Okay, now you’ve got a rock star that doesn’t exist, and you’ve got an album that doesn’t exist except in this world. And what happens if it sells? Who gets the money? AI wrote the songs.”
He warned that the industry is heading toward a legal and creative minefield, adding: “That’s gonna happen. You watch that happen, because the guy that just suggested what it should be did not write the songs.”
He insists the real issue isn’t copyright – but the absence of lived experience.
Alice went on: “If I could tell it to write a song about Eddie Trunk joining The Rolling Stones, they would write you a great song – except for one thing. The one thing it can’t do – it’s never been in love. It’s never had its heart broken. It’s never been angry. It’s never been happy.”
He argued that AI-generated music will always lack the emotional core that defines great rock songwriting.
He said: “It only knows words… But it has no emotion. It has no heart, it has no feel, has no soul to it, and that’s where it dies right there.”
And until AI can replicate that human spark, Alice believes its creations will remain hollow.
He added: “You know that it doesn’t come from any root inside, any heart, any experience. When they get that, then I think… I don’t know what’s going to happen to music.”
Meanwhile, Alice is gearing up for his Devil on My Shoulder book tour, with special guest hosts Arthur Brown, radio favourite Claire Sturgess and legendary music journalist Billy Sloan joining him on the tour.
Head to alicecooper.com for more.
