DEVILDRIVER frontman Dez Fafara used a new interview with MetalSide to lay out his skepticism toward artificial intelligence as a songwriting tool, arguing that the technology strips music of the human element that gives it meaning.
"I don't use it. I know a lot of vocalists that use A.I. to write. Like, how are you gonna fucking put in a computer, let it write your vocals, and then sing 'em?" Fafara said, questioning how a performer can convincingly deliver lyrics they didn't actually write themselves.
He wasn't willing to rule the technology out entirely, carving out one narrow use case for it in his own process: "The only time I'll use A.I. is when I need to rhyme a word maybe."
Fafara's larger objection is about authenticity. "The computer doesn't have fucking heart," he said. "And we'll all see, man, 'cause if we let this A.I. thing keep happening, maybe you've not seen the movie 'Terminator,' but fuck, man, we're gonna be in big trouble."
The comments arrive just days before DEVILDRIVER release "Strike And Kill," their eleventh studio album, due July 10 via Napalm Records. The current lineup features Fafara alongside guitarists Alex Lee and Gabe Mangold, drummer Davier Ortega Perez and bassist Jon Miller.
Fafara described a long, deliberate writing process behind the new record, pushing back against any notion that it was rushed to market. "We wrote a lot of songs for this. It was over two and a half years, three years almost, in the making," he said.
DEVILDRIVER's stance puts Fafara in the same camp as a growing number of veteran metal musicians publicly pushing back on generative A.I. in music production — a debate that has intensified across the genre as the technology becomes cheaper and more accessible to independent artists and major labels alike. For Fafara, the argument isn't really about whether A.I. can technically produce a vocal line or a riff; it's about whether anyone should want it to, when the entire appeal of extreme metal has always rested on visible, audible human effort.
With "Strike And Kill" arriving next week, DEVILDRIVER fans will get to judge for themselves whether the band's decidedly human approach to songwriting still delivers the aggression the band built its reputation on.