Daniel Benyamin Takes on AI Music With ‘Should I Care’ From ‘Life After Music’
Daniel Benyamin made ‘Life After Music’ in a small studio by the sea, somewhere below Mount Olympus, after months of silence, storms, animals asking for help, kittens being born and the strange feeling that time had started moving slower.
Today we’re premiering ‘Should I Care’, one of the first songs from the album. It comes from the Life side of the record, and it’s one of the easiest ways into this big, strange world Daniel has built. The song is direct, melodic and full of feeling, but it also carries the bigger mood of the album: trying to find something human in a world full of noise.
In our interview, Daniel talks a lot about listening. Not just hearing music in the background, but really listening. He also talks about AI music, streaming, and how songs used to mean more to people. At one point, he says he would rather listen to silence than AI music.
That may sound dramatic, but it makes sense when you hear the record. ‘Life After Music’ is not really about the end of music. It’s about getting back to what makes music matter in the first place.
Daniel says, “Music is never over. It’s one of the most real things in the world.”
‘Should I Care’ is a good place to start.
“Music is never over. It’s one of the most real things in the world.”
The album is called ‘Life After Music’. That title feels big, but also a little unsettling. When did those words first appear, and did they scare you at all?
The music was first, then some kind of tunnel, and suddenly I ended up with this monster of 22 songs divided into four different topics: Silence, Life, Loneliness and Space. I had to do some adjustments, but they each fit on one vinyl side.
With what I felt writing and singing these songs, and what was going on in the world, like “are we all going to be replaced by AI”, the title made a lot of sense.
Of course there’s irony, because through my research I got inspired to believe that AI will actually force us humans to become more human again and less machiney. Which is a great thing. And which means music is never over. It’s one of the most real things in the world: real people sharing their souls with real people by manifesting in sound. But there was a point when I actually believed music would be over.
You spent several months in nature while making this record. What changed once you got away from the usual noise around music, screens and daily life?
I started enjoying silence, which scared me at first. But also my perception of time changed completely. It’s crazy, but in that place, Dolphin Palace in Greece, which is in the middle of nowhere but right by the sea, nature is so much more important than our little bubbles we create in urban surroundings. Some days I got up expecting just another creative music day, when suddenly nature struck and forced me to react. Animals explicitly coming to seek help, kittens being born, storms, even a sort of plague.
The album is split into four parts: Life, Loneliness, Space and Silence. Did you know those would be the four chapters from the start, or did the record slowly show you what it was about?
No, it happened slowly. And once this idea arrived, I embraced it, of course. I like structure, cause my music has these chaotic elements to it.
You’ve been very direct about AI and music. What bothers you most: the sound of AI music itself, the way it is made, or what it says about how people listen now?
I think it’s the way people listen. I don’t consider so-called AI music actual music. It’s just a fridge making noises you can’t turn off. Compared to the sounds of nature that always somehow interfere with recording.
At Dolphin Palace I’m always confronted with sounds of nature, and it becomes very clear: nature sounds inspiring, AI is just white noise. Another meaning of ‘Life After Music’: I’d rather listen to silence, which is another word for the sound of nature, because dead silence doesn’t exist in the real world, than AI music.
One thing that is very interesting to me, though: I believe it’s humans who started this kind of non-music. Cause it was humans who tailored music to sell stuff. You know, back in the times of radio or TV, music was created to be placed in between the ads that brought the most amount of money. So if you didn’t make music that suited a certain kind of ad, for example by being too emotional or so on, you had no chance to be played on the radio. So people started creating exactly the same way AI creates now. Painting by numbers. That’s what becomes beyond boring. Soul-less crap. Evil always comes from humans in the first place, hehehe.
The record starts in a place that feels easier to enter, then it gets stranger and more open. Did you want the listener to slowly let go of normal song expectations?
Yes, it’s my artistic protest. At some point in this album you have to make a decision.
Which doesn’t happen on streaming usually. For some it will be to actually listen and hopefully to listen again on purpose, to dive deeper. For many it will be the decision to turn it off or skip, cause it starts a certain way and doesn’t go on like they expected.
Which is funny, cause people skip all the time, but usually cause they’re bored. With my record it’s cause it starts bothering them. Or it touches them too much. They feel the loneliness, sadness within themselves, or can’t stand silence.
You’ve spent so much of your life inside music: bands, touring, composing, recording. What made you reach a point where you had to ask what music still means?
I think I realized I had adjusted my listening habits. Which is the worst thing you can do, cause the best music is always the one that gets better the more you listen to it. Great music opens rooms, emotions and worlds, and at some point you completely enter and you can always go back there, almost physically. Like a soundtrack to certain situations. I realized a whole generation lost the soundtrack of their youth, and that’s so sad. So I sat down and changed my approach to listening to music, and then to releasing music.
The Ghost Palace Artist Society and the idea of basic income for artists are part of the world around this album. Would love to hear more about this idea…
Cool!
Imagine everyone who pays a yearly amount for a streaming account pays the exact amount to an artist pool: every artist in the world could get a basic income from this.
Now it’s a couple of people getting super rich and maybe another couple hundred living from it, none of them creative people. With pools like our artist society sharing income equally, we’re talking about millions of people making a living from it.
We’re far from the goal, but it starts with us as listeners. Spend your money the right way and this will change. Then governments and corporations will follow, and it’s possible. Check our website for more info: https://ghostpalacerecords.com/g-p-a-s
You talk about how songs used to shape people’s identity and sense of belonging. Do you think music can still do that, or has streaming made songs feel too disposable?
It still can, yes. What’s funny is that we’re living in an “everything is possible world”, internet and so forth. But people don’t seem to want the good part of it, or they’re overwhelmed or scared. It’s like the creative cages we were in are finally open, but nobody wants to leave.
But actually that’s what humanity is:
There’s always the 99% of people who don’t care.
In the musical world of the 70s to the 90s, that used to be the random radio listeners.
Now it’s the random streamers. Which is totally fine, they get what they need somewhere else, or they don’t need it.
I believe two things went wrong: we had the wrong impression in those decades that music is a BIG thing for everyone in the world, while actually only the 1% cares, and that’s music nerds living in a music bubble.
And we let commercialism take over. I am deeply convinced that if those radios had only played the works of Bach, Stravinsky or Arvo Pärt, everyone would love that music now. Cause people love what they know. Some might say: you can’t force music on listeners, which is true, but they forget that that’s what happened on radio and happens now in streaming. Money rules the rotations and algorithms, not quality or our free will. So to come back to what you asked above: I realized the only person I can force music upon is myself, and that’s a really, really cool experience. Listen to a record until you love it. Cause if it’s not great, you will never start loving it. It’s a great contradiction, I know, but it’s so rewarding and sharpens your senses.
Your story includes a lot of contrasts: classical music, forbidden rock records, secret listening, then years of touring. When you sit down to write now, do you still feel those different worlds pulling at you?
Absolutely. In a sense, I am more adventurous and more extreme now. I feel more “I need to do this, my thing, cause nobody else can do it that way.” You gotta do what you gotta do. There will be very interesting music coming from me and others with this attitude in the future. Like classical music in all those centuries: it was never really over. Rock or electronic or pop or experimental music or whatever you wanna call it: it’s just begun.
If someone listens to the whole double album properly, from the first side to the final side, what would you hope they feel by the end?
I hope they will become blank canvasses by the end of it.
Then turn off everything, enjoy silence for a while, be inspired to do their own thing that makes them happy. And then do it again the next day. And feel the outcome get better and better. And then go and find more music like that. Believe it’s real. And as long as artists have time and space to create art like that, we will always be fed with inspiration and enthusiasm we need to survive and be deeply happy.
I’m not gonna apologize for the pathos in it, hahaha. It’s what we all want, the more cynical we are about it, the more we secretly crave it…
So what’s next for you?
I already started working on at least another three records. Hehe. And I will play some festivals with my band and then go on tour from November through April 27. We’re four people who love to travel, so it will be super fun. Hope to meet some of you people!!!
Thanks for these questions, they were really good. And thanks for your time thinking about them…
Klemen Breznikar
Headline photo: Laura Straubel
Daniel Benyamin Instagram / Bandcamp
