The CEO of the world’s biggest guitar brand has drawn the ire of musicians after comparing cover bands to chatbots, seemingly dismissing both as fundamentally uncreative. He now wants to set the record straight.
Speaking to the website T3 earlier this year, Fender CEO Edward “Bud” Cole argued that cover songs function as a kind of “analog AI,” allowing beginners to play music before they write their songs.
He also claimed to see a songwriter’s bandmates serving a similar role to a large language model, helping to develop partial ideas into full songs, and said indeed AI itself could further help musicians create original work. “I actually think that we are in the brink of freeing up people to move beyond the same old covers and to really get into working like they do with their bands,” he said.
But months later, Cole now wants to clarify those comments. “I had a conversation a few months ago about AI in music,” Cole says in an email to Fast Company. “My intent was to talk about how technology can help artists and players learn and grow, but I realize I didn’t fully convey that perspective, and I appreciate the opportunity to explain my thinking more deeply.”
The *T3 *interview initially didn’t spark much attention. But as industry publications, Reddit threads and influential YouTubers started circulating quotes from the 75th anniversary feature, the backlash grew as musicians took offense to their creative processes being reduced to an AI training set.
“You’d think the CEO of a company that lives and dies by selling guitars would support, you know, music that requires actual guitars to produce,” wrote one Reddit user. “These corporate execs keep forgetting that the rest of us have souls and view music as more than just something to be pumped out to make a line go up,” added another.
This backlash comes off the back of a boycott effort earlier this year after Fender reportedly hit boutique guitar builders with cease-and-desist letters over the iconic Stratocaster body shape. Prominent guitar YouTubers publicly cut ties with the brand in response, with one calling it a “very sad day in the guitar world.”
Fender is now doing damage control to curry back favor with their core customer base.
“Music is an inherently human experience, and great songs are born out of people’s lives, their creative energy and the countless hours spent learning their instruments—something no machine can ever replicate,” Cole tells Fast Company.
Cole’s poorly-received comments came at a time when the music industry is in a period of upheaval. Just as vinyl gave way to cassettes, which gave way to CDs, which gave way to Spotify, AI is reshaping the way we create and listen to music, like it or not.
And most say they don’t like it. Recent data from Luminate shows that 44% of U.S. music listeners are uncomfortable with AI-created songs. Yet several AI-generated songs, including Walk My Walk and Livin’ on Borrowed Time, debuted on Billboard charts over the past year, demonstrating there is an audience for AI-generated music, whether intentional or not. Fenin Flexin’s “Rubberz,” that’s currently sitting at No. 58, has also been blasted with AI accusations, which the rapper denies.
For musicians plagued by concerns over copyright infringement, data scraping and voice deepfakes, as AI continues to become embedded in workflows, personal lives and, in some cases, creative processes, the backlash to Cole’s comments highlights the sensitivity needed when navigating AI conversations at this time. “Many of the concerns people have about AI are real,” Cole writes in his email. “Conversations need to happen about how to advance AI while protecting artists and upholding respect for their work.”
In Cole’s view, AI should remain a supporting tool, helping beginners learn and giving seasoned artists “new ways to explore, refine and experiment with their own creative ideas.” Yet “music starts and ends with people,” he added. “It always will.”