Interview: Phillip Lybrand
Interview: Phillip Lybrand
The Filmmaker Behind The AI Band Hoverborg
Here’s the full interview with Phillip Lybrand, the documentary filmmaker and songwriter behind the AI band Hoverborg. I thought I was sending sent these questions to the three women featured on the album cover and in the “Sticks & Stones” video posted on YouTube. Read the article I wrote about Lybrand, Hoverborg and AI HERE.
Congrats on your debut album. Can you tell me about the band and how you three came together?
Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”): Well, here's the first bombshell for you: My name is Phillip Lybrand and I'm a filmmaker in Pittsburgh, PA. I wrote all of the songs included on The Good Stuff and used AI tools to produce all of the tracks. The three women on the album art and in the music video for "Sticks & Stones" are all actors I hired to play the band.
I'm currently working on a documentary film called Destroy All Humans that explores the emergence of AI in art + media. Part of the film is highlighting the current state of AI tools and how easily they can be used to produce content that the public can't tell is AI. The Good Stuff is the result of that experiment. So, if you were wondering why it seemed like these songs were written by a 40-year-old dude... it's because they were.
How did you come up with your band name?
Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”): A lot of the songs I produced as 'Hoverborg' have their origins in tracks I wrote for my high school garage band. I've dabbled with the idea over the last 10+ years of getting a group together to finish the songs, play them at open mics, etc.—and the band name I wanted to use was "Hoverboard" (I'm a huge Back to the Future fan). If there weren't like 15 other groups already using that name in 2024, I probably would have stuck with that. I went with the variation with 'Borg' as a nod to Star Trek: The Next Generation with the subtle allusion to machines/AI being a nice bonus feature.
I'm in the unique position of being the creative force behind these songs (with the heavy lifting done by computers, obviously), but also being able to listen to the output as a third party.
—Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”)
The Good Stuff is a lot of fun. I love all the pop culture references. Can you tell me a little about your songwriting process?
Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”): Write what you know, right? I'm a decent guitar player, but a terrible singer. If I could sing, I think a lot of these songs would already be floating around in a puddle of obscurity on Spotify. So, it's my lack of vocal chops that allowed me to have such a cache of songs in the bank when I gained access to these AI tools. I'm at 27 songs completed since April (LP #2 is already done), and about a third of them already existed in some form since the late ‘90s/early 2000s.
The AI tool I primarily used to work on these songs is Udio, which allows you to give it as little guidance as you want (you can basically give it zero guidance and have it auto-generate EVERYTHING, including lyrics), or use 'manual' mode and be ultra specific with your prompts, song structure, key, tempo, etc.—I went with the latter approach and tried to really dial in a sound that would work across an entire album.
In addition to pop punk and power pop influences, I hear nods to '90s geek/nerd rock bands like Nerf Herder and Bowling For Soup. How would you describe your sound to somebody who hasn't heard your music?
Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”): Honestly, I was trying to mimic the Weezer blue album sound. Most of the record doesn't sound like that, which is funny as most of Weezer's catalog doesn't sound like that, either. The 'band' only has women’s vocals because the male vocals Udio produced sounded really off-putting to me. I'm guessing if you listen to these songs again now that you know they're all AI-generated, you'll notice some of the digital oddities that are present on the vocals I published (I definitely do), but it was wayyyyyyy worse with the male vocals.
Nerf Herder is a great example for the type of content/sound I was going for. I'm a big fan of theirs and have always kind of wanted them to do more sincere songs to go along with their on-the-nose requisite pop culture stuff. Same with Weird Al—I know they're all known for the goofy stuff, but I've always appreciated it when they do something that's earnest, too.
If I had come across ‘The Good Stuff’ as at a CD store in 2001, it would probably be in my top 10. And that's a really weird realization (or even admission?) to make.
—Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”)
I think "Black Coffee" is the song that got me hooked. I'm a sucker for punk songs about caffeine. Why do you think the two go so well together?
Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”): Energy. I need half a pot of coffee just to crack open Photoshop for my 9-5 job every morning. If I'm picking up a guitar (or a laptop to direct a virtual guitar), I'm gonna need Dave Grohl's fresh pots ready to go.
Fun fact about this song: ‘I don't need sugar, 'cause I've got Kelli’—Kelli is my wife, who also plays the bass player in the music videos/album art. She's a huge Lord of the Rings fan, so that's why ‘Black Coffee’ exists—it's a love letter to her about caffeine's role in Middle Earth. I built that one on the spot in Udio in real time with her sitting next to me on the couch to see if she'd notice the lyrics as I played back the samples.
Gilmore Girls is a big deal at my house, so we all love your song "Rory Gilmore." Why are you so conflicted about the titular teen?
Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”): I was rooting for Rory until the final cut to black at the end of the (awful) Netflix revival series, A Year in the Life. It was at that moment, though, that I realized her story wasn't a comedy. It's a tragedy. I don't even mean that in a negative way. It's just a way to re-contextualize everything that came before.
In a way, it was always like the inverse of watching Curb Your Enthusiasm or Eastbound & Down where every time things are going too well for the protagonists, you have a gut feeling that it's all about to fall apart. With Rory, we feel like things should be going well, but she can't stop making choices to push things the other way—but she's doing it on purpose. In real life, that's the most normal and real thing ever, but as a TV viewer, it's frustrating as hell.
You also have a song about Snake Plissken and Escape From New York. What is it about that movie that captured your songwriting attention?
Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”): Escape From New York rules. It's one of Kelli's all time favorite movies, and one day when I was working on these songs, she'd had enough of hearing the same snippets of the same tracks over and over... So, I wrote that one as a peace offering to her. Ultimately, it doesn't sound anything like the other songs on the album, but somehow it still fits in.
Are you planning to tour for The Good Stuff?
Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”): By now it's probably pretty clear that we can't really take this on the road, but the answer to this isn't a hard ‘no.’ We've been kicking around the idea of putting together a hobby band to play these songs in real life. No timetable for that, but I'm definitely re-feeling the itch to plug in my guitar and play these at an open mic. Just gotta find somebody who can sing, I guess.
If I got in the van with the band, what five songs would I definitely hear on the stereo?
Phillip Lybrand (aka “Hoverborg”): Right now, and I'm being honest—either 5 songs off The Good Stuff or the second LP, Destroy All Humans. I'm in the unique position of being the creative force behind these songs (with the heavy lifting done by computers, obviously), but also being able to listen to the output as a third party.
I know a lot of people are laughing at Ashton Kutcher for his recent musings about hyper-personalized entertainment becoming a thing with Sora on the horizon, but I'm now living proof that it's definitely possible with music. If I had come across The Good Stuff as at a CD store in 2001, it would probably be in my top 10. And that's a really weird realization (or even admission?) to make.
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