Introducing Hoverborg

Or How I Got Fooled By An AI "Band"

Pittsburgh-based documentary filmmaker Phillip Lybrand cast three actors, including his wife, to play the band Hoverborg in their “Sticks & Stones” video.

In the past couple of weeks, two of my go-to music review sites wrote about the debut album from a Pittsburgh-based trio called Hoverborg (both have since updated their posts).

I listened to the tracks embedded in the write ups and liked what I heard: pop punk energy, power pop hooks, and super geeky lyrics riddled with pop culture references. Star Wars? Check. Gilmore Girls? Check. Escape From New York? OMG!

So, I included their song “Black Coffee” in my monthly “Guitar Pop For Now People” series. I then DM’d the band on Instagram and asked if they were interested in doing an email interview. They were into it, but said they didn’t have a publicist or press kit (not totally unheard of for some of the newer indie bands I promote here).

I did some light Googling but didn’t find much outside of the two reviews I mentioned and a video on YouTube. The band’s website redirected to a Linktr.ee page with this header: “Heavy guitars. Harmonies to die for. Hearts on our sleeves.”

I listened to the album’s 13 songs on Spotify and sent off an email asking about the band’s history along with some questions related to specific tracks.

I got the interview responses back a few hours later, along with a pretty surprising admission.

Congrats on your debut album. Can you tell me about the band and how you three came together?

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.

Um. Excuse me?!

It took a beat to process all of that. At first, I mostly felt “dumb” (still do!). That was quickly followed by shock, disappointment, and a brief flash of anger about being intentionally misled.

I’ll also admit to feeling a begrudging respect for Lybrand’s dedication to this complex hoax. And I do credit him for coming clean rather than letting me post an interview with a band that doesn’t exist. (You can read that interview HERE.)

I wasn’t looking to join the AI debate, but here we are.

Instead of overthinking the entire situation, I decided to share what happened since some of you discovered Hoverborg through me.

If nothing else I might spare a few other music writers and fans from having a similar experience. Or maybe this will spark an interesting conversation about the reality we now face in writing about art in the looming AI Age.

It all left me with more questions than answers.

Will I have to verify that all the music I write about is made by humans? Will record labels and publicists have to proactively call out AI-produced music they release and promote? Should there be a “Certified Human Music” designation from the Recording Industry Association of America? Will most consumers even care?!

Then I wondered if I had already inadvertently featured other AI-generated music in the past. That honestly kind of broke my brain, but it also gave me a little solace.

Is it ultimately my job to verify how the music was produced? If so, where do I draw the line with use of other recording technology? Like it or not, we’re a long way from the days when most records were made with two mics and a live band.

I’m in no way defending AI—the copyright infringement issues are infuriating, not to mention the existential threat AI poses to human artists—but it’s a slippery slope when it comes to how far recording technology has already edged in this direction.

Here’s the image Phillip Lybrand sent of himself…Or is this AI-generated too?

Lybrand wrote the songs, but didn’t perform any of the music or vocals.

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.

Lybrand says that as advanced as the AI tools are, there are still some technical challenges and limitations.

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.

That part about hearing the “digital oddities” felt like he was twisting the knife, but it appears I wasn’t alone in being duped (they made Hoverborg CDs and vinyl’s on the way). “Anybody who paid for the album on Bandcamp before we revealed the band is fictional was offered a refund (and only one of them wanted one),” Lybrand told me.

Would I have demanded my money back? I mean, I liked the songs enough to request an interview, right? The mind reels.

I later discovered a disclaimer at the bottom of the band’s Bandcamp page. Since I listened on Spotify, I didn’t see it until after I received his response. I generally don’t look at songwriting credits, band members, etc. until after I get the the responses, when I’m writing the interview’s introduction.

Here’s the Bandcamp disclaimer:

***IMPORTANT***

Hoverborg is a fictional band. All of the sounds you hear on this album were generated using AI tools. The songs were written by a human, but the audio you hear is ones and zeroes.

This was produced as a social experiment as part of the documentary film, 'Destroy All Humans.'

(There wasn’t a disclaimer on Spotify, Instagram or Linktr.ee as I wrote this; the description under the “Sticks & Stones” video on YouTube only references the documentary.)

So, that’s how I got fooled by an AI band.

Or, at least, that’s what I think happened. But I wouldn’t be totally surprised to find out that Phillip Lybrand is also an AI construct. If so, using the a name Lybrand (“lie” + “brand”) would be pretty hilarious. If I’m even pronouncing Lybrand correctly….

And he does look an awful lot like a younger Kevin Smith in the picture he sent me. I found profiles on Instagram and LinkedIn, but who’s to say those are authentic?

My secret wish is that Hoverborg is real band and that this is all just a complicated marketing stunt. Or maybe the actual documentary is about how to make a part-time music writer lose his mind?

I suppose just about anything’s possible.

If you discovered Hoverborg through this newsletter and you’re unhappy about it, please forgive me—I’m only human.

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What Are Your Thoughts About Hoverborg?

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