It looks so real
Well it’s a steal
In his newest release, Nightmare Fuel, Bill Fever touches on the highly relevant technological theme of AI, with the warmth and musical depth you’d hear from artists such as Gaz Coombes. Read our conversation with the talented songwriter and multi-instrumentalist below!
Describe your sound in 3 words
Passionate, intense, real.
Tell us a few things about Nightmare Fuel and the bizarre AI generations and the potential impact AI may have on human creativity that directly sparked the concept for this song.
‘Nightmare Fuel’ is the sound of a luddite shouting at the skies, at the onward march of technology. The sound of someone reluctant to change and fearing change. The lyrics and stance in this song are reductive if I’m honest, as it’s a really complicated, almost philosophical problem! I first wrote the lyrics to ‘Nightmare Fuel’ a couple of years ago, when it seemed like a wave of AI imagery started to show up online. I’d heard the phrase ‘nightmare fuel’ being thrown around too at the time and it seemed really appropriate to describe a lot of what we were seeing – distorted faces, weird fingers and hands, fingers in hair – unnerving visuals that might stick with you! At the time, the images themselves were on the edge of looking grotesque, a lot of the visuals, just plain weird or clearly fake when you looked at the hands. It was easy to tell back then, what was AI and what wasn’t. But as expected, it’s all improved so much, it’s actually hard to pick faults in a lot of AI stuff now, it’s mind blowing how realistic it looks. And I guess that’s the new nightmare, not the strange visuals anymore, it’s the impact realistic fake images and videos could have on us as a society, in politics, on democracy.
I work in the creative industry and I’ve seen things change a lot over the past few years. My initial fear about AI was the fact my work and skills could be redundant. I’ve trained for a long time and I’m good at what I do, but now you can prompt AI to generate something for you that looks ‘good enough’ for most people. People can prompt an illustration, a photo, a painting really easily, you don’t need to pay an artist anymore, the illustrator anymore, the animator, the copywriter, the photographer – you can just write out what you need. So you know, that was the fear – these professions are devoured by AI. No one needs to be creative anymore. All the arty jobs gone. AI can do it. I feel bad for people whose careers have taken a hit because of this stuff. But I think really, despite my initial feelings, you’ve got to roll with it or be left behind. If every other fucker is using AI, you might as well learn how to use it to keep up with everyone else. I really hope that it becomes more of a tool that you can use alongside your foundation of skills, rather than making us all redundant. I think there’s the natural fear that AI will take over swathes of professions, but really I think it’ll need human supervision across most things to control it.
“Nightmare Fuel” is the first new material since your 2022 EP ‘Weights.’ How has your approach to songwriting and production evolved in the two years between releases, leading up to this single and the new album?
I think my songwriting process has stayed rather consistent since my releasing my previous EPs to be honest. I tend to get in to highly focussed, intense periods of writing where loads of ideas fly about and the biggest challenge is whittling them down into ones I want to focus on. With the album, as with the EPs, it starts with improvised instrumentals, that develop over time as I add vocal melodies and lyrics. The main difference this time, is the vocal recording location and some of the equipment. I invested in a better vocal mic and recording interface and started heading to a local rehearsal room in Kettering called Parlour Studios. The previous EPs were recorded in a DIY built vocal booth in my shed, through necessity in Lockdown 2020-21, but I felt like it’d be good to have less restraints about noise making and felt more comfortable letting rip at Parlour! The bulk of this album was written and recorded back in 2023 – I’ve just had other priorities in life that have made the mixing and releasing process somewhat delayed. After the first 3 EPs, I was really keen to get the live band up and running before releasing any new music. I felt like the live show really should become the priority – it took a while to find the right guitar player, but now I’ve got a couple of great musicians by my side, Liam Aistrop on drums and Peter Naylor on guitar, it feels like the right time to put these songs out.
You’ve been busy building a live band and playing shows. How has the experience of performing live with a band influenced the sound and direction of ‘Nightmare Fuel’ and ‘Luxury Salad’?
More than anything, it’s the guys, Liam and Peter, who have helped with second opinions – I feel like I’ve got a reliable extra couple of opinions that I really value. Love those guys. They’ve helped in deciding what tracks to include or not on the album for example or where songs could sit in the running order. One track in particular, ‘Raw Deals’, was a favourite of mine that I was going to hold back for a later date because I wasn’t nailing the mix. I didn’t want to release it without it being where I felt it could be. They convinced me to keep working on it and I got there eventually, so I’m really happy that one is going to be on the record. Absolute banger. The process for this album was still me writing everything first and came together before the live band was in full flow really, so I’m looking forward to the next batch of songs and working more collaboratively next time with Liam and Peter.
You independently released, self-produced, mixed, and mastered “Nightmare Fuel,” playing all instruments except drums. What are the biggest advantages and challenges of maintaining such a high degree of creative control over your music?
The biggest advantage to doing things myself is that I can be uncompromising, selfish, indulgent and stay true to my creative vision. Doing largely everything myself, means I’m probably sharing the truest, most genuine version of my ideas. At the end of the day, music is subjective and I believe that if I’m happy with it, that’s all that matters. If I love it and I’m proud of it, there will hopefully be others that feel the same and if not, that’s OK, I’ve enjoyed the process of creating the work. The biggest challenge is that I’m limited by my technical abilities, I’m self taught with mixing, guitar isn’t my first instrument so I get a bit of imposter syndrome there, although I’m getting more confident with it! I think I can be overly critical and often find myself seeking perfection, so I’m a challenge in myself. I’m really looking forward to collaborating more with Liam and Peter and will test getting other people to mix the music too later this year, so I’m excited to see how that’ll shape things in the future.
Given the themes explored in “Nightmare Fuel,” how do you envision AI continuing to shape or challenge the landscape for independent artists like yourself in the coming years?
When it comes to music and art, AI stuff will increasingly be out in the wild, but it’ll likely be derivative, middle of the road, or abstract as it’s trained on other things. I can’t see it hitting us with actual emotion or genuine feeling for a good while. I don’t fear it anymore. It’ll be there, people will have fun creating things with it and that’s fine. It’s not what I want to do, or how I want to create things. I love conjuring melodies out of thin air, out of my subconscious. I love improvising music, messing about experimenting with my instruments, sounds, trial and error, humming as I do the dishes. I love the battle and struggle of crafting songs from first lyric to mixing. AI may be able to do those things for me, but why would I want to stop the adventure and excitement of coming up with things myself, that’s the real magic. AI won’t be able to perform live to a room of people for me, it won’t be able to chat to fans for me, there’s a limit to what AI can do. I think real life human connection and experiences will become more valuable than anything else.
Artists and people that have influenced you?
My older brother was a big influence on my music tastes as a teen. He bought me Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness and Siamese Dream for my 14th birthday. I’d borrow his CDs and that was a lot of guitar music of the 90s and early 00s. Things like Radiohead, Muse, Jeff Buckley, Nirvana. I then really got into Rage Against The Machine and RHCP as I learnt to play bass guitar. Back in the day, things like Xfm and MTV2 also helped me discover loads of music. Since then my tastes have been a bit all over the place, but I love all sorts of things like Future Islands, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kate Bush, Pig Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, The Prodigy, Sigur Ros, The Cure – I think having a fairly eclectic taste helps shape my music into something itself quite eclectic.
What is your worst nightmare?
Fascism taking over. There are horrible people in the world gaining more and more power and I find that terrifying.
Thank you!
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