Recently, I wrote in a weekly review that, “Now a musician can write the music, professionally record it, upload it so it can be purchased, and market it with a video. All from the comfort of their garage that was converted to a recording studio.” We are seeing a lot of these staunchly independent musicians who like being in charge of their careers. Sure, many of them have day jobs, at least for the time being.
These musicians are also incredibly creative with their music and the music videos they produce. This is the case with PaulG & the Invisible Twangonauts, from South Carolina. PaulG is Paul Gibson, and he created the brand that is the Invisible Twangonauts. Using AI to develop his music videos, he has created the persona of the band. He writes and produces the guitar-driven pop music with influences going back to the 1950s and ’60s. When I first heard his music, I recognized some Reverend Horton Heat and Link Wray in his style of guitar work, except he has taken the music to a new level that emphasizes the guitar more. (If you can imagine more guitar emphasis and still be compared to Link Wray and Horton Heat.)
He says he’s not super-protective of the mystery surrounding the band. It helps him to keep it separate from real life. “It’s like a George Costanza worlds-collide type thing.” My first thought was that he just made a reference to Seinfeld. It was then I knew this interview was going to be fun.
Creating the lore around the Twangonauts has made it easier for him to write music and create his unique videos. “I don't mind it being known that Twangonauts is just a fictional band made up to give some interesting story lines around the music,” he says. Those story lines are all over his videos.
The first video TikiKiti saw of the Twangonauts was “Twang of the American Horse.” I knew then that this was a band we should follow closely.
Here is the lineup of the five-member band:
Paul says that part of the fun of the art is getting these characters to look consistent.
Going back to his influences, Paul says he has a wide range of music he grew up with and likes to this day. In addition to Link Wray and Horton Heat, other big influences include the Ventures, Duane Eddy, and Dead Kennedys. He loves surf music and spooky Halloween music. After listening to the “twang” guitar sound he produces, these influences come as no surprise. He adds, “And I'm a Gen X influenced by all ’80s pop, so Stray Cats, but also Prince.” Many of the early MTV-generation bands.
He’s also a fan of Spinal Tap, with their celebration of classic heavy-metal tropes and their sense of humor. Other bands of the late ’70s and early ’80s—punk bands like the Pistols, Fear, Circle Jerks, Black Flag, and Flipper—are also on his list of fun music to listen to. He remarked about the TikiKiti passion for the music video and said, “I grew up as a kid at the dawn of MTV. My parents didn't have cable so I would stay up until midnight on Saturday nights to watch a local TV show of MTV videos.”
I mentioned seeing the videos on his YouTube channel about amps and other guitar-related gear. He said he’s not a gearhead but has always like playing with the gear. “When I was young, back in the early ’90s, I did some studio recording with a few bands I was in. It was like using stone knives and bear skins compared to the golden age of music production we have today. Back then, to make a record you had to buy expensive studio time. Then send off masters to a press, get back a small a batch of vinyl 7-inch records, then put an ad in Maximum Rock and Roll Magazine and hope for a handful of snail mail orders.”
Paul says that this era of music production and music videos is a golden age. “In modern times,” he says, “a studio is really just a laptop and a dedicated space for the guitar and the effects.”
And a golden age it is. As with many other artists we’ve seen recently, he will take time to create art because modern technology allows him the time. “I love AI art; it is very new and evolving crazy fast. It is so much fun, more approachable, and easier to do at random times compared to having to find time to play guitar. So, when I don't have the time to sit down and play guitar, like I just have a minute waiting on a microwave pizza or something, I can make some AI art.”
He says he is experimenting with singles versus albums — and possibly longer tracks. This brought up some of his other influences, such a Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Deep Purple, and of course, Led Zeppelin. Always humble about his skills, he admits to not having the chops of any of those guitar players, but says, “I dig their sounds and I'm sure the influence shows up in some small ways.”
As we started to wind down the interview, he began discussing more about his AI art and the music videos he created with the software. “AI is amazing,” he says. “If you look at my videos from a year ago, you can see the evolution from really blurry static images that just hint at the subject to the latest stuff that is photorealistic to the point of being unbelievable.”
Addressing the continued controversy surrounding AI art in any form, he says, “Let me share my take on AI, because I know there is some controversy about whether it is art or not.” He very succinctly explained how he views the controversy and the art:
I think of an AI art creator as a sort of miner, like a diamond miner. The art is in there, it's all in the AI models which are just math equations. Every possible combo exists — the models are just data sets of probabilities, and it is deterministic — you can use the same seed and same text and get the exact same image (like a Minecraft seed). So as an AI artist what you are doing is mining that vast field of images and unlocking it. When I create an image I feel like I'm dusting dirt off a gem buried in the earth. I didn't really make it. I just did some work to dig down and find what was always already there.
I would add that a unique creativity is important to uncover those diamonds. This is the human element that is present in all AI art, especially music videos. Paul admitted that he was very intimidated when he first started working with AI programs, but Midjourney makes it very approachable. And this seems to be the secret to why the AI music video has developed as it has. Programs such a Midjourney allow the artist to express their creativity by removing much of the drudgery from the process.
Of course, there are many artists who refuse to admit that AI is even art because the drudgery has been removed. But as Paul Gibson’s work shows, he has been able to create an entire persona behind his “band,” show off his videos and his music, and maybe, just maybe, make some money from streaming.
