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Joe Nichols has spent three decades leaving his mark in country music. Throughout that time, he released albums like Man with a Memory, Real Things, Crickets, and his last, Honky Tonks & Country Songs, in 2024. Although not finished with his career just yet, the singer has watched the industry drastically change with the surge of artificial intelligence. While countless creatives have criticized the use of AI in the entertainment industry, Nichols admitted that more artists in Nashville are using the technology than they'd like to admit.
When discussing AI in music with Evan Paul at Taste of Country, Nichols didn't hold back when it came to the technology being used today. "I've heard artists say this. 'I don't use any AI. I don't use any Suno for my stuff.' Bull crap. I'm telling you, I've seen singers out there give interviews where they're like 'I don't do that. I don't do that.' I'm telling you for a fact, LIE. They're lying through their teeth."
Nichols placed himself in that same group. When working on his latest song, "Say La V," the singer admitted that writers Jason Sellers, Lance Miller, and Brett Warren used AI programs like Suno to help present a polished idea. "They came up with a catchy melody. And then they put it through one of those AI-generating, 'What would this song sound like if it had these prompts?' And it came out really super catchy."
While Nichols was impressed with Suno's abilities, he considered the song "too pop." But as time passed, the singer found he couldn't get the song out of his head. He then decided to return to the studio to record a more country version to fit his tone and style.
Understanding that AI was here to stay, Nichols hoped to find the perfect balance between artists and technology. "I've written some things that I put into Suno or one of those to see if I'm looking at it the way other people would look at it, the algorithm would look at it. Do I hear this song as a bluesy Gospel song, or does it come out as a bluegrass song, and a different vibe completely? So it is helpful to tell you if you're on the right track."
Using AI as another tool in the recording process, Nichols promised that the voice fans hear will always be his. "The singers on Suno are amazing. I don't use those because the singers from Suno are the best singers in the world combined as one singer. So it's impossible to do something as good as Suno.

Funny how they are more willing to admit they got an idea from...a movie, or a book, or a drum loop, or a wooden clock, or a garbage dispenser, a toy keyboard, a church hymm, another song. A poem, but won't admit to this.

I guess its fear of being marginalized and somebody saying. damn that machine is better than you.

To me its like a calculator, it adds numbers much faster than us, but the numbers still come from us.

Without humans, ai doesn't exist, and the polished stuff it creates would not exist

Yeah I've been doing this for 2 years now . Suno as a map and record it with humans . Nashville has been doing this for awhile . Ha Ha yup you're not beating AI singers. Damn rights their lying its business . Whats new . What did some guru say ? If you cheat you have no integrity . Total bullshit everyone cheats . You play the game and your bullshit fits your agenda. The integrity of Suno users , thats rather humorous .

AI would be a great tool to give great sounding and cheap demos. I've been holding off doing that because of an uncertain future of complete ownership of the song. A demo studio gives you a work for hire contract saying I own 100% of a song, does A! do that or do they claim partial ownership of any future success.

I understand not wanting to...don't fix it if its not broken...

I think people think the songs they generate are going to achieve international success, and then oh no...

There's just too many people doing this, the a already saturated market of music, is now impossibly common and devalued.

Having one song that is given attention out of billions is way greater than any needle in a haystack analogy.

It's more like dust in the universe. The whole thing.

I think maybe real performers are gonna have to get out there and play live, to distinguish themselves from curator, and creator.

Your making money, I wouldn't change that.

But you could, in the time being, use it for fun, for curiosity, and you can learn from it.

Can try styles you wouldn't have tried before, because you can.

I'm not sure if copyright means anything when it comes to money.

If somebody cares enough to pay you for the music, somebody like suno would have to care enough to sue for it.

And again, I d ont know why suno owns it.

You already paid them for their service, they didn't make you a song, Ai did.

It's like me saying..ok you borrowed my guitar, and wrote that song on it. Because I own the guitar that's my song.

I could charge you for use of the guitar...