A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled on a band called The Velvet Sundown on one of the newsletters I receive.
I’ve never heard of them before, but I clicked play on their album Dust on Silence, and before the first track was halfway through, I was fully in.
It felt like time travel.
Like I’d been dropped into a sun-faded 70s reel.
Psych-rock guitars, soft haunting vocals, that vintage analog warmth.
You might not know this about me, but I am really into 60’s and 70’s rock, and specifically psych-rock. I actually own a pretty nice collection of records of albums from that time period.
When I was a teenager, I was exposed the psych-rock and listened to nearly every band I could find.
And this new band now… Well, it just felt like they hit every note right (literally and figuratively!)
I played the whole album three times that first day. It felt like somehow nostalgic and new at the same time.
The guitar groove of Eric Clapton, free-spirit vibe of Neil Young combined with the dreamy-vibe of Pink Floyd, topped with a little sprinkle of Willie Nelson, the mesmerizing voice of Jim Morisson and the perfection that only legendary bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones get.
The whole time my mind just kept going like, where did they come from and how is this so amazing.
So I googled them…
And that’s where it got weird.
Wait… are they even real?
On Spotify they already have 500k monthly listeners, but there’s no press, no interviews, no live sessions.
Just a well-curated Spotify page and some band photos that once you look closely feel kinda… off.
The more I read the more confused I got.
The lighting doesn’t make sense. Faces that look almost real, but not entirely.
A photo of them looking like the famous Beatles cover of Abbey Road
The more I looked into it, the more the whole vibe screamed: AI-generated by someone with good taste and access to Midjourney Mega Plan and Suno…
There is a huge discussion going on right now. Reddit is on fire with half the people swearing they’re real and the other half finding too many evidence as to why they’re AI generated
After reading and reading, there is no definite answer right now.
Maybe it’s all an amazing marketing campaign to get attention.
I guess we will find out with time. But it really had me thinking about how I use AI and how I see people using AI every day.
Because it’s not just about a maybe a not-human psych rock band.
It’s about something bigger that’s already affecting all of us, especially if you’re a content creator, creating content marketing, someone trying to grow a business online.
The lines are blurring, fast!
This isn’t some dystopian future conversation anymore. It’s now.
While the implications to the music industry are massive, I want to focus on what I do and what I teach in our mentorship.
Copywriting and messaging is already changing fast with AI.
And many experienced content creators and copywriters I talk to claim they can tell apart human written messaging from AI generated messaging.
But honestly, AI is starting to do a better job than most humans I know. Especially with the right training.
AI can write your sales page.
AI can build your funnel.
AI can respond to your DMs.
AI can make a moody psych rock album that tricks you into thinking it was recorded barefoot in a sweaty California garage in 1973.
The lines between “this is human” and “this is machine” are getting really, really thin.
The (developing) case of this new band: The Velvet Sundown is just here to show that if it is AI generated, we’ve officially reached a new level!
Because if a group of zeros and ones can write lyrics that feel poetic and nostalgic, create melodies that hook you, design visuals that feel artistic, where do we draw the line?
What makes something real?
And more importantly for us, what makes someone worth listening to?
If you’re a coach or a content creator, this is the question you have to wrestle with.
Not in some far-off way, but right now.
Because whether you’re using AI tools or not, your audience is already being exposed to more machine-generated content than ever.
So how do you stand out?
How do you cut through?
You come back to what’s real.
I mean real as in you. Your lived experiences. Your stories. Your actual worldview and voice.
Because AI can do a lot, but it can’t replicate your first heartbreak. That awkward DM you sent to your first coach. That moment you launched and no one bought and you wanted to hide under the covers for three days. Or the one client who cracked open mid-session and said, “No one’s ever seen me like this before.”
AI can’t feel those things.
It can only simulate the surface of what feeling looks like.
You’ve been through it.
You’ve walked the path.
You have weird stories and layered emotions and tiny micro-moments that shaped you.
That’s what makes your messaging land. That’s what builds trust. That’s what resonates.
So if you’re worried that everything sounds the same right now… you’re not wrong.
A lot of content is starting to feel same-same (as my tang top bought in a market in Vietnam in 2014 says…)
But the antidote isn’t always better prompts.
It’s better presence.
It’s showing up in your content with your real voice. Your hot takes. Your unpolished metaphors and your you-ness.
Because that’s the stuff people feel in their bones. And that’s the only thing AI can’t do.
Let’s talk about what this means for your content
Most coaches I talk to don’t actually have a content creation problem.
They struggle with sounding like themselves.
They get stuck trying to write “valuable” posts.
Trying to be strategic.
Trying to follow the format of that person who’s clearly crushing it online.
And somewhere along the way, their voice gets watered down.
Their personality goes missing. Their spark is gone.
But here’s the thing: the posts that truly land… The ones that stick in people’s minds…
They’re not the ones with the perfect structure. They’re the ones that feel like a real person is talking.
That’s why people slide into your DMs after you post something honest.
That’s why they reply with “I needed this!”
It’s not because nailed the call to action.
It’s because you sounded human.
So instead of asking, “What should I write about?”
Start asking:
“What do I actually think?”
“What have I lived through that my people need to hear?”
“What story do I keep forgetting is powerful?”
Because that’s where the gold is.
The Velvet Sundown is a mirror.
And maybe that’s the point of all this.
This mysterious maybe AI generated band is a reflection. A wake-up call. A reminder of how easy it’s becoming to fake the vibe, mimic the tone, imitate the aesthetic.
But you can’t fake depth.
You can’t fake lived experience.
Whenever ChatGPT comes up with a fake story about me as it does sometimes… It’s just too shallow and it doesn’t sound like a real experience.
You can’t fake the energy of someone who’s really walked through fire (as I did in UPW with Tony Robbins).
That’s what your audience is craving. The real you.
Unfiltered. Open-hearted. In your voice.
That’s what makes your content magnetic.
And that’s why this whole The Velvet Sundown situation hit me so hard.
Because yes, I love the music. Still listening to it as I write this. It’s really THAT good.
But also, it shook something loose in me.
A reminder that in a world full of hyper-produced, highly-polished, semi-robotic content…
The most powerful thing you can be is unmistakably yourself.
That’s where the resonance is.
That’s what makes people stop scrolling.
That’s what makes someone say: “I feel like you’re in my head.”
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying to ditch AI in your content creation process.
I am saying to use it by all means! If you don’t you’ll get left behind.
But use it in a smart way… In a human intelligent way.
I am working on releasing an AI content coach. I have loaded it with everything that we teach coaches about creating content and messaging inside Freedom Business Mentorship.
Right now we are testing it, because I want to minimize the weird AI responses as much as possible.
The reason why it’s a coach is because I believe the skill of being able to write your own content will become even more important with the rise of AI.
To be able to express yourself with confidence, to be able to articulate your message.
As a coach, eventually you will have human interactions, and if your full expression of yourself is AI generated that’ll be confusing your clients.
It’s like this person in high school that would chat to you all day on MSN (or modern day Telegram or Whatsapp), but when you actually ran into each other in school, they wouldn’t even look you in the eyes.
That is not the route you want to go down, trust me.
Mastering the skill of expressing yourself, telling your stories, articulating your message – that is what will make you stand out BIG TIME today.
Human connection on social media isn’t dead. It’s just drowned in noise. In too much of the same.
If you’re interested to learn more and be a beta tester of my AI Content Coach reach out to me on Instagram with the phrase “I’m Human!”
Let’s re-write the script of content marketing and copywriting together.
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