In a recent appearance on the Disturbing The Priest With Brandon Battick podcast, DARK ANGEL drummer Gene Hoglan addressed the ongoing debate over artificial intelligence in album artwork — specifically responding to speculation that the cover art for the band’s new record, Extinction Level Event, was entirely A.I.-generated.
Hoglan was quick to clear the air, saying that while the band did make some use of digital tools, the final result was far from being purely artificial.
“I don’t care. We utilize some A.I. on our stuff,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “But I think the general public isn’t aware of all the computer art and photography we incorporated. People might not realize how much actual human work went into it. Kick**s art is kick**s art.”
According to Hoglan, the Extinction Level Event artwork took nearly three years to complete, with much of the visual direction stemming from his own ideas. The drummer emphasized that every track on the deluxe edition features its own unique artwork panel, each conceptually tied to the song’s lyrical theme.
“If anybody thinks our artist, Cain, just typed in a sentence into an A.I. generator and out popped this perfect piece of artwork, that is absolutely not anywhere near the case,” Gene continued. “It took tons of work — actual human work. Cain told me he spent over — I think it was 2,000 hours on the artwork for this record. Have an artist charge you by the hour, [and] then keep that in mind. And I think that’s another thing where people say, ‘It takes the money out of the artist’s pocket.’ No, it didn’t. This is our artist. I said, ‘I want art like this. Do what you want, man. You’re our artist. You figure it out.’ And then he would send me things. And he’s, like, ‘This is an incomplete thing. This took me six days to figure out, rendering this, working on this pretty solidly. I have all this work that I have to do to it.’ And then I’d be, like, ‘Yeah, I like this one.’ We have thousands of pieces of art all built up, built up, built up and in certain mode of completion.
“When it comes to whatever it is that I do, I’ve just always just kind of listened to myself and my instincts were, like, well, I guess this approach is here,” he continued. “We’re not the first person to utilize it, but our artwork was definitely not solely A.I. at all… And when this was started, there was not quite, I guess, as vocal a backlash as possibly there is for anybody who utilizes it now, but we are not the first, we are definitely not gonna be the last. So you can fight it. And I appreciate those 25 years ago, anybody today who fights the streaming and says, ‘I’m gonna buy the physical product.’ I know a lot of my friends have reached out to me and said, ‘I love the new album. It sounds great. I love the artwork. This is killer.’ So I hear differently.”
Extinction Level Event marks DARK ANGEL’s first new album in 34 years, and was released on September 5 via Reversed Records.
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