Speaker 1: Get Commanda, don't get supremely Da Megzi coming.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome here. It is the podcast version of
Matt Connorton Unleashed, and it is oh No, November eleventh,
twenty twenty five. I'm used to doing this on Saturday morning,
but we do occasionally do the podcast version when we
have something special. And of course if you are streaming
the show live, also I should say Happy Veterans Day.
My father is a veteran, so I don't want to
forget that, and of course thank you to everyone who
has served our country and Veterans Day very very important.
And we have joining us today right now. It is
a little bit before six pm in the Eastern time
zone and Eddie Singh is with us live on the podcast.
Hello Eddie, Hi, how you doing. Matt very well. I'm
excited to talk to you, as you know, you know
we talked the other day and I was dying to
have you on the show because well, we should start.
I guess we should start with what you're doing currently, right,
and maybe we can kind of work our way backwards
a little bit. But you've got this great new release
and let me get this this. This picture is so
cool too. This album artwork. Of course it's American Split,
but it's actually American Split. AI is officially the name
of the album, right.
Speaker 3: Correct, correct, because the original I had an original album
two years ago that was released on January sixth, twenty
twenty three, with intention for the date, you know, symbolic intention,
and I've yeah, I've remade the album using AI tools
and I've really pleased with the results, and it's it's
really helped my vision come alive for all the songs.
Speaker 2: So part of what is so interesting about this, well,
there's there's many things that are interesting to me about it.
But and the album is great. So the original album
is great and you can hear it on the website,
excuse me, but but the AI version is even better
and and it's to me, it was kind of interesting
to sort of compare and contrast the two because I
actually heard the new version first, because you had sent
me the entire album, the AI version, and then I
went back to the website and it was for me
hearing the AI version first, it was almost like the
like the original version, It's almost like hearing the demos
of of of what the final product is. But I
like the you know, but so the original versions obviously
are a bit more raw in that sense, but I
like them both. But one of the things that we
discuss a lot on the program is AI and it's
impact on AI and all sorts of creative arts, but
especially in music. It's really interesting to me and and
to our audience and a lot of our audience as
people in the industry too. So it's it's something that
directly affects everyone. But but the things that you can
do and what you've done, and we should be very
clear about this for our audience too. It's not like
you know, you didn't. You didn't just put a bunch
of prompts in to Suno or something and create these songs.
You made the songs first, but then you used AI
to kind of change and enhance them, And I'm curious
to know more about that process.
Speaker 3: It was it was the highlight of my life, taking
making Americans Split AI, but taking so many of my
old songs that were just me and a guitar or
me and a piano that I literally recorded on my
phone and then use the tools I did use Suno,
so I'd feed it in, I'd feed in the lyrics
so and then you have adjuster so you can make
it sound more like you or less like you. Yeah,
mostly you have to type in precisely what you want.
So whenever I write a song, I always hear the
full version in my head.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This was just really just luxury that I now can
you know, have the ability to say, all right, I
want to extra percussion here, I want a walking bassline here,
I want a female singer to do harmony on a
specific section. And that's what I did with American Split AI.
I fed the original album in, went song by song
and spent hours and hours. I mean, it wasn't like,
you know, I just pressed the button. Yeah, you can't
do that with Suno, and it's it's a great tool
for that. But I really think with there, they now
have a production studio where you can manipulate all the
stems and you know, really get to work at it.
So I use that as well. And I was just
really pleased with and I recognize that, you know, AI
is like, you know, it's kind of like the Boogeyman
for for musicians and for performers. Now, uh and and
with good reason. I'm I'm very into AI. I'm getting
a phone call very into AI in general and the
whole Edny sing grew out of an AI concept. He
grew out of this game called Scaped in Fronted where
Eddie Singh comes back from the future as you can
see from the picture, to save humanity from the rabots spiders,
who are an AI platform that is rewriting the Internet.
And this was again, I mean, the album was a
long time in the making. It came out in two
thousand and three, but I've been working on it for
years and so to actually see, like have the AI
catch up to the storyline, it just seems like the
perfect time to utilize those tools. The ray Bat spiders
are basically changing the Internet and giving machines and bots
credit for where where humans used to have it. Like,
that's the storyline.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, kind of changing history in a sense. I'm
fascinated too by you know, and I think I said
this to you on the phone too. It's prophetic, right
you because you this originally two thousand and three is
when you came up with this concept, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was back in the day. The truth is
Eddie Singh is the mastermind. My real name is Brian Mannix,
and I used to be a teacher and I developed
this game called scaped in FROMPTED which means create your
future in Danish, and it was an alternate reality game
for education and it was played in like over one
hundred and forty countries around the world. And I got,
you know, some awards for some of the stuff I
did with that, and it was really attached to like
social studies and having the students go and check primary sources.
So I like altered a bunch of sites and put
up some fake stuff and then we have clues and
hopefully in a couple of weeks, this is all going
to be digital. Because the first album had the cover
of it was was the board game and that led
you into the arg and now it's just going to
be like Shazami the songs and getting clues and challenges
and stuff.
Speaker 2: Well that's really cool. So this is this whole sort
of this sort of Eddie sing universe. It's like, it's
it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: It has because I made a video called The Story
of Eddie Singh Yeah, probably about ten years ago, and
it is it feels like most of the weird thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: My brother said, my god, it's so so odd, you know,
he didn't understand it all and now I feel like
with the Internet being half AI, now like it came true.
Almost yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And tell us about Eddie Sing. Tell us about
the character of Eddie Sing, because as you mentioned, you know,
you did reveal your your true identity. But who is
Eddie singh.
Speaker 3: Eddie Sing is the character that I was able to
create and step into. Eddie Sing is a lefty. I
learned to play pool lefty, which was helpful and a
little bit of hustling once in a while, but I
really adopted this personality and stepped into it somewhat to
take away my nerves and to just be like a
ziggy stardust kind of character, you know. I mean, Bono's
done it, Lady Gaga has done it, and I wanted
to create this persona who's the leader of the you know,
the resistance against the corruption is what we called it
in the game by the Raybot Spiders. And the whole
idea is that I lean with the game. On the album,
it's fun stuff. I mean it's a lot of it's
serious stuff, but a lot of it is just fun
stuff where you get to share, you know, with someone
that you love. A video on TikTok, or you need
to tell tell someone that you had an argument, that
you're sorry, or whatever it may be. There's literally, like
I think it's like six hundred different options within the
album once once the scanner thing is up and running.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, we should mention too. You've just got a
really great article review in indie boulevard dot com titled
the Groundbreaking AI remake of the debut album American Split
by Eddy Singing in the thirty one days changes the
game's rules. And when I put this up on YouTube
after I'll drop a link to this, to this article
in there in the description. But really really good, And
I mean, how do you feel like do you feel
like a trailblazer? Do you feel like you're like like
like like or the word groundbreaking. That's a lot to
live up to, right, But but you are the first
person I've encountered in the industry who has really done
something this this interesting and this sort of complex.
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate that. I don't know if I'm the first,
but you know, I've I do think outside of the box.
I've always been a creative thinker and someone that that
isn't good with structures imposed on me as a teacher.
I literally abolished grades at the school I was at
after like a three year process of doing the research
and everything, and I wrote narratives for the students and
focused on their skills and really, you know, I had
like a one page thing that I would give to
all the students getting so that they'd get to know,
you know, the parents would get to know exactly what
it meant to get like a seventy seven, you know,
And so we abolished it. But with Eddie saying, yeah,
I do, I feel like it is a little cutting edge.
I mean the Indie Boulevard article was overwhelming, to be
honest to read. There were so many quotes in there
where I was like, Wow, this is you know, I
was humbled and I'm excited. Yeah, I think I think
it is a new frontier. I think AI is a
tool and it depends how you use it, just like
you know, anything else, just like any door system, any
vocal effects, any you know, click track timer. I mean,
these are automated things that gradually, one by one were
not accepted by the industry. I think Boston made their
album without a click track because they were so opposed
to it. Right, I'm pretty sure that's the case, and
I think you know, little by little it does get accepted.
I mean this to me, is that just another huge
Suno and other apps like it. It's just a huge
creative well that people can can gather and use to
really make whatever they hear in their head, which I
think is a great service to musicians.
Speaker 2: I agree. Do you think that kind of looking at
it from the other side, do you think there's any
danger in it? Like you do you think as a
creative person, do you feel threatened it in any way
like that you can so for example, you know, because
you talked about Suono, I've experienced with Suno also, I've
I've just but not doing anything like what you've done,
but just putting in prompts and telling it, you know,
make a song about this, about these concepts in this
style and then just seeing what it comes up with.
And I've been pretty impressed with what it comes out with.
Speaker 3: It's really amazing. I mean I had I made, you know,
for each song on the album, I probably made forty
songs and subscribed it in different ways until yeah. Right,
But you can make them quickly if you want, and
they all sound good. I mean they really the AI
does a great job. I again, mine was a little
different because it had my audio as a basis, So
I haven't really used it for anything but that. But
I know, even if you don't have a song, if
you're just a poet, you could certainly put the ad
to music. But yeah, I don't. I think it's something
that's here to stay. I don't think it's going to
be going away. No, but I think it is somewhat
of a threat. I mean, it depends if it's it's
like anything else, if it's ethically used, if it's used
the right way, I think it could be really productive tool.
Speaker 2: Exactly as you were going through this process using Suno
to enhance these songs, did any of them really like, like,
how surprised were you, Like, did you know going into
going into this, going through this process, were you expecting
them to come out as good as they did? Or
were you kind of shocked?
Speaker 3: I was amazed. I was amazed. I mean I was
literally the first time I did it, I was just like,
oh my god, I just I couldn't believe the sound.
And and and again, depending on how you set it up,
because there are a lot of different you know, sliders
and different ways to make each song you can really have.
You know, you can change the song entirely if you want,
or you can keep it almost exactly the same. There's
a few of the songs again it's all AI, the
American split. AI is all AI. My my my own
mother doesn't believe me. There's a few songs that they
sound so much like me. Yeah, and I get confused.
I'm like, is this me singing? You know? It really
was spot on. And then I was able to use
for some of the songs where I wanted a different
type of voice, like stand Up being one of them.
I've absolutely loved the voice that I created using Suno
and I just think it has this cool vibe and
it really adds to the song.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of the songs, so when when people listen
to the entire album, one thing, well, I mean you'll
you notice it immediately, you notice it by the second song.
Actually that you've got a lot of different genres, sort
of a sub genres covered here, right, because the opening track.
So when I sat down and listen to it for
the first time, I was surprised because the opening track
some justice opportunity, I you know, I was like, oh,
it's hip hop. I didn't expect this. And then but
really really good, like really good, you know, and then
it gets and then it gets to the second song
and and it's like, oh, this is a change up.
And then I wonder, I wonder if this is the
style that the rest of the album is going to be,
you know. And then it gets to the next song
and it's and and You've got a variety of of
genres represented here, but they're they're all really well done
and and the album as a whole it works. You know,
it's not because when you do something like that, you know,
it could there's a risk to that. It could it
could seem disjointed, it could seem kind of like it's
all over the place, or it can all work together.
And this album it all works together. Maybe because there's
there's kind of a common theme behind it. I'm not sure,
but uh, but but it it works. It's really effective
and it's a if you listen to the whole thing,
and I encourage people to do that. It it kind
of makes us really makes a statement, and it makes
you think to the lyrics make you think.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. Yeah, some justice opportunity unity came about
years ago when Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri.
I literally I saw the two news coverages on MSNBC.
They were saying there were protesters in the street, and
Fox said there was, Uh, there was rioters in the street,
of course. And I had been taking a sabbatical to
work on a company h that I created called Babysitting Barter. Uh.
But this was before care dot com. And I immediately said,
you know, I was off and I had I was
expecting to go back to teaching the year after if
the baby Saint Barty will work out, And I just thought,
I have to go there. This is this is My America.
That's one of those songs, is this Our America? And
so I went there and I was there with when
the riots were taking place, and I interviewed all kinds
all kinds of people. So the first version has uh,
you know, audio clips of all the different people I interviewed,
and then the speech at the end, which is on
the Everything's on the new one. But the speech at
the end was with two guys that I was talking
with when we were standing next to the ride police
and they were shooting tear gas with tanks and I
was like right on the front lines. And it's a
lot of it deals with America's issues with racism and
just with our political divide, not dealing and not helping,
not being fair and being somewhat racist and sexist and homophobic.
I mean, you know, it's kind of the trifecta. And
I feel like we're at a real you know, turning
point for America right now, and I hope that this
kind of talks about the landscape. Is this our America?
Stand Up? I wrote the day that Roe Versus Wave
was overturned, and I just couldn't believe that mostly that
someone that was raped or a victim of incest would
be forced to have a child. And that's what that
song is about. We got to stand up against that
kind of thing. Yeah, and stand Up is really like
kind of a rallying cry that I think that I
would love to like move on to just take it
or plan parenthood to you know, go ahead and use
the song for the rallies or for the movement.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's an opportunity there, but yeah, yeah, it's it's all.
It's very very powerful. Yeah, stand Up that's another very
powerful powerful song. Is this our America is great that
of course, you know, the first the first single, it's
going to radio. That's very, very excited about that.
Speaker 3: You had the world premiere on Saturday.
Speaker 2: It was absolutely. Absolutely can we talk to a little bit,
just kind of shift gears a little too, because I
want to know about your radio background when we talked
on the phone the other day. You're a radio guy too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. I used to work for w l I
R and w g R E and Party one oh
five on a long island back when I was out
of college and during my band days, my first band days,
when I was about twenty years younger, and I ended
up I was an account executive working at the radio station.
But then I hosted. I started and hosted Tri State Sound,
which was a local show, which was one of the
best experiences of my life. I mean, and we spoke
about this, how much fun it is to listen to
new music and be able to pitch to radio stations
and stuff. I got to listen to the greatest talent.
I had bands like Ryan Starr, the Montgomery Cliffs, early Edison,
people that really went on to fame afterwards, but they
were local, local accident and I had a lot of
live performances. I did that for about three years.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay, why did you Why did you leave
it behind? I mean, I know, there's not a lot
of money in it.
Speaker 3: Times. It wasn't that I went back to teaching. I
left the job and I got back to teaching. I
went into teaching. I got married, I had a few children,
and I thought that you and I love history, I
love social studies. My sixth grade grandfather was Richard Henry Lee,
who proposed the decoration of Independence. And that's something that
I always kind of like wear around me and feel like,
you know, this is my country and I want to
make it good for everyone. And yeah, I'm sure so consciously.
That's one of the reasons I flew to Ferguson. I
went to Charleston when the when the massacre happened, and
it was just blown away by the contrasts between how
Ferguson handled the riots and the killing of Michael Brown
versus what happened with the Charleston Nine, which were two
vastly different reactions, and Charleston that were holding hands across
the bridge. It was beautiful and Ferguson so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Now do you have do you have
plans for for more music beyond this? I mean, obviously
you're focused on the current project, but but I'm always
curious because you're you're a creative guy, so I'm sure
you've got more ideas beyond or maybe more ideas that
are connected to this, because obviously it's not just the music.
It's it's there's a game, there's there's everything, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I definitely want to continue with it. I
frankly have already redone Election Day, which was the album
that followed American Split the original, and I've redone it
with AI. But I have another album called Sex and Politics,
which I think it has nine songs on it right
now that I also use the AI again using the
seeds of my you know, piano playing or whatever, my
poor production, you know, basically doing it on the iPhone
on a lot of the tracks, some of them were
recorded in legit studios. And I've had a great mentor
in Richie Kanada, who has given me more than he
ever should have, I'm sure, in terms of his time
and his his guidance. He was the he's the sax
player for Billy Joel for like his first five or
six albums, and he has a recording studio where he
launched like Mariah Carrey, Whitney Houston and he was, yeah,
he was. He was very big influence in the in
the actual finished product of the original American split, two
of the.
Speaker 2: Tracks, oh wow, okay, okay, very good, very good. And
then do you do anything musically? Do you do anything
outside of Eddie sing? Or is it all about Eddie sing?
Speaker 3: And the it's all about Eddie sing. Yeah, it's the persona.
I think I'll probably at some point go back to
Brian Mannox, probably to make my mom happy. She's really
yeah Stan calling me Eddie and you know that's funny. Yeah,
it's kind of a thing. But yeah, I think eventually
I'll go back to Brian Mannix. Uh. You know, I
previously released the Mannox Project. And years ago I was
in a band called forty two Wetmen, which is the
first well, I was in a band in college too,
but the first like real band outside of college was
this band called forty two Wetmen, and we got a
radio play and we we had my my partner, one
of my good good friends, a soulmate uh heuh. He
was a piano player on Broadway and he was like
the orchestrator of the band and we were like it
was like right as we were about to get signed,
the band like blew up and we broke up. And
then yeah, it was like it was it was sad
and then uh. In one of my big moments when
I opened for Cake at the Vanderbilt in in Long
Island and I got offered a record deal back in
the day, and I turned it down, like maybe a fool, yeah,
because I wanted more control over the over the publishing
and everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, well you never know too, I mean, uh,
a record deal isn't always uh you know, I mean
they might they might pour a lot of money into
the project once they sign you, and and you might
end up being a big star, or you might there's
a lot of horror stories too, you know. You go
and record a record and uh, and then the record
company shelves it for whatever reason and they and you
don't even own your masters and they keep everything and
uh that was part of the deal.
Speaker 3: It was kind of like they were just buying my
finished product. And that album I made with Mike Sapone,
who I think he's won a Grammy. He produced brand
brand brand news.
Speaker 2: Okay, brand new.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he produced a lot of their stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, great, he's incredible. Yeah yeah wow. And are
you still in So you're in New York.
Speaker 3: I'm in Brooklyn. I'm in Crown Heights, and I am
doing a little bit of AI educational consulting as well.
Speaker 2: Really interesting. Okay, Okay, so you're really you're really invested
in AI. That's good, that's good. Yeah. Well, eventually we're
all going to have to be.
Speaker 3: Much. I mean, I look at it as we have
a whole bunch of Einstein's in the room that we
can utilize for just about any project, or just just
about anything, any question, any real world uh you know,
science thing you want to know, or even interpersonal stuff
that you know most people like you're talking you're telling
that to a bot, but you know, when they're that smart.
Even though it's just one character at a time, or
you know, it's just a stochadic parrot or whatever people
want to call it, it works for me.
Speaker 2: It's also been with us too, for longer than people realize.
Because what I tell everyone is if you've ever gone
on to a a if you've ever talk to a chatbot,
on a website for customer service. I mean you're literally
talking to a bot that's not a real person on
the other end. That's why sometimes it's so hard to
get anywhere.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: But but that'll improve too. But but no, I I
I love AI. There's so much you can do with it,
and uh, the number one thing that I use it
for is coding, because I also build websites. Really but yeah,
but I don't code at all anymore, like ever, I
literally I tell I tell AI. There's a couple of
different ones I use, you know what I need, and
it builds it for me, and then I put it
into the.
Speaker 3: You know, I might have to do it.
Speaker 2: I might have to tweak it, but I don't. I
don't write code anymore.
Speaker 3: Right right, It's amazing, no reason to really amazing.
Speaker 2: So is there anything else you want to tell us about? Uh,
in terms of the game, because again with Eddie Singh,
there's the game and everything, like what I want to
make sure people know about that, and then we'll remind
people too about you know, they're going to be hearing
hearing the single on the radio soon. But any any
other part of this that we didn't touch on that
you want to make sure people know about well.
Speaker 3: In hopefully a week's time or less, the app will
be up and running on my website or on a
separate domain name. It would probably be a web app.
And basically you can listen to the album and you know,
sort of shazam it, uh and listen whatever part you're on,
Depending on the song and the minute that you that
you record, it'll give you a choice of options. Uh,
it's like, no, I always forget this. It's like no action,
share or alternative. And then within that once you pick
one of those, like no is like you know, trivia
questions and stuff like that. Action is asking someone to
share something on social media. What was the other one?
Alternative is just kind of kind of a popourri of
things and uh was it no action? Uh, I'm forgetting
the other one. But then there's subcategories of what the
album is all about, love and sex, which you know,
please you and come on, come on, certainly represent that
and the love of Mineola screaming your name in the night.
And then there's subcategories so love and sex, racism, sexism, homophobia,
and technology, and then you get to share and earn
points within that ecosystem and really be like interacting with
the music in a way that previous to the technology.
Now you know, it's so advanced. And again I've been
kind of waiting for this. I mean I had this
idea a long time ago, but I wasn't able with
my skills then to create a hizam. But now, like
you said, not having the code, I mean I can
just I can build it. And I was able to
build it. It's working perfectly in the development environment. I
just have to push it up live.
Speaker 2: Fantastic. Well, congratulations on that. That's exciting. Yeah, really looking
forward to that. And of course, uh, is this our America?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: I have the title right right? Is this our America?
Speaker 3: Is this America? It was called this My America?
Speaker 2: Right right? Yeah?
Speaker 3: And I changed it because it's really our America, it's
not mine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, excellent. And uh so that's uh, that's going out,
that's well starting now. Really it's going out to college
radio and and people will be able to hear that
soon and and uh and hopefully too they'll get into
the game and and all of it. But well, we'll
make sure people know about it. That's for sure.
Speaker 3: Absolutely great stuff.
Speaker 2: And I encourage people to check out the album too,
and uh, and of course if you go to eddiesing
dot com you can find well, the original is there too.
Speaker 3: I don't know if the original is still on. I
think I might have just replaced it with the with
the updated version. But you can, oh gotcha. You can
certainly learn everything you wanted to know about me or
the band.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: My electronic press kit is is you know, a little
too long. It's a prezzy where you can go in
and see who I am in my background, my life,
and then each of the albums you can go and
see the lyrics and who produced it and everything.
Speaker 2: And I got to watch. Looking at the website too,
that reminds me I gotta watch that. I haven't watched
the video yet, but I'm going to the story of
Eddie saying I need to check that out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was that was years ago, in the first
one I made, and it was it was, you know,
kind of just I had this experience where it was
I was typing, uh, and I was writing like just
a creative writing session, and I wrote about this translucent
girl and then I went to stop writing and I
got hogandash out of my fridge or freezer, and they
had a QR code, which i've at that point i'd
probably never scanned a QR code of someone else's. And
I scanned it and you downloaded an app. It was
called the Concerto app, and outgrew a three D image
a Halgram like Princess Leigh and Batman and Star Wars
playing the violin. And it was like the most beautiful
thing I'd ever seen in my life. And I was like, whoa.
And then I sat back down at the computer and
I was like, I wrote about a translucent girl in
the computer before I saw this thing, and I'm like,
what is going on?
Speaker 4: I'm like, am I seeing the future? I'm like, well
predicting this? It was so it just it still haunts me.
I don't know, Yeah what exactly who threw that seed
into my subconscious?
Speaker 3: You know? And yeah, yeah, preview, but that was kind
of how that thing started. And I believe that's in
the Eddie, the story of Eddie.
Speaker 2: Saying Okay, okay, yeah, I gotta watch that tonight. I'm
gonna watch that tonight. Definitely definitely very good. Well again,
everybody check out eddiesing dot com and keep your eyes
or keep your ears open, I should say for the
first single hitting radio very very shortly, so Eddie saying,
this has been wonderful.
Speaker 3: Thank you, peace man, thanks so much. I appreciate it absolutely.
Speaker 2: Thank you everyone who joined us for the live stream,
and of course everyone else. I know a lot more
people are going to get this in the podcast feed.
Make sure you subscribe to Matt connorson Unleashed in the
podcast feed of your choice, and you can always find
it at my website Matt Connorton dot com. And that
is going to do it for us for now. Eddie
singing again, thank you so much, my friend.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: You got it.
Speaker 1: Get command God, don't get supremely mag so coming