"This is exactly what artists have been worried about – it's theft dressed up as competition": Who is behind The Velvet Sundown, the AI-generated band that blew up the internet?

On June 26, Music Ally reported that a seemingly fictional, AI-generated band named The Velvet Sundown had accrued hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners on Spotify after appearing in several prominent playlists.

Over the following week, the band went viral, more than doubling their monthly listener count (a figure that's now bordering on a million) and provoking heated debate surrounding the group's identity, the authenticity of their music, and the broader implications of AI-generated music's growing popularity.

On June 2, Rolling Stone published an interview with Andrew Frelon, a man claiming to be a spokesperson for The Velvet Sundown. Frelon claimed that the band was an "art hoax" designed to "troll" listeners, and their music was created with popular AI music generation platform Suno.

A day later, Frelon retracted his statement in a Medium post, claiming that he had no connection to the band and was in fact running a hoax aimed at the media. Frelon – a false name created to protect the writer's identity – had set up a fake Twitter/X account for The Velvet Sundown in order to convince journalists that he was behind the project.

Another Twitter/X account that's since been confirmed as belonging to The Velvet Sundown has corroborated Frelon's admission. "Someone is attempting to hijack the identity of The Velvet Sundown by releasing unauthorized interviews, publishing unrelated photos and creating fake profiles claiming to represent us," a post from the account reads.

"Some interviews have surfaced featuring someone identified as Andrew Frelon allegedly speaking for The Velvet Sundown. We have no affiliation with this individual nor any evidence confirming their identity or existence."

We have since received an email from someone claiming to be "the creators of The Velvet Sundown" stating that several Velvet Sundown social media accounts – those associated with Frelon – are fake. "Over the past days, a number of impersonator accounts have surfaced across social media platforms, publishing fabricated statements and AI-generated imagery falsely attributed to us," the statement reads.

"We understand the intrigue our project inspires - and we’re not here to dispel mystery. But we are here to correct the record," it continues, listing several official social media channels for the band. While can't confirm whether the email is in fact from the creator of The Velvet Sundown, it seems likely, as the accounts mentioned are now visible in the group's Spotify bio, confirming their authenticity.

"The Velvet Sundown is a multidisciplinary artistic project blending music, analog aesthetics, and speculative storytelling," the statement concludes. "While we embrace ambiguity as part of our narrative design, we ask that reporting on us be based on verifiable sources - not fabricated accounts or synthetic media."

The irony of the creator of an AI-generated band taking issue with reporting based on "synthetic media" is surely not lost on whoever is behind The Velvet Sundown, and it seems increasingly likely that the entire project is an elaborate prank intended to shine a light on the concerning implications of AI-generated music's rise for both listeners, musicians and the industry, and the urgent questions it raises surrounding authorship and authenticity.

Either that, or it's merely a cynical cash-grab that spiralled out of control. Over the past week, The Velvet Sundown's monthly listener count has risen from 300,000 to 850,000, and the group's top ten songs have now received a total of over 2,000,000 Spotify streams. By our calculations, those streams alone may have netted the project's creators at least $6,000 in royalty payments.

Speaking to the BBC, Ed Newton-Rex – founder of Fairly Trained, a non-profit that campaigns for creators' rights to be protected from generative AI – said that The Velvet Sundown's popularity validates musicians' fears around the technology's potential to impact their livelihoods in the years to come.

"This is exactly what artists have been worried about, it's theft dressed up as competition," Newton-Rex said. "AI companies steal artists' work to build their products, then flood the market with knock-offs, meaning less money goes to human musicians."

The address claiming to be associated with The Velvet Sundown has not responded to requests for further comment.