Lincolnshire man, 54, uses AI to finally finish the songs he wrote 20 years ago
AI-assisted but 100 per cent their own lyrics - 20 years later
A Lincolnshire man who spent his thirties writing and gigging in a Hampshire rock band is finally finishing the songs that never made it off the shelf - two decades, three house moves, two marriages, five kids and one very unusual gig later.
Sam Hazzard (Simon Hazzard officially), 54, who moved back to the Boston area of Lincolnshire this year after 35 years away, was lead vocalist in a band called Volume One with Ricky Smith, now 70, throughout the early-to-mid 2000s. The pair wrote and recorded all their own material - including two songs good enough to release properly a decade later - but life, distance and a lack of music-industry know-how kept most of it unfinished.
Among Volume One's more unlikely achievements: the band was the first - and possibly the only - act to play a gig aboard what was then the only brand-new Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer, in 2010. The all-night show aboard HMS Daring at Portsmouth Dockyard raised £8,500 for Help for Heroes.
"We're best mates with a couple of great undiscovered and unheard albums worth of music out there. At our ages and being so far apart has made us realise just how important it is to do this now," said Hazzard.
The pair had one previous attempt at a comeback, releasing two singles, "How Many Reasons" and "St George's Pride," in 2016 - but a full-time job and, in Hazzard's words, "a profound lack of music marketing knowledge," got in the way again.
This time, reunited despite living 200 miles apart, they're releasing the whole back catalogue under a new name, Smith & Hazzard - Volume One, using AI tools to help finish production, with every lyric 100 per cent their own, and every AI-assisted step logged publicly, track by track.
"We're putting every track we ever produced back in the day through AI to act as a new performer. The music and composition all stays the same, the lyrics don't change, but the quality is way beyond what we're capable of now," Hazzard said.
"We're even writing new music again, creating brand new songs using the new tools - but we want to be very clear about what belongs to us and what the new tools give to us. There's too many charlatans out there passing off AI-generated music as their own, and it's bad for the industry," he added.
The first single, 'Passed Tense', came out on September 4 on Spotify and Apple Music. The full story, and a full breakdown of every release as it comes, is at https://www.smithandhazzard.com.