In June 2020, singer-songwriter Cal Wilson received the early morning phone call no son wants. He was informed his father had COVID-19, and was in the hospital on a ventilator in an induced coma. Sadly, Cal’s father ended up passing away from a heart attack. That month proved to be the most painful month of Cal’s life, sending him into an anxious and depressive tailspin from which he is still reeling.
The Vancouver, Washington-based artist works in the challenging field of social work when he isn’t engaged in music. It’s a career which has necessitated that he learns to put his feelings aside to guide families through the most difficult parts of their lives. Unfortunately, Cal’s work brain kicked in during his heartbreak over his father. After his father’s death, Cal found he couldn’t turn to music to process his pain. His feelings were blocked. “I felt like when my dad went away, my ability to create went away—he was also a songwriter and my first musical inspiration,” Cal shares. To process his feelings and express himself, Cal started exploring Artificial Intelligence as a co-writer and an emotional support.
The results are the 8-song album, In Your Head, an intriguing collection of imaginative and playful but melancholy indie-rock that invites comparisons to The War On Drugs, Big Thief, The Beatles, Harry Nilsson, Frankie Cosmos, and Tom Petty.
Prior to his father’s passing, Cal hadn’t had any experience with AI. He had, however, built a lot of macros in Excel—a process that allowed for the automation of repetitive tasks—and he wondered if he could apply this methodology to writing songs. Cal attempted to build some songwriting macros, but soon found he couldn’t achieve what he wanted in Excel. From research, he found some AI platforms that worked; one for music and another for lyrics. Finally, he had found a workaround for his inaccessible emotions and artistry. “I’ll never forget when I first realized it was working, and I heard lyrics being sung back to me that sounded like me. It was a life changing moment—I felt like I heard the future,” Cal says.
The AI creative process involved the human co-writer feeding parameters to the platforms such as stylistic cues, keywords, and even chord progressions. “The workflow was best described as a partnership,” Cal says. “I rebuilt and tweaked a lot of the songs using my foundation in music theory. At times, the whole process was like problem solving with an open-minded and reliable friend.”
Today Glide is offering an exclusive premiere of the achingly beautiful single, “Home Of The Pale Horse,” oozes a down home sensibility that recalls Tom Petty-esque Americana. Bringing together the warm twang of a pedal steel with layered vocal harmonies and a charming piano, the tune is a galloping ride that fuses cosmic country, indie rock, and psych-pop to make for a sound that is entirely original. We can feel Cal’s pain as he navigates the loss of his father and uses the lyrics to capture his emotions.
Cal describes the inspiration behind the song:
When I wrote “Home of the Pale Horse,” I was going through a difficult period of heartache after losing my father. This song speaks to the complicated feelings of being forever tied to something beautiful that brings both comfort and pain.
Music has always been my way of expressing myself when words fail me. During this time of mourning, I was finding myself struggling to create and write. This is when I turned to Artificial Intelligence as a co-writer and emotional support. Collaborating with AI was a unique experience that tested my artistic boundaries and encouraged me to explore off of my usual rails. The process created some new hope in me. It helped me see that in times of profound loss and pain, remaining open to unexpected sources of support and inspiration can lead to meaningful expressions of healing.
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