EMILY MAC
Toronto based rocker - empowers her audience to liberate themselves from heartbreak & dark times
"Soul. Goosebumps. That crack of gold where the soul leaks through. I think this is why so many people love a lot of older music like classic rock and soul music"
Emily
Let's start with you Emily.
Tell me a little about yourself and your relationship with music. What do you do, and what does making music mean to you personally?
Music has always been a huge part of my life. As a kid, I would make up songs to soothe myself to sleep at night and sing and dance around my parents' living room to their old record collection. I've been performing in bands since I was a teenager, and I honed my skills in real time in front of an audience. After singing in many cover bands, I started to write and make my own original music. Making music is in my bones. I use singing and songwriting as therapy to help me work through challenging situations in my life. I love performing live, and when my music touches and moves other people, that's the best feeling in the world.
When did AI first become something you actually started thinking about in relation to music? Was there a particular tool, song, experience or moment that made you realize: this could really change things?
Making music, for me, has always been about making it with real people and real instruments. To me, that's rock 'n' roll: it's raw and real. I've avoided using AI because it's not something I'm interested in. But even though I don't want to use it, I've encountered a few situations where people were using it without asking my permission. So I realized that, like it or not, I need to have that conversation with anyone I collaborate with. Also, the time Facebook and Instagram opted everyone in to their new AI tool without asking for permission opened my eyes to how much AI is all over the place. I opted out as soon as I found out about it and was glad when the backlash made them change their automatic opt-in policy.
Do you currently use AI tools in your own work?
If yes, which ones and what do you use them for? This could be anything from songwriting, production and mixing to artwork, video, marketing or administration. If you deliberately don't use AI, I'd be equally interested in why.
No I’m completely against using AI.
Where do you personally draw the line?
Are there things you are happy to let AI assist you with — and things you would never want to hand over to a machine?
No. No AI for me.
What does “making music” actually mean to you in the age of generative AI?
I don't consider it the same thing at all when someone puts a prompt into AI and it regurgitates a "song." Making music and writing original songs is a lot of hard work, and to me, that's part of what makes the art so good: someone sweated it out and cried a few tears in the process of making it. Making art can be frustrating. You can get stuck and want to bang your head against a wall, but the struggle with one piece of creative work can lead to another idea popping into your head while you're taking a shower or going for a walk. To me, being a creative person is not about the destination; it's about the journey. Some of my favorite moments as a musician have been in rehearsal, struggling to make a song work, when suddenly a bridge comes to me, or when I'm challenging myself to go to new places with my voice and discovering how to use it in new ways. The most satisfying and rewarding things in my life have come from putting lots of work into something, and that's what makes an artist. Your work is never quite done, but you're always exploring, seeking and discovering new things through the process of making music.
What excites you about AI — and what worries you?
I hate AI and wish it didn't exist in the first place. There are so many things that scare me about it beyond what it's doing to creatives, which infuriates me. On some level, it feels like greedy corporations are trying to get rid of artists with AI because they hate the mystery of art. They'd love a dependable machine that they don't have to pay anything to make art on demand at their beck and call.
Environmentally, we are already in a very delicate place, and AI is using up a ton of our precious resources, like water. I'm sorry, but I'm going to get a little more doom and gloom here: I'm scared about how militaries might use it, how many people might lose their jobs and what jobs they will have then. I fear AI turning against humans, and I fear what it will do in the hands of humans. I feel like there might be some benefits when it comes to research, like sifting through huge amounts of data and finding new medical advances in a mountain of research that AI could go through faster than any human. But overall, I feel like the cons hugely outweigh the pros.
What do you think AI will do to the music business itself?
The music industry is already like the Wild West, and there's a lot of shadiness behind the scenes. I see more of this coming. Labels and streaming services could maybe benefit from AI, but usually it's the artists who lose. Technically, money could be saved by using AI instead of session musicians, but to me, that ain't music. Not to my taste.
There is a huge debate around copyright, consent and AI training. Where do you stand?
This is one of my biggest issues with AI. It pisses me off royally that it's already been copying countless artists' works without anyone's permission. I'm glad that the backlash has started and that companies like Suno are being sued, but more needs to happen. Whether or not to use AI should always be the artist's choice, and people need to be really transparent about it. I've already run into issues with this personally. Once was during a co-write: one of the co-writers was using ChatGPT for ideas and never asked my permission to use it. I had to explain partway through the writing session why I wasn't OK with using AI. Another time was on a demo: the person working on it put AI mastering on my song without asking my permission. This was an original, unreleased song, and now AI knows it before I even had the chance to release it. Sometimes people think they're helping you by doing these things, but it's a very personal, moral and artistic choice, and they must ask for consent. I now have to have awkward conversations at the start of every creative collaboration, because unfortunately, AI has become an uninvited guest in the room.
Imagine someone is 16 years old today and dreams of becoming a musician.
Stay away from AI. Learn and collaborate, but keep coming back to your own truth, your own centre, your own stories, because deep inside, you know what's right for you as an artist. Lots of people will give you advice (some of it will be helpful), but there are no magic formulas, and no single gatekeeper has all the answers. So keep coming back to your own true north. Try not to get distracted by what other people are doing; you are on your own unique journey. If this is what you're meant to do, you won't be able to help but follow your dreams. Know there will be ups and downs, but you are stronger than you know, and you can weather any storm that comes your way.
Fast-forward five years.
What do you think the music world will look like? Will audiences care whether a song was made by humans or AI? And do you think we'll even be able to tell the difference?
So many strange things have happened in the last seven years that I never expected, so it's impossible to tell. Here's my guess at a few things that could happen. I think there will be a big divide between people who want real, authentic music played on real instruments and sung by real people, and those who don't. This could also lead to recordings that aren't so perfect but have more of a raw, human feeling to them. Of course, there will also be people who don't care if it's AI, and I see that as a totally different audience. The idea of not being able to tell the difference terrifies me (that's why it's important to have transparency when people do use AI), and it's why I think recordings with less Auto-Tune and more rawness might become more desirable, where you can hear that it's human and flawed and wonderfully real.
Finally: The Human Frequency.
What is the one thing about human-made music that you believe AI can never replace?
Soul. Goosebumps. That crack of gold where the soul leaks through. I think this is why so many people love older music like classic rock and soul: those recordings aren't perfect, but they are undeniably human, and they make you feel something
Full of fiery lyrics and her sassy rock swagger Toronto based rocker Emily Mac empowers her audience to liberate themselves from heartbreak & dark times. With over 100,000 collective streams and listeners in 103 countries Mac has been making her mark on the rock world. Mac released her debut EP “ROCK N ROLL ANIMAL” on July 24th/ 2026 produced by gold certified producer Dajaun Martineau. Mac’s featured single “Animal” received airplay on Barrie’s Rock 95, Calgary’s X92.9, X100.7 Red Deer’s Alternative and Toronto’s CIUT 89.5FM. Her music been featured in multiple media outlets earning Mac comparisons to some of her greatest heroes, including Stevie Nicks, Janis Joplin, and Ann Wilson.
Current Projects
This summer I released my first EP “ROCK N ROLL ANIMAL”. I am currently promoting my EP while planning the release party. Also I am writing songs for the next album.
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