SASHA AND THE LUNATICS
Aktualisiert: vor 4 Stunden
Modern Alternative Rock from Belgium
"More seriously, we think there will always be people who want a connection with artists and who identify with the things those artists actually have to say."
Sasha and The Lunatics
© Amrita Depraz
Let's start with you.
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 is a necessity for us. Something we need and something we’re passionate about. We’re a rock/alternative rock quartet from Belgium. Above all, music is a means of expression and an outlet. We turn our feelings about the world and our own life experiences into music.
We’ve always been particularly drawn to rock because of its roots in counterculture. It gives us a space to express our disagreements, our dreams and the way we see the world. There’s also a certain authenticity to it that really matters to us.
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?
We’re probably realizing it more than ever today, simply because of the staggering amount of AI-generated content appearing on streaming platforms. It’s starting to overshadow the actual human beings behind the creative process.
For us, the answer isn’t to be technophobic. But a tool should remain a tool: it should serve the creative vision, not replace it.
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.
We never use AI for songwriting. That’s a hard line for us. We don’t use it to create artwork or videos either. In fact, our guitarist is the one who designs our cover art.
That said, we have used AI to animate artwork because we didn’t have the technical skills to do it ourselves. AI now makes certain things much more accessible. Things that, only a few years ago, would have required a huge amount of time, technical and human resources, and therefore a lot more money.
Otherwise, we mainly use it for administrative purposes: handling requests more quickly and efficiently and helping with writing tasks. We also use it to proofread our lyrics and check the English for spelling and grammatical mistakes.
It’s also worth acknowledging that some of the plugins we use in production already incorporate AI-related technologies. So even though we refuse to use AI to write or compose our songs, it’s already present in some of the tools we work with, whether we actively choose it or not.
There’s also a very practical example within the band. Our drummer is Italian, so he sometimes uses AI to translate conversations and, more importantly, to help him express his ideas and concepts in French as clearly and precisely as possible. In that case, AI obviously isn’t thinking for him but it’s simply helping him communicate thoughts he already has despite the language barrier.
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?
Pretty much where we drew it in the previous answer. AI can be useful to us for anything that is not the music itself. We need to remain in control of our own creativity.
What does “making music” actually mean to you in the age of generative AI?
That’s difficult to answer. We’re not here to judge people who choose to use it.
So far, we haven’t really needed AI in the actual creation of our music. But let’s take an example : if one day we wanted a massive stadium-sized choir on a song, we’d probably never have the resources to bring together and record hundreds of people. In that situation, AI could become an interesting tool, as long as the melody, the intention and the creative direction came from us. The artistic decisions need to remain human. The machine should serve the human being, not take over from them.
What is frustrating, though, is that AI can make all the work that goes into a human-led project less visible. All the effort involved in creating something personal. It’s a pretty bleak vision of music if the ultimate goal becomes simply producing hits and “perfect” songs.
There is beauty in imperfection. There’s one thing AI can’t do in quite the same way we can : human mistakes. A mistake, an imperfection, an accident during a take or in the production process can sometimes become the very thing that gives a song its identity. And perhaps that imperfection is precisely what can make the difference today between something created by human beings and something entirely generated by artificial intelligence.
Generative AI tracks might perhaps be considered works of craftsmanship, but maybe less so works of art.
What excites you about AI — and what worries you?
On the positive side : potentially the time it can save. As independent artists, we constantly have to increase our productivity just to keep up and stay visible (although the fact that we’ve reached a point where that feels necessary is arguably a problem in itself).
We shouldn’t automatically reject technological change either. After all, some genres of music have been using computers for decades and there was a time when people might have been outraged by the idea of writing a cello part on an electronic keyboard.
AI can also help improve precision in areas such as mixing and mastering. A lot of producers are already using it to save time and some record labels actively encourage the practice. It can be genuinely useful when it allows someone to develop an idea quickly or create a highly polished demo.
On the negative side : pretty much everything else. Artists are earning less and less and in an already overcrowded ocean of music, we’re now adding tracks whose revenue doesn’t necessarily go back to actual people creating music.
AI also learns from what already exists, which creates a risk of homogenization. But diversity is precisely what makes music interesting. Different genres, sounds and approaches are what allow people to identify with music, discover something different and escape into another world.
Maybe we should start feeding these technologies with more genuinely good music, greater diversity and more adventurous productions and see whether we can push them towards something new rather than endlessly reproducing the same formulas?
It’s a double-edged sword.
What do you think AI will do to the music business itself?
As usual... the biggest players will be the ones who benefit most. We’re heading towards an increasingly polarized market and independent artists are likely to find themselves under even more pressure.
There is a huge debate around copyright, consent and AI training. Where do you stand?
It goes back to what we were saying earlier: if we agree that technology should serve human beings, then there needs to be extremely robust and carefully designed regulation around copyright, and artists’ work should only be used with their explicit consent.
How can a tool claim to be built for the benefit of artists if those same artists aren’t even consulted, or worse, if their rights are disregarded in the process of creating it?
Of course, any contribution to the development or training of these systems should come with both recognition and compensation.
Imagine someone is 16 years old today and dreams of becoming a musician.
Passion is born somewhere, and through practice it grows and develops. So yes, the number one piece of advice would still be: dare to express yourself.
Whatever you feel the need to say (whether you want to scream it to the entire world or keep it within the four walls of your bedroom) begins with something intrinsic, something that comes from you and exists independently of any machine.
We keep coming back to the same point, but machines should serve an idea that comes from us first.
That said, we wouldn’t advise anyone to be crazy enough to pursue a career in music anyway! Hahaha! More seriously, if AI has changed anything about the advice we’d give, it would be this: stay vigilant, but stay open-minded too. If our response to every technological change is simply « things were better before » we’re not going to move forward.
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?
As with anything else, there will be resistance and there will be countercultures. There always have been. Punk itself grew out of that kind of rebellion against established norms and structures of power.
Some people simply won’t care whether the music they listen to was made by humans or AI, while others absolutely will. What matters is maintaining a certain level of transparency and not treating audiences like idiots. Who are we to decide what someone else should or shouldn’t listen to?
As for whether we’ll still be able to tell the difference, that’s difficult to say. Right now, we still can in many cases, but when you see how quickly the technology is evolving...
Given some of the conversations happening around AI and humanity at the moment, maybe none of us will still be around to find out! Haha
More seriously, we think there will always be people who want a connection with artists and who identify with the things those artists actually have to say.
And we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of LIVE MUSIC. A concert is an exchange between human beings. That shared experience being in the same room, feeling the same thing at the same moment isn’t something a machine is going to replace anytime soon.
Finally: The Human Frequency.
What is the one thing about human-made music that you believe AI can never replace?
Love
Sasha and The Lunatics are Sasha Dehan (vocals), Bartolomeo Terrazzino (guitar), Maxime Winand (bass) and Remo Spezza (drums). They are four musicians with four personalities and a friendship that grew alongside the band. Their quirks and differences don't get smoothed out, because they're what makes the band.
The quartet plays modern alternative rock rooted in blues rock, where riffs, groove and melodies thrive on contrast. The band calls it "retrofuturistic": it sounds like the past while facing forward. The lyrics dig into contradiction: freedom versus peace, loss of control, disillusionment, and the stubborn refusal to stop dreaming.
SATL is a live band first. Since their 2023 debut, they have played stages and festivals across Belgium, including Classic 21 Festival, Spirit of 66, Zik-Zak, Reflektor and Park Rock Festival. Their songs shift and evolve with the chemistry between them night to night.
After their debut EP First Phase (November 2025), the band is entering a new chapter and moving beyond the classic-rock leanings of their early songs. The decades that shaped rock remain part of their vocabulary, but they don't dictate what comes next.
After all, who's ever managed to put a Lunatic in a box?
Pictures: © Amrita Depraz
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