RootsGrass Records launches with AI-generated debut album by The Howlers

RootsGrass Records has launched as an independent imprint with “A Call to the Wild,” the debut album by the California music project The Howlers. The album, released Aug. 21, combines bluegrass instrumentation with reggae rhythm across eight tracks and is available on major streaming platforms. RootsGrass is an imprint of The Storytellers Band, LLC, founded by Scott Diehl, Michael Garcia and Lance Frantzich. The label says it releases roots music that honours tradition without being bound by it. The release’s vocal and instrumental performances were generated with artificial-intelligence tools, then auditioned, selected and refined across multiple takes. Its lyrics were written by Diehl, Garcia and Frantzich. Diehl said the group kept banjo, fiddle and mandolin at the front of the arrangements, setting the rhythm section into a one-drop pattern and rewriting material until the styles “stopped fighting each other.” He described that tension between bluegrass and reggae as the core of the record. The first song, “AI Music Is For Me,” explicitly addresses the production method. Diehl said AI tools build the performances, while the creators’ role is to judge which takes carry feeling and which arrangements should be retained. The album’s eight-song track list also includes “Where You Want It To Go,” “Dragonfly,” “High Mountain Wisdom,” “The Bill Comes Due,” “Good Enough For Me,” “Platitudes” and “A Wild Thing Woke.” The label describes “Good Enough For Me” as a song of easy contentment, “The Bill Comes Due” as a slow-burn warning and “Platitudes” as barbed wit. Garcia said the founders created the label they wanted to release on, without “nobody upstairs deciding a fiddle doesn’t belong over a reggae beat.” Frantzich said the bass was where the two traditions met, and that the songs opened up after the group stopped asking the low end to perform both musical roles at once. The release enters a field in which the U.S. Copyright Office has set rules for works containing AI-generated material. Its policy says copyright protects only material produced through human creativity. Where an AI system determines a work’s expressive elements, the AI-generated material is not protected by copyright and must be disclaimed in a registration application; applicants must disclose AI content and explain the human author’s contribution. Berklee Online cited a Ditto study in which nearly 60% of surveyed artists said they used AI in music projects, while 28% said they would not use it for music purposes. “A Call to the Wild” is also available with free previews and MP3 downloads at TheHowlersBand.com.