June 20, 2026
themeasuredend@gmail.com | LinkedIn
TUCSON, Ariz. — Daniel Stoker, a self-taught guitarist, pianist, and songwriter, finds himself on a razor-thin line between the major music studios and those using AI to generate music and lyrics from scratch. He neither belongs to the studio ecosystem nor uses AI to write his music; he uses AI solely to cover his own original songs, the melodies and lyrics he has written over decades.
This leaves him asking, “how can I stand out in a space that is so polarized and be heard when I don’t truly belong on either side?” Stoker says he has a solution.
For most of his life, Stoker’s music lived in places few people ever saw or heard: notebooks, an old four-track recorder, voice memos scattered across years of smartphones, partial digital recordings, and rough demos.
After more than 30 years of songwriting, that private catalog is beginning to surface. Stoker, pulling from a body of work that includes thousands of melodies, verses, hooks, chord progressions, and full compositions, is using AI to help.
His songs move across pop, rock, alternative, indie, grunge, a cappella, and orchestral styles. Some call for soft, intimate vocals. Others need a rasp, a shout, or a soaring chorus.
Now, with releases like “The Lateness of the Hour” and “Sound of Terror,” Stoker uses AI-assisted music tools to turn the songs he has written into polished demos. He can now show others what he has heard for years.
And his hope is that these albums will showcase his songwriting clearly enough for real artists, producers, publishers, and music companies to hear the potential and imagine where the songs could go.
“I have all the original recordings of these songs with timestamps on iPhones, laptops, etc., and I have it documented in my Suno account, every workspace shows my original songs uploaded and only then do I request the AI to create a cover. So I know from a copyright perspective, I hold the intellectual property of these original melodies and lyrics.”
For Stoker, that distinction matters. He sees much of today’s AI music use as focused on generating songs, lyrics, and melodies from prompts. That is not his interest. The songs are his. The lyrics are his. The melodies and chord progressions are his. AI, for him, is just a production and demoing tool, a way to help long-written songs be heard.
It is also, he believes, a challenge to the old music studio model.
For decades, a lone songwriter like Stoker needed access to a studio, an engineer, a vocalist, money, time, and often a lucky connection just to present a song in a form the industry might take seriously. Now, AI-assisted production gives independent writers a better path to create high quality demos on their own, not as a replacement for artists or studios, but as a way to get original songs in front of the people who can perform, record, license, produce, or develop them.
And for Stoker, AI gives him a second chance on a major missed opportunity in his youth.
A lost chance with a major music studio in his youth
Stoker’s path has never been about chasing the spotlight. He played in bands, performed live, and experimented with recording, but over time he realized the part he loved most was the writing itself.
“The only thing that I really found joy in was writing the music,” Stoker says.
His dream was not to become a famous front man. It was to write songs other artists could bring to life.
“My last gig was over 20 years ago, a three-hour set of original songs at a bar next to the University of Arizona.” he says. “I was exhausted, I’d rather been home, writing music.”
That focus sharpened after an experience in his early 20s. One of Stoker’s songs had ranked in the top 10 among tens of thousands on GarageBand.com, a newly launched platform supported by George Martin. Stoker says he was invited to a major studio and drove to California expecting a meeting that might change the direction of his songwriting life.
But when he arrived, the meeting did not happen.
No sit down. No conversation. No chance to showcase the songs.
The experience left him disillusioned. If the gatekeepers were not going to let him in, he decided he would keep songwriting anyway but for himself.
“I literally stood outside the gate. Calls weren’t returned. So I thought, okay, I’ll go home and music is just for myself,” he says. “But I still have the congratulatory email from George Martin for getting in the top 10. That is a treasure.”
But Stoker can put his lost chance behind, as his music has finally reached a level of production that he has always envisioned and can now be heard by anyone.
“But the waters of AI in music are still treacherous and uncharted, and they have to be navigated with care.”
AI as a demo studio but not a songwriter
AI generated music continues to be on the rise as music distributors like Distrokid and music service providers like Spotify seek to identify it so that consumers can beware.
Yet, Stoker sees the problem and the solution.
The problem: AI labeling of songs is not differentiating between songs written by AI and those only being performed by AI. And the difference is huge.
Under U.S. copyright law, an original song is automatically copyrighted the moment you write and record it (fixing it in a tangible medium, such as a voice memo, digital file, or sheet music). The act of recording and having proof creates an automatic, legally recognized copyright.
While the legal and music industries are heavily into the weeds on AI music creation, a songwriter uploading a song to an AI service for a performance cover does not erode their intellectual property protection but in fact, helps to solidify it.
“I understand there is some backlash for using AI in songs, and for some people, using AI in general,” Stoker says. “As a person who writes songs, stories, and has theoretical physics models, the introduction of mainstream LLMs felt like an attack on my creativity, my innovation, my entire existence. But I see a clear line between the spiritual and legal ramifications of using AI for songwriting vs using it for music production. The problem is that the line is not being drawn by music distributors and service providers.”
The solution: any music made available for consumers should identify if AI was involved in any of the songwriting: music or lyrics and then separately identify if AI was used in any of the performance and production: from instrument or vocal performances to audio effects and mastering.
Stoker says the difference is important because it distinguishes between one act that is currently protected by U.S. copyright law and another that is not.
Stoker also notes that he loves to hear new compositions from real people, not AI, but is okay hearing new songs performed by AI. “I love hearing a new melody that someone has written. I like to think about the choices they made, the emotions that are being carried through when that melody was born from their soul. I’m not bothered by an AI performing it.”
“All new technology comes with the question, ‘Will this hurt me more or help me more?’ and often that answer depends on you, your ability to adapt with the technology and use it to boost your goals in life,” he says. “I’ve chosen to use AI to help me achieve my artistic goals without compromising my artistic work. In other words, if I had access to a professional recording studio, I could get the same result. The AI is technically not necessary. It’s just very helpful.”
“But it has changed the entire music industry,” he adds, “and it will never be the same.”
A challenge to the major music studios
For Stoker, AI-assisted demoing is not just a personal convenience. It represents a shift in who gets to enter the conversation.
The traditional music industry has long depended on filters: studios, labels, producers, managers, publishers, engineers, and access to professional recording environments. Those filters can help shape great music, but they can also keep songs from being heard, especially when the songwriter is not a performer, does not live in a major music city, or lacks the budget to produce studio quality demos.
Stoker sees AI changing that first step. A songwriter no longer has to pour excessive resources and time into making a semi-polished version of a few of their songs, in the hope that a gatekeeper will listen for a few seconds. With AI-assisted production, a lone writer can present a song in a fuller form, with enough polish, structure, vocal style, and sonic clarity for artists and companies to evaluate it on the strength of the writing.
That does not mean major studios become irrelevant. To Stoker, the more interesting possibility is that the relationship changes. Studios, producers, publishers, sync companies, labels, and artists could receive better-developed material from independent songwriters who were previously invisible. Instead of AI replacing the industry, it could widen the doorway into it.
The challenge is to the gatekeeping, not to the value of collaboration.
In Stoker’s view, the old system often required a songwriter to be discovered before the songs could be properly heard. AI-assisted demoing reverses part of that process. It allows the songs to be heard first, in a form closer to what the writer intended, and then gives artists and companies a clearer reason to engage.
That is especially important for someone like Stoker, who never wanted to be the final performer. His goal is not to bypass singers, bands, producers, labels, or music companies. It is to reach them with demos strong enough to start a real conversation.
He also sees an irony in the criticism of AI-assisted production.
“I also understand that professional recording studios are also using AI to help hear songs and flesh out effects, styles, variations, as well as in final production,” he says. “So that’s the irony of it. If I was invited back to a major studio, I would probably be passing my songs to an engineer doing the same thing I’m doing with the AI.”
That irony points to the larger challenge. If major studios are already using AI to refine, test, and produce music, Stoker believes independent songwriters should also be able to use similar tools to prepare their work for the industry. The difference is access. What once required a studio appointment can now begin in a songwriter’s home.
For Stoker, that makes AI less of a threat to music than a potential equalizer, provided it is used to amplify human songwriting rather than replace it.
That, for Stoker, is the real shift. Independent songwriters no longer necessarily need a perfect studio situation, a major-label connection, or a lucky break just to let their work be heard. They can create demos strong enough to approach artists, producers, publishers, labels, and companies with something more complete than a promise.
In Tucson, where he has spent decades writing largely out of view, the barrier between song and listener finally feels manageable.
And after a lifetime of melodies that mostly stayed private, that may be the biggest change of all.
“Ultimately, I do agree that we shouldn’t be using AI to song-write, because at scale it can add a lot more volume to what’s already most typical, instead of amplifying the rarer, human-specific creative leaps,” Stoker says. “I believe it should be confined to a tool for assisting in producing, not writing. In other words, ‘We are the music-makers. We are the dreamers of dreams.’”
Four Albums From a Lifetime of Songs
That shift has already led to four albums: “The Lateness of the Hour,” “Sound of Terror,” “In Theory,” and “Lasting Impressions.” Together, they turn decades of private songwriting into a visible catalog, with each album drawing from a different period of Stoker’s life.
The albums also show the range and longevity of his work. “Lasting Impressions” gathers songs written in the 1990s, capturing the earliest phase of his songwriting. “In Theory” reflects songs from the 2000s when his band was performing in Tucson, AZ, while “Sound of Terror” features material written in the 2010s. “The Lateness of the Hour” brings the catalog into the present, with songs written in the 2020s, including in the last few months.
Taken together, the albums play like a time capsule, a songwriter moving through decades, styles, and life stages while maintaining the same habit of making music because he loves it and, as Stoker puts it, because he “can’t not write music.”
Stoker also has two additional albums currently in progress, including a collaboration with a friend who has taken on the role of lyricist. “It’s great working with Mike, I can pass him songs that need lyrics or he can pass me lyrics that need a song. In some cases I can pull from existing melodies or I may find the inspiration to write something entirely new.”
For him, the releases are proof that the songs exist, that the catalog is real, and that the work was not a short burst of creativity. It is a sustained body of work that he now hopes can reach beyond his private life.
He calls it “a chance for my songs to now live on beyond me.”
Daniel Stoker can be contacted at themeasuredend@gmail.com | LinkedIn