Get to Know the Kits AI Verified Voices: Conan Mac

Kits AI recently launched our new Kits Earn program, an opportunity for vocalists and artists to make passive income by adding an AI model of their voice to our “Verified Voices” library. In our series of interviews to get to know the artists behind the models, we caught up with Conan Mac to learn about his project and what excites him as an artist.

If you haven’t already checked his music out, give it a listen here.

An Interview with Conan Mac

What kind of music do you make?

I’ve been a Pop / Dance artist for the last 8 years, with a blend of solo releases and DJ collaborations. On top of my own artistry I’ve spent a lot of time in sessions and at writing camps working with other artists on their projects too, usually also within the pop / dance genre. 

What are your musical inspirations, and how have you crafted your style over the years?

I grew up listening to a lot of singer-songwriter / folk artists like James Morrison, Paolo Nutini, Jack Johnson, and early Ed Sheeran, inspiring me to learn guitar from a young age. I honestly never really had an interest in pop until I moved to London when I was 18 to do my music degree and moved in with a music producer friend of mine (Patch Boshell) who specialized in pop productions. We worked on hundreds of songs together, referencing so many successful pop and dance tracks that I soon caught the fever for it. We had a studio in the basement of our house and for over a year hosted 6/7 writing sessions a week, that’s how we both made this a full-time job. 

Have you noticed that your voice works really well in certain contexts? Are there areas that you haven’t explored yourself that you’d be excited to see music-makers explore with your voice?

I’ve definitely got a brighter / softer vocal than most which seems to work well on the more chill and intimate dance top-lines (like my track Carbon), but interestingly with a pitch and/or formant shift it also sounds great if you need that deep house medusa vocal sound. The first time I noticed this was in collaboration with ‘TooManyLeftHands’ on our track ‘hotel room’, they just sent back my vocal with these crazy fx’s on and we loved it. Thankfully it also ended up being used for a huge Pepsi commercial in Denmark! 

Do you have any tips for other artists, both for improving your skills and navigating music as a career?

Be genuine, kind, and engaging with everyone you meet. Don’t be afraid to reach out online to people because it can work, but if you can, make real connections in-person. Go to gigs, go to writing camps, go to networking meets, and find real musicians who love to craft music the way you do. Try not to set out making music that will ‘sell’ because most of the time those aren’t the songs which do.

What’s exciting to you about getting involved in Kits Earn?

I’m incredibly excited to see Kits open up a whole new set of opportunities for musicians who write amazing vocal parts but don’t feel comfortable singing / releasing them. I think this will take the world by storm and I’m honored to be a part of the great team of vocalists whose voices are already in Kits. Lots of people are scared of what AI can do but if we as music creators harness the tools available today and make great music in a way they’ve never been able to in the past, that can only be a good thing!