Peter Gabriel says he was in the studio with Skrillex: “I think it is good for me to be taken outside my normal comfort zone sometimes”

Peter Gabriel reveals that he’s spent time in the studio with DJ and producer Skrillex in the making of his new song This Is Home.

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Released as the tenth track from his upcoming album i/o, This Is Home is written and produced by Gabriel himself and is what the singer describes as ‘a love song’.

Speaking about the song’s making, Gabriel says that while Skrillex doesn’t feature on the final track, the artist was actually involved in some of the early brainstorming.

“I’d had a call from Skrillex, who’s a very talented musician, and I thought it would be interesting to see what he had in mind,” Gabriel says of their unexpected partnership. “So he came to my home studio and we sat down and talked and tried to evolve bits and pieces and it was mainly for this song.”

“He was trying to encourage me to write a song about staying up all night in a night club and that sort of thing, but that’s not really my life so I made it more about family and home and I like it.”

“Though we took the song in this other direction it was an interesting experience nonetheless, and I think it is good for me to be taken outside my normal comfort zone sometimes.”

In other news, Peter Gabriel has weighed in on the inevitability of AI in music, saying artists would do better to work with it than ignore its existence.

“I think it’s a bit like King Canute on the beach, unfortunately,” Gabriel told Uncut. “It’s coming. We’re only just building it. We have no idea what it’s going to achieve. I can’t think of anyone whose job couldn’t be done better by AI in 10 years’ time, maybe five.”

He added that “With some of the AI, half the artists want to play with it and half want to shut it down. But I think you do better if you work with a powerful new tool than just grumble or pretend it doesn’t exist.”