VoyageHouston Magazine Interviews Cyborg40

Our first interview featuring Phil and his life and our story.

NEWS

5/20/20266 min read

Phil was interviewed by VoyageHouston for their portraits section showcasing local artist, entrepreneurs, and self driven people.

Article

Today we’d like to introduce you to Phil B.

Hi Phil, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Hello, My name is Phil B. To make a long story short I am a average guy. I have spent my life working for corporations and fighting to survive in the world we live in. I had been a truck driver after a retail career for several years and I currently work in the propane industry. Last year I decided to start a YouTube channel called philshouse40 where I record myself working on motorcycles. To help boost my views I started doing 10 second AI generated short videos on YouTube and then I also started a Tiktok account doing the same. Despite a lot of hard work I stayed small and never broke out.

One thing I noticed when doing YouTube videos was the selection of background royalty free music was poor and nothing out there fit what I wanted for my videos. I did some digging and heard about a app called Suno which lets you use generative AI to make music. I was familiar with doing AI video and the process is kind of similar but I didn’t want the program to write the lyrics for me, I wanted that part to be personal and to come from me.

At the age of 40 I wrote my first song lyrics ever for the song Motorcycle Mania, put them into Suno and asked for a rock song. What I got in return was shocking, amazing, and changed me. I listened to a fully crafted song with my lyrics and it sounded good. I then figured out that not only could it create A song but I could craft the sound of that song to fit the idea I had in my head as far as what I wanted. This is not my first experience with music though, I am a self taught guitar player and have experience with piano when I was a kid. Besides that I have a unique taste in music that has developed during my life that is mostly Metal based music but also pop, hip hop, and country. I am able to pick apart song construction by listening to a song and I can replicate what I hear. This has given me the skillet to create very unique songs from various corners of the music world.

I wrote and self published my first album in December 2025 called The Sound Of Madness which had a alternative metal side A and Metal/Sythwave side B consisting of 22 songs.

Before releasing my album I started building my social media presence by establishing band pages on X, Facebook, YouTube, Tiktok, Snapchat, and Instagram.

I quickly found out that there is a lot of fear, hatred, and misunderstanding about what I do and my intentions with music.
Many people assume that AI generated music is simply a program that takes “smells like teen spirit” for example and chops the song up into pieces and mixes it with say “black hole sun” to make a song meaning that it uses copied sound bytes from existing artist. The reality is generative AI was trained using existing music to understand song structure and then catalog all of the sounds, styles, techniques, and genres into something that can be called upon by the user to direct a songs final structure. The issue is it learned these things from human artist, at the same time though human artist have learned from human artist for hundreds of years so is there really a difference?

I use generative AI as a tool to take the ideas existing in my head and bring them to life, the amazing thing is the additional details the AI adds to a song that just gives it that very polished and complex sound that is very difficult for a natural musician to achieve. I am able to pivot genres on a whim, I can use almost any instrument from around the world in my songs and I am not limited in any way by the constraints of a real band. Beyond that I am self published and have 100% ownership of my brand and my music.

In my branding and sound I have chosen to use a female lead singer which I have named Nyx and she was used as the entire face of the project initially. I have listened to metal for a long time and I am kind of burnt out of the male lead singers that are around and had developed a love for recent up and coming bands like Spiritbox and Jinjer. And so that is the sound and image that I chose for Cyborg40. I decided Cyborg was a fitting name for a human that is augmented by a computer to do super human things and 40 is just my favorite number. Over time I wanted more variety in my videos that I was putting out and added two additional members Ashley and Sophia. I then started working my own likeness into the band as people were getting tired of seeing AI generated videos and wanted to see more of a real touch. I then started doing real videos of myself and started hosting TikTok live events.

In the AI generated music community I have encouraged unity, collaboration, and structure for my fellow “artist”. I also have a .com where I do full album reviews, news, and other content to help everyone in my community. I feel that the music world is against us and would like to see a fast extinction of us but it is too late for that. These tools are the future of music and we are the early adopters. Most creators are self published, self backed, and don’t really make any money. We are also mostly between the age of 40-60 and work normal jobs and have normal lives but we still take those few moments we have to try to put together this dream we all share. There is no corporate backing or sneaky tactics at play, we are just normal people reaching for a dream.

I currently am also a talent scout for cyberxradio.com out of Corpus Christi and am helping to get my fellow artist played on a real radio station and given a well deserved spotlight on their hard work and dedication.
I have also published two story albums and another full length album plus several singles with another full length on the way as since I started writing lyrics I have not been able to stop. I am always writing and creating in every spare moment I have.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It is a daily grind with little reward. No matter what you do on social media the population is dense and almost impossible to go viral. Social media has become a pay to play game where the algorithm only opens up if you pay for ad space. I do not have a ton of money and so I focus on a very slow climb of natural growth and just grind away at content. TikTok is my biggest platform where I almost have 2,000 followers but most videos and post only get 200 views. My music depends on listeners but with small exposure its a hard and slow increase in listeners. I will not quit though, I work at it daily and have met amazing people in the process.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My music is best described as alternative or avante garde metal. I have taste from all over that I incorporate into my songs.
You may listen to symphonic metal on one song, and then switch up to deathcore, grindcore, thrash, and then go to gothic and wind up at Arabic fusion. I am a firm believer in variety and I get bored of bands that have every song be the same with different lyrics. Another big inspiration for my style is Igorrr who also touches uncharted and unique territory.

What’s next?
The future is full of growth and building. I seek to scream at the world until it hears me. Once I get its attention I am bringing everyone I met along the way out of the obscurity and into the light. I seek to be among the first group of artist to emerge from this new world of music and become a success where people seek my failure. My unstoppable resolve will pay off one day and that’s the future I look forward to.

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Article from VoyageHouston 5/18/2026

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