Nashville songwriter Chris Gray built AI singer Vance Drake to sing his songs, and labels every release as AI

Chris Gray has had one song for 20 years that he’d love Carrie Underwood to hear. If nobody cuts it before November, an AI singer he built called Vance Drake will.

Gray is a Nashville songwriter whose song “Braid My Hair” was recorded by Alabama’s Randy Owen. He told WTVF NewsChannel 5 on September 24, 2026 that Vance Drake will release one of his songs every month, and that every release will say the singer is AI.

Who is Vance Drake, Chris Gray’s AI singer?

Gray is clear about what Vance Drake does. “Vance Drake is my AI singer, and he sings my songs,” Gray said. “He’s not a real person, but I created him.”

The split is simple. Gray writes the songs, drawing on a catalogue built over decades in Nashville. The AI sings them and handles the production. It’s the same division of labour behind Xania Monet, whose lyrics come from a human writer. “He’s a singer. He sings my songs. He doesn’t write,” Gray said.

The reason is money, and he says so. “I would spend a lot of money being able to get this mix,” he told NewsChannel 5. “So it kind of levels the playing field with major record labels who have a much bigger budget than I do.”

Why Chris Gray labels Vance Drake as AI when other AI singers don’t

Gray’s rule is that the listener should always know. He also named the people who don’t follow it.

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There are some AI singers out there that have lots and lots of streams. They're on social media, but the people behind it aren't disclosing that they're AI, and they're fooling some people.

He isn’t guessing. River Cain’s AI country run came with fake America’s Got Talent footage, and Luke Bryan said writers cloned his voice on a demo. Platforms are starting to force the question anyway, with Spotify’s AI Persona badge for AI artists.

The same NewsChannel 5 piece caught Paul Williams, the songwriter and former ASCAP president, at the Nashville Songwriter Awards: “If you’re going to copyright a song, it has to be created by a human.” Gray’s setup keeps exactly that part human. The lyric and the song are his, and only the vocal and the production are generated.