Music FAQ: This Long Broken Road

No. Every lyric, melody, and composition was written by Brian Kittrell. The songs come from lived experience and decades of creative work. Dawson and Sadie are AI-driven voice personas shaped by Brian’s unpublished human performances, which serve as the blueprint to carry the emotional intent in ways technology alone cannot. Technology plays a role in performance, but the songwriting — the heart and soul of the music — is entirely human.

Both Dawson and Sadie can be thought of as modern instruments for carrying Brian’s songs into the world. Each of them is based on the same set of unpublished recordings Brian created — the human blueprints of the songs. From those originals, Dawson and Sadie interpret the same material in two distinct ways, each guided by the same source but expressed with a different voice.

Neither one writes the music — the lyrics, melodies, and intent all come from Brian. Their role is interpretation: letting the same truth be heard in two distinct ways. Just as a guitar and violin can play the same piece and make it feel entirely different, Dawson and Sadie reveal new textures and perspectives from the same foundation. The goal isn’t to deceive, but to expand what’s possible — showing how songs can live, breathe, and transform through multiple voices.

That can certainly happen — but that isn’t what this project is about. This Long Broken Road isn’t a random collection of tracks generated to chase streams or algorithms. Brian’s lyrics and melodies serve as the blueprint, and each song was written with intention, drawn from real experience.

The AI-driven voices here aren’t about mass production — they’re about exploration. By giving the same songs two perspectives, we show how stories can live more than one life. Both Dawson’s and Sadie’s performances are guided by Brian’s original recordings and compositions, not one-click outputs. The technology simply allowed us to focus on the songs themselves by hearing them from multiple angles — something that would have been impossible for an independent songwriter in the past.

It depends on how it’s used. These songs carry their soul from Brian’s writing and intent — from real experiences of heartbreak, endurance, and redemption. Neither Dawson nor Sadie invent melodies or lyrics; they reinterpret what’s already there. It’s like hearing two different singers cover the same song: the heart doesn’t change, but the way it’s told can. In this case, AI isn’t the songwriter or the inventor — it’s simply one tool in the box that lets the music speak in another voice.

Because honesty matters. While Dawson and Sadie could have been presented as “real” singers, that would have been misleading. We wrestled with this choice during production, but decided that people deserve to know the truth: Dawson and Sadie are AI-driven voice personas — modern instruments shaped by human performance and songwriting. The authenticity lies in the songs themselves, and in being transparent about how they’re carried into the world.

It certainly would have been easier to portray them as real people, but cracks eventually form in false stories, inconsistencies surface, and the truth comes out. These songs are about raw truth, lived pain, and the hard realities of life. To present them dishonestly would undercut everything they stand for. We would risk invalidating the feelings and connections people find in the music by building them on a lie. And if you tell the truth, you only ever need to remember one version of the story.

While recording Reason Why and Let Go, it became clear those songs carried a kind of fragile strength that might shine differently in a gentler voice. Dawson’s delivery brought grit and weight, but we wondered how they might sound with tenderness and higher dynamics. That’s when Sadie was born — not to replace Dawson, but to reveal another side of the same story. Once we heard her interpretations, we knew the experiment had to continue across the whole album.

A big part of this project is artistic experimentation — exploring what happens when technology and music meet. But there’s also a practical side. Hiring professional vocalists to record two full albums would cost thousands of dollars in fees, travel, and studio time. For an independent songwriter, that simply isn’t realistic.

Using the AI-driven personas of Dawson and Sadie didn’t take an opportunity away from another singer — we couldn’t have afforded one either way. What they made possible was something that otherwise would never have existed: hearing these songs interpreted from both male and female perspectives, directly guided by Brian’s original recordings, while retaining creative control and avoiding prohibitive costs.

Most importantly, these songs — along with dozens of others not yet released — sat unused and unheard until modern tools made it possible for independent songwriters to bring them into reality. Without this technology, the blueprint recordings would have remained private, and This Long Broken Road would have remained unsung.

It’s not outside the realm of possibility that Brian’s original recordings may be shared one day, but there are no plans to release them at this time.

The foundation of every song is Brian’s writing — his lyrics, melodies, and unpublished recordings form the blueprint that guides both Dawson’s and Sadie’s performances. But the creative vision for This Long Broken Road was never about centering Brian’s own voice as the final medium. Instead, it was about letting the songs breathe through distinct personas that could carry different shades of meaning.

Dawson gives grit, weight, and the sound of the road well-traveled. Sadie brings warmth, tenderness, and a different kind of strength. Together they reveal more than Brian’s single voice ever could — showing how the same truths can live in multiple voices and resonate in different ways. The decision wasn’t to hide the songwriter, but to let the songs themselves take center stage.

Yes — Brian can sing. The choice not to release his own vocal tracks wasn’t about ability, but about intention. These songs are deeply personal, and in some cases painful. Releasing his own raw performances would have changed how he, and others, experienced them. Instead of being immersed in the story, he would always be hearing his own voice, reliving the wounds behind the words.

By shaping the songs through Dawson and Sadie, Brian is able to step back and experience the music as a listener, too — to feel the emotion and meaning without the distraction of his own reflection in the sound. It may sound unusual, but it allows the songs to stand apart from the songwriter, carrying their truths in voices that let the stories breathe freely.

It is unusual — and that’s the point. This Long Broken Road is about the stories we carry, and sometimes those stories sound different depending on who tells them. Releasing both versions invites listeners to choose the voice that resonates most, or to walk both roads and discover the contrasts. It’s an experiment, but one rooted in the spirit of the songs themselves.

That music is alive. A lyric, a melody, a chord — they aren’t frozen on a page, they breathe differently depending on who sings them. Dawson gives one kind of power; Sadie gives another. If listeners walk away feeling they’ve heard the same truth told in two voices, then the project has done its job.

Not at all. Dawson and Sadie are AI-driven voice personas — modern instruments shaped by Brian’s songwriting and blueprint recordings. They exist alongside the songwriter’s voice, spirit, and soul, not in place of them.

For the first time in history, songwriters can hear their songs realized in multiple voices without massive costs. This speeds up creative discovery and lets ideas be tested, refined, and expanded. What once required session singers and large budgets can now be explored freely — and that freedom can lead to better, more honest music in the long run. Dawson and Sadie aren’t here to replace singers. They’re here to show what’s possible when songs are allowed to breathe in more than one voice.