Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney are denying “terrible rumours” that they used artificial intelligence (AI) to replicate John Lennon’s voice for their recently released Beatles song Now and Then.
In a recent interview with AARP magazine, the drummer for The Beatles discussed his life before, during, and after the band’s legendary tenure, as well as his reunion with McCartney to work on an unfinished song.
While Starr, McCartney, and the late George Harrison collaborated to release additional Lennon demos in the 1990s, they decided not to finish Now and Then due to the difficulty in isolating Lennon’s vocals from the instrumentals.
McCartney, Starr, and Giles Martin collaborated to produce fresh drum, guitar, and string arrangements, and an artificial intelligence system recovered John Lennon’s voice from a subpar cassette recording.
“When we came to make what will be the last Beatles’ record, it was a demo that John had [and] we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI,” McCartney told BBC 4 Radio in June. “Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway.”
Starr is now frustrated because people don’t seem to understand how AI was used in the song’s production. Starr took on rumours that they utilised artificial intelligence (AI) to create John Lennon’s voice after recalling how, last year, McCartney had called asking to work on Now and Then — “a great track of John singing and playing piano and George playing rhythm guitar” — and provided it to him.
“There were terrible rumours that it’s not John, it’s AI, whatever bullshit people said,” Starr told AARP. “Paul and I would not have done that. It’s a beautiful song and a nice way to finally close that door.”
