The Beatles drummer Ringo Starr is currently promoting his new album “Look Up”, which is a Country record, and in an interview with Music Week, he also talked about the final Beatles song “Now and Then”.
The track was released in 2023, and AI was used to enhance the clarity of John Lennon’s vocals and the guitar parts recorded by George Harrison in the 1990s. McCartney and Ringo completed the song with new recordings. Although artificial intelligence was used in a positive way, Ringo expressed concerns about its potential misuse. He mentioned that anyone with the knowledge of how to use AI could train it to create songs using his voice, for example.
Ringo Starr explains why he is worried about the use of AI in music
“I’d love to win a Grammy. That’s the business I’m in – and the track is good. The last track ever by the boys. We tried (to do this song) in the ’90s when we got (1995 single) ‘Free As A Bird’ out, but we didn’t take much interest because it didn’t sound like John, and George got a bit fed up. He didn’t want to do a third one and so we just put it to bed. But now they’ve got better equipment. They lifted John’s voice off a cassette, for God’s sake – off a cassette! And it was like John was suddenly in town.”
“He said, ‘You know that track we did? Well, I’ll put it together. Are you going to play drums on it?’ I said, ‘Sure, send the files over.’ That’s how we do it now – and I put the drums on and sang on the chorus.”
Ringo continued:
“He did a great job. He put the strings on and the lead guitar that gave the track its emotion. It worked out really great and let’s hope for a Grammy. We’ll see; a lot of people are up for Grammys.”
“We’re all a bit afraid of it (AI), because it can steal you. Anyone who knows how to use it can steal you. If they just play any five of my songs into the computer, AI gets all of it and knows my every vocal move. They can have me sing anything and it will sound like me, because it’s taken from my personality.”
“But the good side is the way we used it on ‘Now And Then’. God knows where it’s going to go. We’re all worrying about it, but nobody’s really stolen anything yet,” Ringo Starr said.