Paul McCartney says AI was used to extract John Lennon's voice from old demo to create ‘last Beatles record’

Paul McCartney said on Tuesday Artificial intelligence (AI) has been used to extract John Lennon's voice from an old demo to create “the last Beatles record”.

The technology was used to separate the Beatles' voices from background sounds during the making of director Peter Jackson's 2021 documentary series, “The Beatles: Get Back”, McCartney told the BBC radio.

The new song is set to be released later this year, he added.

Jackson was “able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette and a piano,” McCartney, 80, said. “He could separate them with AI, he’d tell the machine ‘That’s a voice, this is a guitar, lose the guitar’.”

“So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had that we worked on,” the singer and songwriter said. “We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI so then we could mix the record as you would do. It gives you some sort of leeway.”

McCartney described AI technology as “kind of scary but exciting," adding: “We will just have to see where that leads.” McCartney is set to open an exhibition later this month at the National Portrait Gallery in London featuring previously unseen photographs that he took during the early days of the Beatles at the start of “Beatlemania,” when the band rose to worldwide fame.

The exhibition, titled “Eyes of the Storm”, will showcase more than 250 photos McCartney took on his camera between 1963 and 1964 — including portraits of Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Lennon, as well as Beatles manager Brian Epstein.

(With inputs from AP)