Rolling Stone members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have discussed AI in music in a new interview.
Speaking with Billboard, both Jagger and bandmate Keith Richards said they believed people should only use AI if they also put their own thought into it, deeming anything else to be lazy.
“Obviously I don’t want to be imitated by AI, vocally and instrumentally, and the band doesn’t,” Jagger told the publication. “I don’t want people just putting stuff out there that can sound exactly like the Rolling Stones — I think that’s obviously wrong.
“If someone wants to make music by AI, go ahead. But it has to be original — you have to have your own input and your own thoughts. There are people who use AI to just make a song from scratch, in the style of the Rolling Stones. If you were any kind of creative person, you wouldn’t do that.”
Richards said: “I’d rather hear something original. Music could do a lot better than just trying to copy itself. After all, it’s pretty simple stuff — this is not Beethoven or Bach, and I’ve no doubt AI can do that, but so what?
“We want new input. We don’t want more and more copying and synthesizing. … Surely there’s enough originality without having to copy nursery rhymes.”
The pair also discussed their recent music video for “In the Stars”, a track from their recent Foreign Tongues album, which utilised deepfake technology. The music video sees actors playing the band members’ instruments but their faces look like those of the band half a century ago.
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“The musicians are real musicians that look a bit like the Rolling Stones in 1968,” Jagger told Billboard. “The only thing was the faces. So they worked on mine first, and it kind of looked like me, but not really — like one of my children when they were 23 or something. And then I saw Ronnie [Wood], and I said to the people working on it, ‘It looks more like Jeff Beck.’ So they had to do a bit extra work.”
“I said, ‘Very nice. I wish I looked like that now,’” Richards added.
Elsewhere in the interview, Jagger discussed Olivia Rodrigo’s rock music.
“She’s really good at [rock music],” Jagger insisted. “Everyone thought she was a different kind of singer, but there’s quite a few female singers that have made that transition. It’s not a permanent transition necessarily, but the ability to change styles from what you think their original girly pop stuff is — it’s kind of interesting.”
