Darling’s last stage performance was over two years ago. By that point, he had already lost the ability to stand and play his instruments and was struggling to sing or speak. But recently, he was able to re-create his lost voice using an AI tool trained on snippets of old audio recordings. Another AI tool has enabled him to use this “voice clone” to compose new songs. Darling is able to make music again.
“Sadly, I have lost the ability to sing and play my instruments,” Darling said on stage at the event, which took place in London on Wednesday, using his voice clone. “Despite this, most of my time these days is spent still continuing to compose and produce my music. Doing so feels more important than ever to me now.”
Losing a voice
Darling says he’s been a musician and a composer since he was around 14 years old. “I learned to play bass guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, melodica, mandolin, and tenor banjo,” he said at the event. “My biggest love, though, was singing.”
He met bandmate Nick Cocking over 10 years ago, while he was still a university student, says Cocking. Darling joined Cocking’s Irish folk outfit, the Ceili House Band, shortly afterwards, and their first gig together was in April 2014. Darling, who joined the band as a singer and guitarist, “elevated the musicianship of the band,” says Cocking.
COURTESY OF NICK COCKING
But a few years ago, Cocking and his other bandmates started noticing changes in Darling. He became clumsy, says Cocking. He recalls one night when the band had to walk across the city of Cardiff in the rain: “He just kept slipping and falling, tripping on paving slabs and things like that.”
He didn’t think too much of it at the time, but Darling’s symptoms continued to worsen. The disease affected his legs first, and in August 2023, he started needing to sit during performances. Then he started to lose the use of his hands. “Eventually he couldn’t play the guitar or the banjo anymore,” says Cocking.
By April 2024, Darling was struggling to talk and breathe at the same time, says Cocking. For that performance, the band carried Darling on stage. “He called me the day after and said he couldn’t do it anymore,” Cocking says, his voice breaking. “By June 2024, it was done.” It was the last time the band played together.
Re-creating a voice
Darling was put in touch with a speech therapist, who raised the possibility of “banking” his voice. People who are losing the ability to speak can opt to record themselves speaking and use those recordings to create speech sounds that can then be activated with typed text, whether by hand or perhaps using a device controlled by eye movements.