Yoko Ono pushed Harmonix to change John Lennon’s depiction in Beatles game

Pcgamer reports Harmonix developers recalled "sweating bullets" when showing The Beatles: Rock Band to members of the band and to Yoko Ono, who criticised the early modelling of John Lennon and insisted it be changed.

The recollections come from interviews collected for The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom by Blake Hester, with an excerpt published on Design Room. Harmonix co-founder Eran Egozy said the team had to reassure Paul McCartney about how player performance would affect Beatles music, and several devs described Yoko Ono visiting the studio, viewing early John models, and challenging the portrayal as inaccurate.

Designer Randall and CEO Alex Rigopulos said Ono held the team to a high standard. Randall recalled the initial model looked like a "mopey shoe-gazer" and that, after watching Shea Stadium footage showing Lennon as a "balls out rock and roll god not giving a fuck," animators adjusted his posture until Ono approved. The interviews also note the team’s access to the band’s multitrack masters and archival audio, which developers described as valuable for capturing the musicians’ performances.

Key Topics

Culture, Harmonix, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Paul Mccartney, Beatles Rock Band