Production has always been a fantasy of mine, and I got really lucky and had a sister who put a lot of faith and trust in me, and was very collaborative, and was willing to let me produce her entire album.
Finneas
All my favorite songs ever are love songs. Probably topped by 'The Luckiest' by Ben Folds.
There's always a better word than a swear word.
If you're paying attention and you've been a good listener, you learn every day.
So, I'll walk around with - just an iPhone will work - but sometimes I'll bring, like, a little mobile recorder and I'll just, like, if hear an interesting sound, I'll just record it. And then later, I'll listen through them and I'll go like, 'I wonder how can I use that?'
I'm a bad guitar tuner. I have to pay somebody to tune my guitars.
I'm a big believer in the benefit of a home studio. You're sitting there and maybe you don't know the next line. So you go outside for a second, maybe. Make a sandwich. Play with the dog. Or watch an episode of 'The Office,' whatever. And then it clicks, you run back into the room, and you've got it. It's not like your creativity is on the clock.
Being able to hear an artist and emulate them has been a huge part of being successful as a producer and co-writer. I think it's a problem when a producer comes in to work with an artist, and you can't hear the artist as well anymore. It's very important to me to be invisible.
I have always loved Ben Folds, he's like an idol of mine, a hero of mine.
I really value just being able to go out and grab a coffee or going to a movie and not have anyone recognize me.
To me, my favorite joke on a stand-up special is when someone says something and you go, 'Oh my God, I've been thinking that my whole life, I've just never said it to anyone else.' Those little kinda quiet, personal observations you make that nobody else has talked about yet.
You go to a truck stop and there are key chains with names on them, and there's no Finneas. There's no Billie. They're little things, but as a kid, you just feel weirdly ostracized.
I'm not very interested in fame or notoriety at all - in fact, I'd be pretty bummed out if I woke up one day and I was, like, super, super famous. But the flipside of that is that I'm really passionate about my music, I'm really proud of it and I want it to be heard by as many people as possible, and I'm willing to embrace whatever comes with that.
I try not to shy away from specificity.
I think the whole response to our art being so positive is that it rings true and it feels a unique thing and I feel that was the thing that we strive for in the beginning was to not conform to any preconceived notions of what we should be doing.
As soon as you make anything that people like, you get all these new artists hitting you up like 'I want to sound just like Billie Eilish.' And I'm always like, 'Absolutely not.'
The way that we tried to approach every piece of music is, if the song had a brain, it would be aware of its catalog.
If you can use songs as a tool, vehicle for empathy and a deeper understanding of how people are feeling and how people's emotions work, there's a lot of good that can come from that.
My dreams as a kid were so far below the Grammys, like, maybe selling out a show, or, like, seeing your album on a shelf in an Urban Outfitters... and the Grammys are so far above that. It's very ridiculous.
Definitely for me and my sister, wherever we are the most comfortable is where the best music's going to be made.
I was on a TV show called 'Glee.' I mean, I was on the real tail end of that show; it was already way past its peak. But still, for me aged 17 landing something like that was a big deal.
If you need to record live instruments, especially drums, it's still best to do it in a studio.
My feeling is that everybody starts out as an emulator. You follow their approach and that's how learning works. The pivot is that I don't think you're going to break new ground unless you do something different.
A lot of the time, in pop music especially, there's reverb. And the reason is that reverb makes vocals sound better 99% of the time. It makes the notes ring out.
I mainly try to foster long-term collaborative relationships.
I don't think if you set out to make an album to get a bunch of Grammy nominations... you just have to set out to make an album you'll really love.
I had a very positive, wonderful, happy upbringing, and still, for several reasons, I really didn't enjoy being a child very much. I felt that I had no control over my life and everything seemed scarier and larger than life.
I am not a very superstitious person, but I do believe in mental preparation.
I find that when I'm in an argument and I'm angry, I can't even form a sentence well. You say something and then later you're like 'That's not even what I meant at all!'
When we are making a song for Billie I want it to resonate and speak the truth with her and want it to be a piece of fabric she can wear.
I think it's really easy to be the altruistic hero of your own narrative and story.
I'm not a control freak in that like I boss everybody around, but like a control freak and like, I like knowing exactly what I get to do that day and having a say.
I feel like you're able to be your most creative in private environments, and not a studio where an A&R person is coming in, telling us a song isn't a smash.
We wrote and recorded the 'Bond' song on a tour bus in Texas.
Imagine if somebody was like, 'Who's the next Timothee Chalamet?' It's like, he's currently Timothee Chalamet.
In my perfect world, I get to be a professional musician and still go to Trader Joe's.
I don't particularly like recording studios, they tend to be lifeless and without any natural light, so I wanted to record wherever we lived. We just don't want to be bound to a studio to who we'd have to pay untold sums to.
You know, I grew up very self-taught.
I remember, one time, my dad took me and Billie to a fair. I was probably 7 years old, Billie must have been 3, and she put footie pyjamas on and then put a second pair of underwear on over the pyjamas. I remember being like, 'What is Billie wearing?!' and my dad was like, 'She's happy with it. Let's go!'
The excuse of having a dog is great, because before I had a dog, I wouldn't be like, 'I need to go hike for two hours'; my girlfriend would have been like, 'What are you doing?' Now I take the dog, and she comes with me.
Usually, I get bored of my stuff almost immediately.
Billie doesn't actually like recording sessions at all. We like making music together. She doesn't like going to some big studio and having them pretend to be a therapist for a couple hours. So by default, we always make the good stuff together.
People don't come to see a Billie Eilish show to come to see me. They come to see her. So I just try not to screw up too much on my instruments.
I came to NAMM once and saw this guitar that self-tuned, and I thought, 'Wow, this is the future!' And I've never seen it again.
When I started, I felt that there was this incredible amount of doubt of my ability as a producer.
I stopped telling people what lyrics meant to them when I saw them tattoo it on them, because it clearly meant much more to them than it ever did to me.
The amount of times I've been told something by artists I'm working with, which I'm sure they haven't told even their significant other or families, is shocking.
When I wrote 'When the Party's Over,' it had a universal quality.
What I really didn't want to do is work with other people and have them go, 'Oh, Finneas just does that sound for everybody.' The Billie sound is only Billie - I'll only do that for her.
Kids have tools to do what I'm doing.
