When Billie Eilish was rising to global fame, she was known as a solo performer, the next it pop superstar. Little did most of her fans know, however, that she had an ace up her sleeve: her brother and producer FINNEAS.
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Today, the Oscar and Grammy Award-winning artist has made a name for himself. He is a known quantity, someone who releases solo music and still works closely with his sister.
But with all that talent, one might wonder what exactly the 25-year-old Los Angeles-born FINNEAS (real name Finneas O’Connell) has to say about the world around him. About life and love, his craft, talent, and more?
Without further ado, here are the 30 best FINNEAS quotes.
1. “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.”
2. “Well, I mean there are so many producers that inspire me. I used to try to imitate production by certain people. And now I’m only interested in doing the opposite of that. I’m only interested in doing production that like no one’s ever done before.”
3. “I idolize my kid sister, so I get it. I understand why other people do too.”
4. “I really value just being able to go out and grab a coffee or going to a movie and not have anyone recognize me.”
5. “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.”
6. “All the albums that I grew up listening to were produced by one person.”
7. “We wrote and recorded the ‘Bond’ song on a tour bus in Texas.”
8. “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?'”
9. “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!'”
10. “Even though we’re all together making songs and I produce them, it’s so her vision. Especially when we walk out on stage every night. It’s so meticulously thought through by Billie and I admire that endlessly in her.”
11. “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.”
12. “I’m not an author, but as a songwriter, I’m afforded this kind of luxurious ambiguity in songs of being able to confess the secrets of my relationships with people and face basically no consequences, or ask for no approval or permission.”
13. “I felt really lucky in that I’ve gotten to know some of my favorite artists; I get to tell them how important they are to me. But that doesn’t always make me want to work with people. I feel like if I’m going to work with somebody, it’s because I feel like I actually have something to add to them.”
14. “You know, that’s kind of always been our philosophy: not letting the place that we are get in the way of making great music.
15. “To me, as a producer, I always want something to set stuff apart.”
16. “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.”
17. “I usually don’t like to annoy people in asking to work with them.”
18. “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.”
19. “I feel like a lot of music producers have, like, the same toolbox. And I think, like, to me, as a producer, like, I want something to set my stuff apart.”
20. “I just have no interest in being at a party.”
21. “I think in modern communication studies, we put a lot of emphasis on our relationships and our family relationships. Our relationships with our parents, and our siblings. I felt that there was this gap in content about communication with people who are super close to you in your peer group.”
22. “If you’re paying attention and you’ve been a good listener, you learn every day.”
23. “If I have experienced something in my life, it’s probably going to be written about, and I don’t particularly care if the person I’m writing about wants to be written about.”
24. “If you’re thinking about all the possibilities of your life, there are extreme negatives, which you hope don’t happen, and extreme positives, which you just aren’t willing to think about because you think you’ll jinx it.”
25. “I try not to shy away from specificity.”
26. “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.”
27. “I mainly try to foster long-term collaborative relationships.”
28. “I don’t analyze songs because I think it will make me a better songwriter, I just do it out of sheer curiosity.”
29. “If I’m making a song with Billie, then it’s for Billie… She has to want to wear that song every day. And I think I try to do the same thing when I’m making a song for myself… I try to treat them both that way, like I’m sort of A&R-ing her and then A&R-ing myself.”
30. “Love has always been the most important thing to me and the thing by which my life is guided.”
Photo by Luke Fenstemaker / High Rise PR
