Finneas Works Even Without Billie Eilish: What About Billie?

While recording together with the sister Billie Eilish the latter’s new album, “Hit me hard and soft”, Finneas worked on his own on the songs for the soundtrack of “Disclaimer”, the new Apple series directed by the already Oscar-winning Alfonso Cuarón with Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline and Sacha Baron Cohen (which will arrive on the streaming platform on Friday 11 October).

It’s not the first time Finneas has tried his hand at composing a soundtrack: in 2022 he signed the soundtrack for “The fallout”, the film by Megan Park starring Jenna Ortega (presented with great success at the South by Southwest Film Festival, one of the most anticipated events by overseas film enthusiasts), and in the same year he composed the music for “Vengeance”, the film by BJ Novak with Dove Cameron, the girlfriend of Damiano David of Maneskin. Many perceive Finneas O’Connell, this is the real name of the 27-year-old musician from Los Angeles, ready to send his new solo album “For cryin’ out loud!” to stores, as .a sort of male “alter ego” of her sister Billie Eilishthe pop star who changed the face of global pop music, opening the doors of her bedroom to millions of fans with hits like “Bad guy” and “Happier than ever”. But over the years Finneas, who created Billie’s sound, between indie, alt-pop and electronic (the fairytale began with a song he wrote in 2015 for his band, the Slightlys, and which he then gave to his prodigy little sister, sensing her potential), she has proven to be much more than her sister’s alter ego.

In pop his touch has become highly sought afteras confirmed by the list of artists who asked him to give them some spark in their respective albums: from From Tate McRae to Selena Gomez, from Camila Cabello to Tove Lo, from Halsey to Demi Lovato, passing through Justin Bieber and even Nicki Minaj. It is true that he has often been asked to faithfully replicate Billie Eilish’s sound, but in the meantime he has built a career of his own, detaching himself from his sister. Billie, on the other hand, has always seemed reluctant to collaborate with other producers, as if the absence of Finneas at her side made her feel somehow incomplete..

Finneas is now breaking away again and he is doing it to release his second solo album after “Optimist”. “For cryin’ out loud!” will be released on October 4th, three years after his debut, which divided critics: on one side, those like the New Musical Express, who celebrated Finneas’ consecration, capable of earning a reputation as a formidable talent in his own right; on the other, those like the Guardian, who branded the album as “forgettable”. Maybe, but that cover of “The fool on the hill” by The Beatlesbetween Radiohead and Billie herself, recorded at Abbey Road, remains something interesting. “I wish my records didn’t sound like Billie’s, that people would listen to my album without thinking, ‘Oh, that reminds me of her.’”, he repeats, like a mantra.

“Optimist” was made by himself during the pandemic months. This time, however, Finneas wanted to involve other musicians in the sessions. “The last record I made completely alone in a room. It was satisfying, because I kept working on it until it sounded exactly how I wanted it to. But it was alienating. So on this record I tried to be hyper-collaborative. Luckily, most of my friends are producers.”, he told Rolling Stone USA. He worked on the songs together with hitmakers such as Aaron Forbesalready behind some hits by Billie Eilish herself, One Direction, Olivia Rodrigo and Halsey, and Miles Morris of the Los Angeles indie rock band Bad Suns.

The ten-time Grammy Award winner – the list also includes the one for “Producer of the Year” won in 2020, in the wake of the extraordinary success of Billie Eilish’s debut album, “When we all fall alseep, where do we go?”, when the sound universe of two brothers conquered the entire world – explains about his relationship with his sister: “I see her only as a person. I have never had any kind of relationship in terms of work.”. Yet he stresses that whenever Billie asks him to help her, he won’t back down: “I really want to always be at your service I think that in order for us to not work together anymore, a situation should be created where she wants to do something that I support, but that I am not able to do at that moment.

I don’t know, maybe she wants to make a record but I’ve become a father and I feel I have to be a present parent. But it’s something very far away, these days”.