When Billie Eilish first hit the music scene as a teenager, she captivated audiences with her soft, whispery voice. Her 2019 debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, which was produced by her brother, Finneas O'Connell, won Grammys for best record, album, song and new artist.
Billie assumed that would be the voice she'd sing with for years to come: "I thought it was going to be soft, and my range wasn't going to be very big, and I wasn't ever going to be able to belt, and I wasn't ever going to be able to have much of a chest mix in my voice," she says.
Then, two years ago, Billie began working with a music teacher, which she hadn't done since she was a kid in the choir.
"It has honestly changed my life," she says of the lessons. "My voice has just gotten 10 times better in the last two years. ... I didn't really know before I started working with a teacher again that you can always get better and you can train."
Billie and Finneas have been writing songs and recording together since she was 13, and he was 18. At the time, both were being homeschooled, and songwriting was part of the curriculum.
"Our mom had us go home and watch something on TV or read something and just write down any interesting words that we see, or an interesting sentence and then … try to make a song out of what [we] wrote," Billie says.
For Finneas, making music with his younger sister meant he always had a "guinea pig" available: "I was an amateur producer trying my best to record anyone. Billie, as a 13 year old who'd basically never sung into a microphone at all, obliged. And it was kind of a good match," he says.
Finneas produces his own music, and he also produced and co-wrote the songs on Billie's latest album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, which is up for six Grammys. Nearly a decade into their collaboration, with seven top-10 hits, several Grammys and two Oscars, Billie and Finneas are still partners, finding new ways of pushing and supporting each other.
Interview highlights
On writing music for his teen sister instead of for his band
Finneas: Billie and I've always gotten along great. I'm sure being homeschooled impacted that because we had a relationship that might have been more three dimensional than if we were in separate grades and saw each other a little bit on the weekend. … We spent a lot of time together having nuanced conversations. That's part number one in terms of wanting to spend time with her.
Number two is she had a really beautiful voice. And so I think even in addition to liking her as a presence in my life, I saw her talent and respected her talent.
On finding comfort in her teenage fanbase because of how isolating fame was as a teen
Billie: When I became famous-ish at 14, it was not a good time in terms of keeping friendships. I think when you're 14, that's kind of an age where friendships are already kind of rocky. And also all my friends did go to school, so they were all going to high school and your relationships are kind of already rocky right then. And suddenly I had no way of relating to anyone. And I kind of lost all my friends. I maintained a couple, but those were really challenging to keep even still. And so for those few years of becoming this enormous superstar, I was kind of feeling like, "Wait, what the hell is the point? I don't have any friends and I'm losing all the things that I love so deeply and all the people that I love." And so, in a way, the fans kind of saved me, because they were my age and I felt like they were the only kind of friends I had for a while.
On having a teen audience as Billie's older brother
Finneas: I'm four years older, so I would say that I didn't have much of a kind of a feeling one way or the other about the age or gender of the predominant audience. I had a real sense of gratitude for their enthusiasm. And the audience that was coming to the shows that Billie was playing couldn't have been more engaged and enthusiastic.
On modeling her stage presence more after male performers
Billie: I think a lot of women go through the feeling of just envying men in ... one way or the other. And for me, I would watch videos of different male performers on stage and just feel this, like, deep sadness in my body that I'll never be able to take my shirt off on stage and run around and like, not try very hard and just jump around on stage and that's enough and have enough energy from just myself with no backup dancers and no huge stage production and the crowd will still love me. And only a man can do that.
And because of that, I think more than almost anything else in my career, I was very, very, very determined to kind of prove that thought wrong — and I really did. I really feel like I did. I didn't like the kind of pop-girl leotard, backup dancers, hair done thing. I didn't like that, for me. I liked it for other people, but that didn't resonate with me. I never saw myself in those people. And honestly, I never saw myself in any women that I saw on stage, but I did see myself in the men that I saw on stage, and I thought that was unfair. And so I did everything that I could to kind of try to break that within myself and the industry. And I'm not saying I'm the only person that's ever done that at all. But for me, that was really important.
On her baggy clothes being inspired by men in hip-hop
Billie: I would watch [hip-hop] videos and instead of being jealous of the women who get to be around the hot men, I would be jealous of the hot men. And I wanted to be them and I wanted to dress like them and I wanted to be able to act like them. And to be fair, I had all sorts of women that I looked up to and artists that are the reason that I am who I am. ...
My favorite singers are all old jazz singers that I've always looked up to, and I'm always forcing people to watch videos of Ella Fitzgerald singing live and Julie London singing live. And Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson and all these people. We were watching these videos and every single one, of course, because of that period of time, they're all wearing dresses, they're all wearing tight, corseted, maybe, dresses with their hair done. But ... that's part of how things were then. And so thank God that those women came before me because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do anything.
On having family support
Finneas: I was making music with Billie in my bedroom and trying my best. And [Billie] was kind about it. She was like, "I like that." She liked the songs I was writing. She liked "Ocean Eyes," I think that I got so much positive reinforcement when I really needed it, you know?
When I find out people have had careers in the arts, when they were actively discouraged, and when you hear somebody say, "Man, my mom hated my voice," or something like that, I'm always kind of blown away because to me, I had enough self-doubt and enough imposter syndrome that that if anyone had said, "You're not very good," I would have been like, "Correct. I agree." Let me stop doing this now. And it really took people like Billie and people like my friend Frank to be like, "No, no, no, you're better than you think you are," to kind of give me the confidence that I needed.
On studying songwriting as a part of their homeschooling
Billie: Something that I think has always helped in songwriting, is giving yourself permission to write a bad song, because the more you do it, the better you get. … I think that sometimes you have this high expectation for yourself and you're like, "No, no, no, it has to be really good." But you can't just sit down and make something perfect immediately every time you have to try and fail. And that was something that was really hard for me. I'm not good at patience and I'm not good at not being good at something until I am. I want to be really good immediately. Something that helped me a lot is just allowing myself to not be amazing and just make something to make it and not worry if it's good.
On the validation that fans relate to her lyrics
Billie: My favorite is when we put a song out people are like, "How did she know I was feeling this? Where is she hiding in my room … to write this song that's exactly my life?" I think that's like one of the most magical parts about music. And I've had that as a fan, too. And Finneas has too. You hear a song and you're like, "Oh my God, this is exactly my situation. How could that be?" But it's just that it can be because we're just all suffering together — and it's nice to know that you're not alone in that.
Thea Chaloner and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Jacob Ganz adapted it for the web.
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