Extended interview: FINNEAS on scoring films, creative partnership with Billie Eilish and more

so you're sitting where these days Billy sits so we sit here you know co-piloting right the microphone that's over your shoulder we have a you know it's like a boom mic and she'll just swing it around when she's singing and we keep it out of the way yeah so I I'm fairly certain that was how we wrote Barbie was I was sitting at the piano and she was sitting here or maybe on the couch with the mic singing into it and feeling a little sort of elevated in terms of the kind of pseudo production of

that which was fun where did that melt come from the chords were just at my fingertips like playing a chord and then playing another chord and playing another chord MH and I've had a couple times in my professional life where I've gotten super lucky one of them was oceaniz oceaniz was like playing those chords and just literally at the same time being like I've been watching you for some can't stop staring at those like all at the same time improv like straight up improv and the Barbie thing was very similar it was at that piano

and Billy singing that I used to flow now I just fall down it's always interesting me where a Melody well where a Melody comes from I know I know James Bond on the other hand was this like math exercise of Melody of like in what sense partly that we were overthinking B Bond and we weren't overthinking Barbie I think and so that one was all like minor 9 chords this a minor 9 pretty pretty bondy right there yeah uh right exactly the lyrics in bond songs are often kind of strange yeah well the yes and

they have to be sort of obtuse I mean it's like you know in some ways is it a stretch to sing from the perspective of a doll turned human being sure is it stranger to sing from the perspective of Daniel Craig yes yeah like it's it's more outside I can put myself in the shoes of Barb of a Barbie yeah faster than I can put myself in the shoes of of James Bond let's talk about the song to start with I was aware of Barbie passively cuz I'm on the internet like 23 hours a day

and it was big from the minute they started production it was like big that Greta was writing it it was big that Margot was doing it it was big that Ryan was doing it MH and then there were all those set photos last year of of uh them on the beach in their fun outfits yeah and it was just really Buzzy from from before any promotional anything was just Buzzy we got word in a very sort of roundabout way that they were doing a soundt track that Mark was going to Executive produce a soundtrack you

know the soundtrack can mean anything in movie it doesn't always mean that the song is even going to be in the movie right there was kind of this hey would you be interested in doing a song for the Barbie movie so I got put in touch with Mark a little bit and then I sort of told Billy that that had happened and I said is this something you'd be interested in and she maybe was a little less clued into the whole making of it yeah as I was but is also a fan of Greta and

so she sort of acquiesced she was like yeah sure you know all all very speculative MH and then we got on a call with Greta and this is like I always quote Greta on saying this because I just thought it was brilliant um she sort of pitched us the movie and was like I'd love for you to see it like I wouldn't want you to try to write anything until you see it yeah and she uh she said what are you guys working on right now and we just were like just the just her new

album that's what we're doing and she said oh great when I'm in the middle of a big project that I have to work on I love to procrastinate so maybe this will be your way of procrastinating which was like completely how it went down yes um and such a smart thing to say yeah so we uh I think in January went to a studio went to probably Warner in LA and um was pouring rain I just remember it very vividly we were in this theater and she said I'm going to show you the first 40

minutes that's pretty assembled and then and we're still editing the movie it was January yeah uh and then I'm going to show you scenes that are important to me and important to me that you understand the context of so we saw the first 40 minutes and before each scene she would like come down to the front of the theater and give us like a presentation yeah it was so generous like the whole thing was generous it was we were very moved by the generosity of it and we loved the movie we thought it was so

good um and moving and funny and um I remember standing in the parking lot with Billy afterward under like the same umbrella and being like that was great and we both were really impressed and that's also rare uh I'm a tough audience Billy's like a tougher audience yeah um but we loved it and the next day sure enough we were in the studio in this room and we were working on some song that we were hitting a wall on yeah and we were 9 hours in and um as like a Hail Mary like my memory

is Billy like picking her keys up off the coffee table and um about to walk out the door and I said do you want to try to write a little Barbie start a Barbie idea yeah and I sat at the piano and she um sat holding a little handheld mic yeah and we wrote the whole song in like 45 minutes with a bad with a terrible bridge that we ended up um rewriting I like to clarify that it was not an entirely unedited thing we wrote a whole thing and we liked almost all of it

but there was a part that was like unlistenable it would be really upsetting if you wrote that whole thing with exactly I like to include that as like like one little blemish everything maybe needs editing yeah um did you know what part of the movie you were writing that song for we we knew what we were hoping for right we had been shown what at the time was the the scene that the song ends up in at the time was no song obviously and no Montage it was just her talking to Ruth yeah and Ruth

saying okay now feel and then Margot just acting her face off just standing there like having a realization of all of the universe and cry it was like an unbelievable take yeah um and so we wrote it with in insired by that and with that in mind as the kind of right Zenith of you know what we could get Dad Greta said to you I need a song for this she hadn't said I need a song for this she'd said I don't have Barbie's heart song but she hadn't said this scene it's so perfect for

that scene thank you um and then we turned it in early enough that Mark and Andrew Wyatt were still scoring the movie and so they interpolated The Melodies of the song we wrote in sort of throughout that plot line with the mother and the daughter and at the bus stop so by the time it gets to that scene you've heard those chords and a little bit of Billy humming like five times or four times when you wrote that in like less than an hour what were you thinking the movie was very fresh in our minds

yeah and the imagery in the movie sounds like a metaphor when you sing it and that was really cool the whole yeah like I used to float now I just fall down that's such a metaphor except that in the movie it's the thing that you're watching right so that was anytime you're writing with something like that as the reference dream come true cuz you get all this sort of yeah um leeway um but you know it was a funny period I think I think whenever you write an album the initial writing process is is really

having to think about how you feel and um what you want to say and what you have to say yeah um and what feels authentic and what doesn't feel authentic and writing a song for a movie is an incredibly liberating experience because you're looking at somebody and you're maybe identifying with it but you're yeah writing from their perspective and you know that character because we all know the character that we watch and empathize with it and you've been given a frame to work with it yeah exactly so um it's so liberating But the irony uh

and especially true for Billy in the case of this movie was that there were a lot of parallels it sort of was this allowance for her to say uh things that she felt yeah in a way that she'd never been able to articulate them before that she identified with yeah and from what I've heard her say she didn't quite realize that at first of course yeah I think she thought I'm writing a song about Barbie and then yeah like any song that you hear somebody else sing that you identify with I think she'd written the

song about Barbie and then was listening to the song we'd just written about Barbie in her car and thought I I feel feel this like I'm singing the song about Barbie but I feel this way creatively at that point you guys were actually kind of stuck we were yeah I like to sort of like muscle through whatever version of writer block something is like I'm a I I subscribe to the idea of like I'll just write a bad song and then I'll write another bad song and then the third song Maybe will be good yeah

um but I think Billy uh and she'd say this if she were here like the way that we write albums together there's very little on the Cutting Room floor um and so that means if you are stuck on something you're stuck on it right there's no sort of writing a bad song and throwing it in a pile um yeah and so that was happening and I think it wasn't so much that we were stuck it was that she was growing up and in a season of change and in a season of of um rediscovering herself

their music was reflecting this sort of uh metamorphosis period yeah as the year progressed she sort of found firmer footing of of who she felt like she was again and it you know the the faucet turned back on but there was a period where she I think she was in the dark enough about what she felt like she was as a person MH yeah and therefore what she should write about what she should say what she had to say what she would want to say what felt authentic what do you do when you're in that

place or do you understand that that moment will pass the day isn't fun but I am confident that the moment will pass you know what I mean the it's it's a discouraging you you bother to block off your day to write a song and you both have done that and you're here and everything's fired up and you're trying right you're strumming the same chord on the guitar for 2 hours and nothing good is happening it's discouraging yeah but I don't sweat it before I made the first album I'd ever made like before Billy and I

finished her album like I was pretty convinced I couldn't make an album think that's weird that I feel that way but I still feel that even like I'm scoring this TV show now and it's I think today the total you know whether it ends up being this it's like 86 pieces of music wow and on like piece 55 I'm like this is the one I can't finish that's wrong like that's just uh self-doubt because I'll finish it and then I have to do another 40 more right it's like I think I just really care about

the thing being great and I don't know if like I'm G to be able to achieve the quality that I'm after you know this is an area where I'm really lucky is is if I change directions that usually is a another thing of like um yeah if I'm working on something for myself and then I start working on something for somebody else or if I'm doing an album and I start doing a film score it's that that sort of shakes up my my uh patterns in my brain enough to to get no time to die

yes how much pressure was that it was a lot of pressure I mean James Bond has such a ethos and a sort of a signature thing yeah that if if you fail you really fail you really miss the mark yeah and so when we'd sit and sort of start to write something if it didn't feel like a James Bond theme song you could tell immediately right that process was a lot longer it was really long and and also like sort of never guaranteed we got flown to London to work with Hans on the string arrangement

for it and see the movie and we wrote the song in October and then in December mid December we got flown to London to see the film and do a string Arrangement and that was you know not in a threatening way but there was they just had never said congratulations you got it yeah and we were sort of thinking to ourselves they're putting up some money like they're you know they're paying for an orchestra that has to mean they like it to some degree yeah and then once we got the orchestra recorded I muted most

of it and thought I'm going to get fired it was all good but I but it I wanted Billy's voice to be the star of it so and I sent it to Hans and I I sent it to Hans and was like did that and he was like I love it sounds great um and uh but I I don't think I felt like we'd gotten the gig until they announced it like until there was a sort of Billy singing the Bond theme song right and then people because it was just an announce that she'd do

it yeah artist friends of mine would text me and that say hey congrats I can't wait to hear what you write and I'd be like thank God we've like if they announced it and we'd written nothing I would that would have been the worst I got yeah and then the movie didn't come out for 18 months yeah right because of Co so it was like from Genesis of song to the release of the movie We're chapters and chapters what do you like about writing for film well twofold I love movies so yeah seeing a a

piece of music uh coexist with a great scene of a movie is so powerful from a writing perspective everything we've talked about the the sort of liberation of being able to write a character study being able to to make something that's like assignment sort of bespoke yeah you know it feels like making a piece of furniture for somebody's house um which I love yeah it's a good part of being an artist but I think a lot of being an artist is looking inward mhm and I like doing stuff where you're looking inward at some fictional

character how big a leap is it to write for a TV series well I'm scoring this TV series right now and um that's its own whole sort of different area of my brain and not something I have nearly as much experience in how is it a different area of your brain uh this is all instrumental stuff there's no no lyrics no no vocals to worry about as opposed to the the what was I made for where the dialogue drops out and you watch a montage and you hear the lyrics and and and you see the

image you know I'm writing I'm writing music there are moments where it's just music and what you're seeing on screen but a lot of it is how how is this going to play with this dialogue how is like you know what I mean the lyrics are written for you and they're the dialogue yeah um and so you're scoring the emotion of the scene underneath yeah two actors uh performing a great scene I like this too it's different and it's a little bit of an ego death but working um on score you know you you can

you can labor over a piece for days and deliver it on a plate and the filmmaker will say you know this a beautiful piece of music it's not right for the scene and you go like okay throw it away yeah um and and it's there is kind of a liberating part of that too and it's very humbling I would think the first time you make it the first time I scored anything you are so precious about it and then like the 10th time you're making a piece of music you you're still careful and trying to

make something great but there is this kind of um knowing that the that you're making it for a person who then may that it may not land yeah it it frees you from whatever sort of amount of preciousness and and and how tightly you have to grab something um which I think is great the the hours are long but the work itself is is joyous like the work is fun yeah yeah I always wonder if filmmakers hear music in their head at all they all think they do they do I see music videos for stuff

when I write it and if I if they all came out they some of them would be like the worst video you'd ever seen yeah it it's like yeah a filmmaker thinks he's a conductor too I you know yeah but I I would think he would sort of have to in some ways to some degree you you have to be you have to have a vision and execute it I mean I think that's from my observation of the few directors I worked with now on the number one thing a director has to have is a

vision you know I think that more than anything else more than technical experience or any sort of knowledge of anything they have to go I I'm seeing this in my mind and I have to a director has to be like have a vision and be able to articulate it and that's what makes a director um have you had time to work on your own stuff I've been doing a little bit of my own stuff I try to compartmentalize Billy's albums in my own because I like them not to bleed yeah so do you have to

sort of Park that over here while you're working with bit yeah um and I kind of enjoy that and uh and the other thing is when whenever we finish making an album and it'll be true of this case you know she goes off and does everything else that that being an artist involved she'll go direct all her music videos and do um crazy visual like the visual component of an album is such an undertaking and the visual component of her album I have nothing to do with and I think 50% of what makes her such

a great artist is her visual language mhm and so yeah we we rap an album and she like runs off to do all that stuff yeah that I'm not involved in so it's it's good to have a a thing for myself to do I I I think that her album and this television score are going to wrap like on the same day like they're going to wrap at the exact same time yeah and I'll have a crisis you know what I mean like I'll go from so busy to like just calling you every day and

being like Anthony can I come over like I don't know what I don't know what else I'd do well I would actually think in some ways that would be kind of a relief for me to call you every day no not that part to have some time off yeah it's really true I I feel like um there was a period last year this was pre Billy's record or scoring but just of of scheduling where Billy we were on tour and every weekend for five weeks was was the first weekend was the Oscars and the second

weekend was the Grammys and the third weekend was the was Coachella and then Coachella and then the Met gal or something and so it was like Tour all week and then fly from uh Seattle or wherever the tour bus is to like LA to perform with the Oscars and fly back to do the rest of the tour and then fly to Vegas to the Grammys and like on a day where I had only gotten 5 hours of sleep I was very grumpy about the whole thing I was grateful but I was like this is crazy

we shouldn't be on this tour if we have all this stuff on a day where I had enough sleep I was like I'm born for this I was very like I loved it um I just shows you like your coping skills yeah I think that I like to believe and I sure hope this continues to be true like I I'm I I feel really fulfilled and Happy When Something's Happened once I'm not I'm not dying to repeat everything I do all the time right I like uh evolving and you know just like doing this television

score I don't necessarily do it thinking I I'm going to do one of these every year now I'm doing this new experience and then it won't be a new experience right and everything sort of felt like that um yeah I think I think the people who get the most damaged are people who were missing something so much that the thing that filled them up was like the arena of people screaming their name mhm because that's the hardest to guarantee that it'll be sustainable like I love making music I seem to be at a point now

where if my listenership goes to zero as long as I don't buy a bunch of you know Lamborghinis I could probably sit around and make music for the rest of my life and like sigh of relief like fantastic news because that's what you always wanted to do it's always what I wanted to do and all I thought I would do like I I often say that like my only dream growing up this is how big my dreams were I wanted to open for a band that was playing the Fonda in La which is like 12200

yeah people I wanted to open just to be clear I I didn't I never thought I'd sell that place out I just wanted to be able to open for to play to a packed Fonda that was there to see somebody else that was my dream yeah uh and when Billy played the Fonda in 2018 I was like well this has been fun like I think it's yeah probably all downhill from here um I feel really lucky and I I like to work and I like to work hard and I I don't plan on stopping but

I also like being the person the sole person in the spotlight is not something I think you should try to do forever um yeah I think if you're involved in projects that are important to you that's the fantasy um and I just feel like so lucky I just feel like I get to be involved in things I'm really proud of and excited to be a part of and I've also learned a real lesson in collaboration how would you describe the collaborative relationship with your sister I think that it's the closest I'm I am with Billy

to like total trust of anyone um and total vulnerability I'm sure there's something that she would be embarrassed to say in front of me but not much has it always has it always been that way I think probably more and more as we've aged just because we've spent more and more time to get like the funny thing about our age is like when Billy when we made ocean eyes when I was 18 and she was 13 MH that felt like right where our lives might MH go in completely different directions yeah and then instead we

started working together and spending more and more time together and over the years like more and more and more and more and more yeah and she's the person in my life that I've you know that I'm the closest to yeah um how close are you being done to with Billy's album very close yeah yeah super close I've been throwing the number like 92% around mhm I say 92 not 95 cuz I because I want to leave some room for if we have a new great idea but it's but it's really close yeah yeah how do

you feel about it I feel really proud of it I think this is fair and natural is like people measure stuff when it's successful and it's success yeah they don't measure it from a sort of quality standpoint as much but the way things are judged are success failure um and Billy's first album was so successful the I think you know it's like I think it was the mo most listened to album on Spotify that year like some crazy thing we were like really yeah um and so I think stuff's always going to get compared to

that album and that's great we love that album and how lucky are we that we had a big first record but we're better now like her voice alone is night and day she's a stronger more powerful more controlled singer yeah and I've just spent you know five years since that album producing music I just know more I can see the sort of before and after of how much I knew making the first album how much I knew making the second album and how much I know now and I'm proud of that progress I think that

I've tried to really be conscious of that in the process because it's helped alleviate whatever pressure somebody might feel to follow up a follow up like you know how do I do this I just feel confident in the actual technical side of the album of the songwriting and of the production is there anything creatively that scares you well film the film scoring scared the hell out of me so that was why I did it was was that it scared me and the process of it of doing it is still scary to me in the way

that making albums used to be scary to me I've just made enough albums that MH it's hard and challenging but I'm not terrified the whole time with Billy's third album you're past the sophomore problem right but there's still like it still comes with expectation with it it goes without saying are you past worrying about that no I think like if this album doesn't have a number one mhm I won't I won't think we made a terrible album because it didn't yeah but we have made songs on this album think you know and and and thought

this feels commercial you know yeah when we've sat back and listened to them not that we're making something to make a hit but when we listen to it we think I feel proud of this and this feels like it might you know might make somebody buy a concert ticket you know um I think there's no shame in trying to make something that's G to be really popular to try to just make art carefully and and really focus on it make it as good as it can be and if there's a if there's a choice between

something that like will only satisfy me or only satisfy you know the masses yeah I take it Case by case but usually there's a version that I love that also feels like it's listenable you know that's what I've been saying about this album um which again I'm not making it this reason but like you know how artists uh in crappy label deals will get shelved or whatever they'll make an album that like at the end of making it they know like might not even come out Stu like that like we're making the album that if

it was only ever going to be heard by us we'd be making yeah which is awesome like that's that to me is that's what I'm proud of um is the kind of making what we want to hear and what we're excited about and not making it out of fear or ego