Billie Eilish Breaks Down Her Career, from 'Ocean Eyes' to 'Barbie' | Vanity Fair

I think that my relationship to the fans has been so vital to all of this and I think like what you do for them and how you make them feel is what's going to be the most impactful and rewarding for you and for them hi I'm Billy ish and this is a timeline of my career so [Music] far so [Music] ocean eyes was the start of everything I think within about a week it had a thousand streams which is not many now but it was a lot then just stuff was just changing really fast and

I'd never really seen anything like that and it was alarming I was like 13 I think it was my my birthday was like the next month and I just remember things were just like building around me and I felt I just was like wo what what is going on my parents were super cautious about all of it hesitant and kind of making sure that I felt comfortable in every step of the way and I remember my mom being like you don't have to do this you don't have to do this you can at any time

you can you can get out of this you know my little excited you know determined ambitious self wasn't going to listen to anybody right after Ocean I came out I got injured in dance that there was like a very very intense injury that just completely just took me out of all things dance and that just shifted my whole life dance was really like the thing that I loved the most and that I saw myself doing forever and not being able to I mean it was really hard music really came in handy for me and got

me through all of that I got injured and then we made like belly ache and hostage and my boy and the songs that then would become don't smile at me that then came out [Music] later we wrote many of the songs from don't smile at me in 2016 that whole year we were doing like tiny little shows and I remember there was a moment in 2017 where I got an encore for the first time and I remember them being like play another one and I was like I don't have another one I literally don't have

another song like I've played all of them for the first time and the last time we rented out a studio because we thought maybe it'll be good for us to have a studio maybe it's bad if we make music at home we should just have a studio and like decide that we're going to make the EP in a studio and it was like hell it was literally hell yeah and then it came out in 2017 while I was on a tour with my choir in Canada I remember like being on the bus with my friends

with all of our uniforms on and we had one of the those like earbud like splitter like the dongle splitter so we all would plug our our our headphones and our earbuds into the little dongle and then I would play the new EP through it and my friends would always be like Play I Don't Want to Be you anymore play my boy play this play that it was very [Music] sweet what I really appreciate about that EP it's like very young people you know wrote half of it when I was 133 14 and then put

it out when I was 15 and Phineas was 17 18 19 like young little babies that had no experience at all I look back and I'm like I can't even but what I do feel about it is that we were so experimental and we were so eager to try stuff and we were so eager to do anything we were you know we would have an idea and be like why don't we just try it even if it's weird and I appreciate that about the EP I was very nervous about a image though I didn't know

that everything I was doing was going to give me a specific image I was just doing whatever I was doing at the time I remember I was just like so anxious about how I was being perceived and really wanted to be seen as a certain thing and didn't really know what I was doing but I think I did a good job I think I did a good job given the fact that I was a little girl AR [Music] scared all fall asleep where do we go I first started recording when we all fall asleep where

do we go when I was 16 Phineas was 19 it was my first studio album we made a lot of it on tour in like little hotel rooms with phineas's laptop and I remember writing multiple verses of Elo Milo on a plane I remember like recording wish you were gay in like El Paso yeah wherever we could make it we we did in the documentary um there's like a thing I say where I somebody said about like oh well your next album this and I was like I'm not making another album no way I really

thought that I was like I'm not doing this again I was like love y'all be safe I'm not doing this again I didn't feel I was good at it and and I also didn't know what I wanted the heavier theme thing in all my earlier music and now I swear to God I never thought about it one time this was such a a reoccurring topic for so long which was like why are your songs so sad and I remember hearing that being like what are you what are we talking about people seem to forget that

when you are a child and a teenager emotion is the most intense thing in the world Everything feels like the end or the beginning I was just talking about this with a friend that like Middle School felt like life was over and that that's how everything felt then and so you know to to be like how could anyone young understand emotion are you stupid that's all they have is emotion honestly would I've always had a a real love and passion for music videos and visuals in general and I always wanted to direct them but of

course I had no experience and I was a teenager and why would I know what I was doing I mean you know I can imagine being the adult in the room and me being like I want to direct it and it's like well you can't you know but at the time I was like you know why not like I don't I know what I want I know what I want oh my God I know what I want and I think that I understood that that wasn't enough to like know how to do it but I

think I convinced them all to let me like I think I proved myself is really what I mean and the first music video that I fully directed was zy then everything I wanted and then basically everything after that but it's a lot of work when I first started I was like oh my God I would love to do it for other people as well other artists the reaction to when we all fall asleep where do we go was so like surreal and the response to bad guy I mean that changed my life like bad guy

completely changed my life that's really what this whole interview should about his bad guy and its effect on my life and then the you know the the the awards you know the Grammys was like amazing it was literally like the greatest thing that had ever happened to me and I could not believe any second of it was real that album really lives on for me like that album completely changed my life so special to me and it's so pure to me like it's so genuine to me the older I get and the farther away that

album uh is from me I feel so even closer to it I'm the bad guy now you never see me cry there's just no time to when we were first making music Phineas and I used to come up with little challenges to write songs we'd be like let's try to write a song from the perspective of this person and this is happening and d d like many times we would be like let's pretend to write a James Bond theme song cuz that would be the coolest in the world and we were such big fans of

bond and especially for me I loved Skyfall and just everything about that I remember it was like at a certain age where it really like stuck with me for some reason and that visual that is going on during the song in the movie and I just thought it was the coolest thing you can do as an artist so we would joke about it all the time and it was never ever a reality and then in 2019 Barbara broccoli who was working on the film I remember hearing kind of about the fact that they were looking

for someone and looking for a song and I just remember just me and FAS being like wo wo wo like please and then it was just like many conversations and meetings and um we weren't sure at all like we didn't think we were going to get it and it was also like so not in the bag at all like it was very very much we're auditioning and maybe we get it and maybe not we were sent like the first 10 pages of the script kind of told the PLO is without like being given any spoilers

and then we wrote no time to die in a couple days on tour in like Texas or something recorded it in the bunk in the tour bus and we didn't even know if we we had the job we honestly didn't know for a while and then we already had gotten it and I had no idea then um yeah it was the coolest thing in the world we felt like we made a a good song and we really wanted the part Hans is the best the most incredible collaborator and he's such a genius and he's such

a gorp he's such a goofball I mean it was just the most magical thing in the world we went to London we got shown the movie and then we spent a few days in the studio with him and Johnny Maher and this whole Orchestra and it was insane you'll never see me cry there's just no time to die I mean the Oscars is just one of those things it's just like oh my God I feel like I snuck in like it was very cool and intimidating and I mean we watch the Oscars every time when

I was a kid and it was like one of my favorite things that we did as a family so performing was amazing and then the next year I was nominated and I couldn't even believe I couldn't even believe I was shortlisted and then I was nominated and then I went and then I performed again and that was insane and then we won and that was crazy so if you really want to know when I'm away from you happier than ever was made with a little too much confidence and that's not a bad thing we were

a little lazy but but I love that album I really do and I loved it at the time and it meant that I grew like I wouldn't have been able to get where I am now had it not been for that album and everything that I did in that album and it was also kind of a me needing to break free out of a box that I had felt like I put myself in or that the World Put Me In from putting out ocean eyes when I was 13 and then getting injured and then being

on tour for years and being in meetings with a million people and a million agents and you know being a 14 year-old in a room with only you know grown ass people mostly men and you know I wanted to be a dancing I wanted to be doing this I don't know I just everything kind of just happened to me and I didn't really have much of a choice but it's okay I'm not complaining but but it was a lot and then Co happened and I was forced to stop and that I think happened for a

lot of people but of course I felt like I was the only one that was happening too I was like I just I just remember it was it was almost as if blindly doing something that I really wanted to do and felt like I really wanted to do and I was happy doing and then it was like just taken out just just pulled away from me and I was just like oh oh my God I haven't actually thought about anything for 4 years and I don't know when I would have gotten to process anything that

had happened to me um if it weren't for that and we wrote All of happier than ever in that period of time so it's a CO album I mean that's what it is the music was a completely different process than the Reinventing of the look coming off of those crazy couple of years and had won those Grammys that year and like my did not stink I don't know I just felt good but then I decided I wanted to go blonde and then I decided that I remembered that I was a girl and I was like

wait I want to be other things and not just this one thing that I've been looked at as for all these years and I remember ordering my like a skirt off of Amazon I didn't have a skirt and I was like I got to wear a skirt I don't know I was just having a lot I was dude I was 18 like I was trying to figure it out you know I'd been told that I was one thing for many years and I believed it which was definitely a lot but I think that I needed

to do it I I'm I'm an extreme person like I need to have extreme sensation and I think that that was my way of of expressing myself in the way that I knew how which was all everything all at once he must have had a rough childhood did people ever call you things as a child liar stupid Pig what are you afraid of nothing are you afraid of death no why I think it was the day after I headlined Coachella we were on some management call or something I was talking to my managers and I

remember one of them being like there's this opportunity but you're not going to be available for it so we're going to pass are are you okay with that I was like well what is it and they were like well it's this show that Donald Glover is working on and it's called this and it's about the and I I I I remember being like I'll drop anything like I will I that's my dream what are we talking about passing on that and then I was sent kind of the the early on script and I just thought

it was the coolest thing in the world and then Donald called me and kind of explained what the show was about and explained how it was going and the things that you know whatever and he just was like yeah I was thinking about you and if you're interested there's no pressure but if you wanted to you could and I just I mean I was trying to keep it cool but I was so so excited I mean he knows it and I sound like a broken record but he was like my favorite of all I just

love him so much and I always have and he's been one of my biggest Idols since I was like 11 acting was something that I loved doing so much as a kid I just didn't do anything about it I just loved it but I didn't do anything also like my brother acted and he would get jobs and I wouldn't and that was annoying to me mom can I talk about your please my mother wrote a movie about a family and it was a mom and a dad and a son [Laughter] she starred in it and

she cast her own son to play her son and I was just kicked out essentially and by the way my childhood bedroom they took everything out of it and replaced it to be the bedroom in the movie if she had had a daughter she would have been happier right right and so it would have meant a whole other thing and I wasn't good also this is the other part so basically I just am saying that was my villain origin story what color was the milk it was red did you hurt someone yes very good basically

the whole show is surrounding this character Dre which is Dominique Fishback who is like filled to the brim overflowing with Talent my episode is basically she comes across this like sex cult she doesn't know what the hell is going on or what it is and it's kind of hard to tell it's not very obvious but that's kind of what's going on and I'm like the leader of it yeah we just like Gaslight the out of her I had so much fun it was like truly like one of the best weeks of my life she was

also so amazing to work with and so much of the scenes that we did was just the two of us and that was really special we shot in Atlanta and also Donald was there the first day for the first scene that we filmed and I was it was just so cool and scary and they also like changed the script like 5 minutes before the scene which was a lot but I did it I asked my mom if she would do my acting coaching for that show and she is the reason that I did even a

little bit of a good job like she she is so good I would love to do some more acting I'm kind of like embarrassed to say that but I would love to cuz I I don't know how to feel it was a very very different experience compared to no time to die it started off so casually I remember Phineas just being like would you ever like be interested in doing like the Barbie like a song for the Barbie movie and I remember like that sentence I was like what like huh and I had no idea

what that was going to mean and you know that could go either way like what are we talking about Barbie movie like what does that even mean and then I remember those paparazzi photos of Margo Robbie and Brian Gosling came out of them shooting and we were just like so excited about it and then Greta Phineas goes hey we're going to get on a FaceTime with Greta later I was like okay okay I had like no we didn't even hadn't even really talked about it and we got on the phone with her and Mark Ronson

basically just told us what they had done and they were like movie's basically done it's this is what we have so far and you know this is what's going on we really want you to see it can we set up a time like whatever it was like so casual and I didn't think it was going to really happened she set up a a day for us to go to Warner Brothers and the two of us went and it was just like us in this empty theater and her literally 2 days away from giving birth and

then a couple people from her team she showed us the work in progress movie which is basically completely done she kept being like it's not done but it I mean it was amazing it was so good I was so nervous I was like how could this possibly be good because how could anyone make a movie like this that's good and it was so so amazing I remember just like moments during the movie just looking at fous and being like this is good this is really good and then went home talked about it and then the

next day we had a whole day of writer block it was a whole day of creating stuff and just not coming up with a single goddamn idea and I was like all right well I guess I'm going to go because this was a waste of a day and then as I was like getting up to leave pH was like do you want to try to write a Barbie song before you go and I was like that's such a ridiculous ambitious thing to do like we're not going to we can't even write any other song we're

not going to write a real good Barbie song right now and he sat down at the piano and he immediately started playing those first chords and I had the handheld mic and I was sitting on the couch and I just [Music] started and then those first couple lyrics came out and we wrote the whole song right then I mean we were just so overflowing with um like inspiration from that movie and what was going on in my life and I had to fight so hard to not send it to her immediately but it wasn't good

like I had the worst recording of it so I waited like 2 weeks and we recorded kind of a scratch vocal version of it and we were really nervous but we felt really proud of it and she basically was like I've been weeping all day I hadn't heard somebody use that word like that um in a long time but the rest is kind of History I really kind of Thrive when I write from some perspective that isn't my own kind of first person perspective like it can even be about my life but if I think

about it from just a different angle it's a lot easier and so something that Phineas and I I think really really thrive in is writing for film and TV we have to like stop ourselves from saying yes to so many things when people are like would you write a song for this movie cuz I'm like I want to cuz I like I love writing stories it's storytelling dude I do also write songs from my own perspective and my own life and my own feeling but I think it's it's just harder to get there it's more

vulnerable and you can't really wear a mask um and both are great great so the approach of making Hit me hard and soft was so daunting never been more doubtful in our entire lives never one moment of like wow we did a really good job like we loved what we were making but we really were terrified also phine and I honestly you know when you're siblings you go through like different periods of being on the same frequency and this was a period where we were pretty out of sync not to put him like tell his

business but like he was really not enjoying making music very much and that was tough for me because I was the one that didn't enjoy making music for all those years and I kind of finally was enjoying it and then he would just be like I have no I would rather be doing anything else like I want to be doing something else and I got it because that's how I used to feel and it's oh my God I was so terrified I was like oh no Phineas would remind me mostly he'd be like we don't

have to put this out you know we can make it and not put it out and I think that's important to remember is that not everything you make has to be amazing and perfect because I think part of the reason it felt so scary is the fact that we were so doing exactly what we wanted to do and that can be really scary being yourself is terrifying you feel like oh they're not going to like me if I'm myself they're not going I have to kind of do this or like do this and then they'll

like me and you realize that it's just that you're avoiding the vulnerability of being seen and being known and I think that this album is like a really good representation of that and when I think about it it's really good kind of ju toos of like my life my friendships and my relationships and how I've been trying to really make an effort in being exactly who I am I kind of been saying this for years but never really doing it which is like trusting my gut and like listening to my body and it turns out

that if you do what you want and if you are yourself people actually like you more it's really hard to accept that and it's scary and it's vulnerable and it means that you can have experiences that are more hurtful because it's actually you but there's more Pros than there are cons I think I'm proud of myself man it's hard to process this kind of thing when it's you it's really hard to see it and see it objectively and know what it looks like to other people cuz you have your own experience of it I mean

when I think about my life I get to do the coolest in the the world and I didn't see it for so long and there was so many times that I really did not want my life and honestly I feel like for the first time maybe I've experienced so much joy