Billie Eilish & FINNEAS: HIT ME HARD AND SOFT Interview | Apple Music

I've just got to talk about every song I'm I want to do all of it same I don't have to do I love you space for thanks man it's kind of perfect it's great give meone good M good yeah well thank you we were brutal the whole year we were making this about like drilling deeper and what was really different was that we kind of went against our comfort zone I remember there was one night it was like raining or something and Phineas and I had like a f big fight Phineas was like I don't

like doing this anymore I don't want to write music right now I remember like we just had this argument of me being like just say how you feel and let's write a song about whatever you're scared about and I think that this was like the first day really that I was able to be honest which is is crazy we've been listening to Billy ish search for honesty since day one as a young Superstar landing on the world stage in the biggest possible way and ever since then we've all been awarding and rewarding them because their

music and the art they make is so honest and so creative and Brilliant but that doesn't mean there isn't road to run and the fact that we have a brand new Billy eyh album and both Phineas and Billy in phineas's studio for our longest most comprehensive conversation yet means there's so much more to say in the music and right now I feel like we traveled all over the world at various points which I've loved and long may that continue by the way let's go somewh else uh but just to come home I'm kind of like

lowy no hiy been dying to come into this space and hang out with you in this in this room or a room like this it was very different last time probably not that much bigger though because this isn't huge no super small yeah do you need that I don't think we need it but I'm I like efficiency this is also like this is the basement of my house it's a room I had um and yeah you know we just filled it with tools the room we're in right now basically existed when we made Billy's second

album we finished her second album almost immediately a pipe burst above this room and fully flooded the studio like completely completely destroyed repairable equipment had to be fully the equipment almost all survived just miraculously the room but the room was destroyed and had to be like aired out and hot fans on it for days so mold didn't grow crazy and it had to be completely rebuilt and um we rebuilt it pretty similarly which was a good sort of indicator that it was effective for us but I think on this album cycle the big change was

there's a couch off camera right there and Billy spent the last album sitting on the couch recording vocals and Billy spent this album sitting like right here with this microphone we just were like pilots in a airplane like complete co-piloting so side by side and even a lot of times when I was working on vocals and stuff Phineas was there and I was here totally we just totally switch spots which is really sweet I did listen to the first album again the other day and uh the opening which seemed Charming back then is like now

one of the greatest album openings of all time cuz it's the most it's the most honest teenage representation of a record ever and I thought maybe I'll talk to them about that through this lens just once and just say okay if you could like go back in time and walk in the room like listen through the door and be like oh my God there's young Phineas and young Billy making that record around trying to figure it out and you kick the door in what would you say to them based on what you know now I

don't even know I mean do you have any idea what you would even say to us both it would be interesting to feel the energy of two people who are like very unaware of what's to come the thing that they're doing being meaningful to other people um I certainly wouldn't want to mess it up I wouldn't want to go I kind of might just hear up against the door and then walk away I would want to maybe peek in but I think that keep it vicarious yeah anything that I could say of like you know

don't be so stressed out or whatever like I don't know yeah you know you can tell you could probably the closest you could get is probably tell quite whisper to each other Hold On Tight you know but you can't try to tell someone to avoid what's going to happen regardless because it's all it all adds up to this moment and it all adds up to I know do we talk about the thing the the thing the thing do we talk about it the game Z knows the game did have we played does do the cameras

know I know if the cameras know the fineas and I created a game and it has you know the game yeah but share the game it's a good game it's a great it's an amazing game um this this was created about a year ago no no it was like the end of last year oh you're right it was like the fall of last year yes so this is and since then this is a game we've shared with everyone we know and in like every artist and everyone in the music industry just to haunt them it's

just good to be aware so it's a game called fear or fart right okay and basically how did it how did it arise well can't give full detail but basically we we're sitting at this computer and we were the thing is like when we would go when we would get here to like work it wasn't like you know walking in and like all right you know let's get to work it was like we hang out we're we're we're buds like we're siblings we like to hang out and we don't live together anymore so now we

got to catch up I know we have to catch up we have to talk whatever so we'll do whatever we need to do before we start making music music and sometimes it's like hang out upstairs eat play whatever and sometimes it's like YouTube whatever it is and we were in here and we were like looking at happier than different albums and stuff yeah and I think that we started playing like some music and I remember Phineas going like oh this is this guy liked the smell of his own farts and I was like oh it's

so interesting like yeah for sure he does like he he really was loving loving how it was smelling and then we were going through all these albums that we know and kind of labeling them as like oh did this person like their smell own fors in they in the middle of making this and then we got to some people and I was like what about them and FAS goes no no no that's fear and so then we decided to we not even decided we realized that every single thing in the universe can be put in

one or the other and the good the just to be really clear is fear or fart or fart here's the caveat both could be good or both are amazing or terrible yes has nothing to do with because like there's some great there's being some great thoughts you can yeah 100% there you can make a great album and know that it's great you can make it and be like I'm so awesome and it can be good and also sometimes it can get in the way and it can you know promote some like laziness whatever Fear Can

super get in your own way and prevent you from taking risks so it was like when we say it it's like we really mean no offense of like it's more just like you know fear is like you know second guessing yourself and not feeling like you're totally you totally know what you're doing or you feel like it might not be it's just second guessing you know and I and then fart is the kind of like no no no all right all right all right got this when we all fall asleep fear 100% fear yeah big

fear yeah it's funny cuz I I definitely smell some fart on that album no that's just farty teenagers just that's just teenagers bad guys quite smelly thought we were funny but bad guy is not real we thought we were funny it's not real but it's definitely walks like it it's real yes but bad guy was still made out of fart it smells like fart but it is but it's made out okay good that's good that's a new BET the thing is we bring this up because we determined that happier than ever is the is the

fart album of ours it is a fart album I hear fear on that record and again we there are things were're super proud of un happier than ever but I know from thinking back and thinking about the year we made that album yeah that it was two people who had just been told the nicest things imaginable and we sat around making these songs and I know from remembering it that we sat around being like we are so so good amazing and like and there are things from a production standpoint there are songs where like we'd

work on something for one day and I'd be like smashed it done and I think that that's like again it's like I would tell people not to overthink stuff but I don't think that's not overthinking and I think it was a kind of a smelling right F yeah yeah just sort of feeling really full of yourself or cocky which I think was it can be fine again it's totally fine it's just that I think for that one we didn't we just didn't put that much into it push ourselves in a way that's why there's like

16 that many songs well that's kind of way the fear comes in so I think fear present shows itself on that album in hindsight because I listen to this album now and I think about the person the people who are making happier and I'm like I don't know so on to something cuz it's true that that as much as happier than ever was coming from this place of like we're so good we could you know this sounds so good we are so good yeah it was also at least for me like a um not knowing

all who I was or who I was identity crisis album and what's interesting is it hit me hard and soft is almost the reverse of that where we were making it and it was like you know we were kind of like this the whole time like I don't know if I making him anything good like this might be terrible right and then now when I think about it I'm like yeah but I'm comfortable in who I am now and I feel like I know who I am now I think that this album is like the

biggest uh example of or not example but I think this this is like the most me thing that I've ever made and I think that it's so purely me and not any sort of character really which was hard to do we were brutal the whole year we were making this about like drilling deeper into the essence of like who are you as a person guessing it because otherwise why do it right at the end why do it what's the most simple reason to show up again to make another album 100% I know I think what

was cool also about the making of this one was that we started working on it before we were like told to and that was like that was like a conscious Phineas thing like he was like hey we should like make some music before anybody is like hey you know you should probably get to it you know and I think that that made it so that we could be creative and be have not don't have not have like this like pressure and like like kind of people talking in our ears and our heads and I think

that um that was really nice it's a really it's a really and I don't know if you meant it this way but it's a really shrewd kind of psychological Twist on how you approach your music because it kind of takes you back yeah to before yeah without having to talk about it without having to go man wouldn't it be great if we could just go back to when it was so easy the amount of times I've spoken to artists and they're like man sometimes I just we go back when it was just a simple time

and as soon as you say that you can't but if you unlock it in a way by saying hey we can just stop yep we just do it we just do it what we've always done is we do a song and basically finish it and move on into another song and basically finish it and do that over and over and then you know by the time an album is done there's songs that are like over a year old and then songs that are like a month old and you're like well you The Listener is going

to think this is all one you know this all came out in the same was created at the same time but really it's like kind of doing and what was really different this time around which was extremely frustrating but very rewarding was that we really did not do that we we kind of went against our comfort zone and like um what we did was we would and this was like phineas's idea which I which I really am grateful that he came up with that because what we would do is we would be in here and

we would come up with some idea and as soon as it would be like he'd be like all right let's do something else let's put this away and let's like work on something else and so you'd be like creating creating hit a little LOL and as soon as that that would happened he's like all right this one some room to be excited about it still I know but then it made it so that all we didn't have a full song to listen to for months that's really tricky that's a tricky decision to make yes because

you have to make sure that that when at the point where you come come back together in a particular Billy that she's going to be as excited about it in that moment as she was a month ago or two months ago and not you're risking that man what if she comes back and she's like oh God I don't know that vocal doesn't feel right to me anymore or I've lost the feeling of this I think you're totally right and part of that maybe in a perverse way was like let's be that Cutthroat if she's not

interested in this in 3 weeks wow then it was almost the reverse and there were a couple there wereing you bro cuz that is like that is idea in a couple instances there were things where we'd like work on it and be very amped on the day and come back to it and go like for for the song Blue so there's a whole backstory on that song yeah which a lot of people know no this going reverse I love that where we start start at the end well I just bring it up because we we

really wanted to rewrite everything but the chorus and we didn't really want to have like redo the whole song we kind of just wanted to like have the hook and like some sort of verse but we made that song when I was 14 and ocean eyes had just come out and he was just like 18 and anyway the lyrics have just kind of aged whatever we just wanted to rewrite them for lots of reasons and there was one day that we sat here and we rewrote those lyrics for like six hours straight SE we we

wrote several verses and we wrote many verses and many versions of each verse and it was so tedious and hard and we did not take a break and we were like no no no we need to rewrite it like we'll get there and we eventually finished it and I was driving home and you and I were like I'm so glad we did that and I was driving home and I listened to it I was like these are like some of the worst and that's a kind of example of not taking time with it yeah and

being like no no no just just just P it you know and sometimes that can be great but sometimes it's very clear that it's like oh I need a second it's so interesting that that that song that the first half of that song is like um it's like a it's like an in crit it's like it's like all these little moments these phrases you know open up the door and likea so the verse that we ended up writing um references every single song on the album so even if you can't if it's not like super

obvious it's still a reference this is before you in the album with one of the biggest downers of one of the best albums ever created such a downer end such a well can give brutal let me explain it's so funny to think about I want to explain blue really quick for those that don't know basically the first kind of quarter of that song is a song that Phineas and I made when I was 14 and he was 18 called true blue and for like the first concerts we ever did like remember we did like played

it it's a school night we did it school night and like tenants of the trees or some nonsense like played it at different little yeah clubs before I had really anything out I had like maybe ocean eyes out maybe maybe not even anything else yeah but we kind of just put it away and never there's a bunch of references to it in the doc on the album where like maybe we just put True Blue on we going to put it out but we never did cuz it just didn't it kind of aged out of what

we wanted to be making and years and years went by and some we stopped talking about it completely completely never brought it up and then we on the second Point well we were working on the second album and then separately pause that part on the second album we were on all the songs that are in that one plus a song called Born blue which is like a completely different thing than true blue wasn't even in the thought of it and that was a song that was like written about a very specific thing thing that we

want whatever but um that was going to be on happier than ever and we kind of just like couldn't really crack it and it didn't really it was a time thing it was a crunch time thing where we were we picked 16 songs and that's not we had things we loved about born but there was only like a verse like we barely made you don't have time to finish it at this point everybody let's go got the 16 album's done so we did the same thing we took it and we went like pink bye and

never thought of it again and then in 2022 I remember like doing my laundry or something alone and I don't know I was like like on Tik Tok or something and suddenly true blue has been just like leaked can I just ask you how you reacted in that moment in the laundry if you could take us to that exact moment you see I just was like I was like this is like I don't like the way that you know it's like I don't know it's hard to explain like it's an unfinished thing that I never

wanted to come out whatever I'm not complaining whatever cuz it was kind of cool after a second I was like I had my initial like oh God they stole my again and then I was like whatever it's kind of cool whatever and then but you started to appreciate it this is the other thing then I started to appreciate it and then I was like true blue true blue I haven't listened to that in so long so I go on YouTube and I'm like Billy is true blue and I find all the rips of it I

just couldn't stop listening to this song I didn't even have a version I didn't even have the original version and I I don't know I just was like dude I I remember hitting ph up and I was like the song is actually like really got something and I I see it now like I didn't see it for many years and now I see it and so we when we were working we kind of came in here and we were um we just tried to rework it and it took a second um the verses never felt

right again the verses never felt right and we kind of just never we couldn't really crack it and then we were just doing it one day and then finia started changing the chords and it turned I started just singing blue and then we kind of had this like realization like oh you know what would be cool we took both of these old songs that resurrected completely different parts of our lives and resurrected them and made them into one song called blue and rewrote the verse and then wrote the rest of blue of born blue born

blue is the second half of that song where it slows down and it gets that's that's the downer that's right that's the downer that's the downer and then we tied both of those together and added the motif the string Motif that and the string Motif if you haven't noticed is the Melody from The Bridge of the greatest yeah which is also in skinny which starts the album so then it also ends the Alum let's not forget that blue starts whereit leaves off ends yeah we ended Bittersweet with the melody of the beginning of true blue

and then it goes into it it kind of became like this is just s of pip isn't it yeah for sure I mean I've really like we had a lot of convers anbum going into this about album how satisfi I mean listen here's the deal the like your attention span is what it is it's it's not I think people throw a lot of flak at kids and society and the modern you know style of consuming anything I don't think attention spans have gotten shorter I think the things we're consuming have changed a lot you know

what I mean I do yeah and so to me if we're if we're going to make a 44-minute album and expect people to have the attention span that they had in the '90s yeah or the ' 80s to the 70s let's make an album that is made with the same level of care and attention but it's kind of true like if you think about like the way that we consume television shows if it's great like if it's truly great we're going to watch it all the way through we all watch you know that nobody complains

about something amazing being too long that's true you know what I mean yeah and uh what's also great about this is it is it's concise in terms of the the number of songs but these songs stretch out and live with themselves and know them El beautifully in fact one of the only concise moments is the first song everything else I mean that's a very concise message right that you're saying and there's so much I love about that song I said to someone here before I don't know if you're making up with yourself or breaking up

with us I think it's probably both wow wow beautiful way to put in I think it's probably both you know and I think and I think but I think it's it's it's captured the bitter sweetness of both is a bit of sweet experience of getting to know yourself again is a bit of sweet experience of saying hey everything has a season I know and it's just oh my God it's so great um you know but the old me is the real me and maybe it's still me and I think she's pretty must have been quite

an impactful moment for you just realizing just seeing those words on paper or putting them on wherever they need to yeah that song was I mean that was like the First full song that we wrote for the album um and it was do you remember that song was like born out of kind of us having a weird our lives were really different and I was kind of going through something and fin like it was just we were in like a very different place out of syn really out of sync and we were working during that

but we couldn't I mean we were coming up with like pieces of stuff and of course now when I look back at what we were coming up with it was great it was the chorus of lunch and at didn't us it was be eventually and so we felt kind of like what are we doing like I don't know how we're going to do this and I remember there was one night it was like raining or something and vas and I had like a fight big fight about context and subject matter was the big fight we'd

been writing these fragments of stuff and I felt could not I felt and like this is I I've been proven wrong over and over but this was the Jag I was on that night was like I was like subjectwise I'm not being led into to what you're actually feeling and I think that there are real guards up often times in your life you're going through the thing that you're going to write about later mhm and that was for sure happening to Billy at that point in time where I'd be like what's this about she'd be

like nothing yeah and I remember remember like we just had this argument of me being like just say how you feel and let's let's write a song about whatever you're scared about feeling well and also not to throw you under the bus but Phineas was like I don't like doing this anymore I don't want to write music right now like that's true you know and this was really scary for me at the time because as you know I used to be like hate making music don't want to make it don't like making it it's frustrating

it's it's irritating I love having made it I love performing it I love you know when it's good but I really have always struggled with the process and this was when you were enjoying the process I was kind of finally enjoying the process and Phineas was like I would rather be doing anything else right now and it was very interesting cuz I saw myself in that CU I was like I have felt that way but now and you have always been the the thing that keeps the ship moving and now you feel that way and

like what does that mean for us and what are we going to do and I think Phineas also had this kind of totally understandable thing just repeating in his head of like I have nothing to say how could I say anything with the life that I live that anyone could could relate to that I wouldn't sound like a huge po douche I think that and also when we're talking about being out of sync like my whole strength as a collaborator with any artist and it's always been kind of innate with Billy because we've shared so

much is I do have to understand that person to be able to feel like I'm providing something it's a really valuable moment though for the two of you because on the one hand you get to actually acknowledge something which you probably needed to hear from him which is like I don't have all the answers and I'm not here to protect the process like I'm struggling with this which big for your growth too it's like well hang on I got to ask myself how much I really want to do this and can I bring him back

into this in a good way the other part of it as well is that you know you are now in a situation where you get to control how much you unveil to you're ready cuz you've been so pressured to tell us your truth Billy you're successful now write another song Billy make another album Billy force feed us your emotions Billy you know and it's like you're like hang on I don't know if I'm ready from what he's telling you're telling me to actually share that yeah it's a crazy well and also I think that I

think that it's really hard to see what's going on until it's over in a lot of ways and I think for me you know he was like just be honest with me tell me what's going on and I literally was like I don't even know know I don't even know how to describe I don't know what's good or bad right now like I can't tell and then it's like when you look back on it you go oh that's what was going on and that's what I was feeling um but I will say that that his

kind of um Phineas also like really made a big effort in the process to like let me kind of lead the way in a lot of ways and Phineas would and that was so terrifying at first because you know we've we've been making music for years and I kind of have been shy and not very quick with it and like I don't I've never felt like confident as a songwriter and he is so good that it's like hard to compete with honestly and he would sit there and kind of be quiet and play the guitar

cord over and not say anything or give any ideas and I'd be like oh my go like I don't even know what I'm supposed to do going here and it pushed me to like actually do so much and so for this album this was like this was the I've this was the most I've ever written contributed and contributed and I did some production stuff even and I did all my own vocals and the reason the reason behind that for me was that her ideas had become more and more concrete she just had more they weren't

good before well she' you know like it's the difference between somebody giving a really good suggestion and somebody giving like a full plan you know yeah and I think it was also a place of like there were years if I go back to the first couple years of like co-writing with anyone like I wanted to be useful so bad I wanted be to come over and feel like I I had value and I think often times and I've worked with other people like this and I always give them the same piece of advice of like

if you steamroll if the best best idea is going to take 10 minutes longer shut up and let it take 10 minutes do you know what I mean like don't rattle off 30 bad ideas in 10 minutes I'm not saying that my ideas are all bad but I just mean like I really love Billy's ideas and I don't care if she is maybe going to take a couple more minutes to think about them than my idea that is or isn't good so I want to leave oxygen yeah um that's a great way of putting it

and so that happened but I think it was a funny shift in our Dynamic where different where I'd be sitting there playing and bil would be like you're not even saying anything and I'd be like wait and then what would happen and it was so beautiful and skinny is the best example of this is like you wait and you wait and you wait and then Billy says something that's so great and then I know exactly how to help I know exactly where the missing thing is because we're so on the same page with it Phineas

is so good at that like I'll come up with all these ideas and and these lyrics and Melodies that are tight and they're great and there's like this and this and this and this and then there's like one thing that I need I'm like I I really don't know what this is and finel would just be like what if you said this and it's like the best lyric of the whole song and actually that line that you just brought up was that moment it was like our tick we would be we've been we I knew

exactly what we were both feeling and how she was feeling and it was just kind of a rhyme structure well and also like that line is the kind of thing that is for me bar is what it is it's a that song is just bars to BU to BU but like I don't know that's the kind of thing that there's some things that are really hard to say about yourself yeah I was really struggling with this weird just like I don't know everything was weird in my life and Phineas was like I was just talking

about myself and talking about like who I used to be and the way I used to look and things and and phus just was like the old me is still me and maybe the real me and I think think she's pretty you know and I was like oh I do think she's pretty here's the thing about lunch right um we've all read the the interview that's in existence right now and and it's a great opening line and it and it grabs you and it's just like boom check it out it's a metaphor for me it's

just it's just about taking control isn't it about your life right right right right literal but also metaphorical yeah there's a it's a lot of stuff going on in that one yeah it's stuff going on yeah I mean I remember like one of the verses um was written after like a conversation I had with a friend and they were telling me about this like just complete animal magnetism they were feeling and I was like I just was like o I'm going to pretend to be them for a second and just right I don't know there's

a lot of metaphors and a lot of there's there's also some real um Power Dynamic going on there there's an exercise of actual power going on there which is really interesting to me cuz it's like hey I've played the innocent and trying to figure it all out and I've and I've tried to make myself look older than I am on the last album figure out right but on this record it's like hang on I'm going to buy you stuff and I'm going to buy the clothes and I'm going to leave them on the and by

the way buyer so much stuff killed me that was so such a good line such a like it's a craving not a crush but the buyer so much stuff was such a funny like it's just such a like actually a feeling right like I could oh I could buy her so much stuff like oh my God think about all the things I could buy yeah and line has very little to do with money and a lot to do with just like wanting to give somebody stuff the line that is like bad guy grew up and

go money uhhuh is like I'll put the clothes oh yeah that's just control right right uh I'll run a shower for you leave the clothes clothes on the coun on the counter for you if I'm allow exact and then it's like oh but hang on it's all cool like it's such an it's a fascinating song thanks and it's it's one of those moments where I think it's you at your playful best playing the character that's why I bought a back guy it is the character and everyone so obsessed with the legitimacy of the lyrics but

it's like hang on you're missing the point this is all I know that's kind of this is the other this is the other you know not to compare art or to bmer stuff that we're proud of but I think one of our big um goals on this record when we were looking back at everything we'd ever made was like I think if you can be funny you can be so much more serious I think if you wow I think if you are always this serious it starts to lose meaning and stop impacting you then your

vulnerability is like if you're if you're only ever being vulnerable if you're not Dynamic you can't you know yeah and I think that like one of the things that I'm so y happy about in retrospect when I listen to when we all fall asleep is all this humor humor that we were trying to hit and then it's I think that happier than ever was one of the ones where we we were taking ourselves a little too seriously lot of f so lot of fart again this is the deal it's like there's stuff I'm very grateful

to on that album but we we were we had no interest in trying to tell jokes this this is that thing that you know people say about like when you start to embrace cringe you're so much happier you have so much more fun but we talked a little bit about happier than ever in the last conversation it didn't make you in because we wanted to focus on the song but um I think I said some you on the lines of like that album was sacrificial in the most beautiful way it gave its life for you

to continue making records I mean I said a couple months ago that happier than ever walked so that hit me hard and S that's right you know about the world that you were in when we were all in when you were making we made happier than we were like maybe we're never going to play a show again that was like where we were at making that album the whole first album was like I want Billy to run out on stage at Coachella and play bad guy like that was like the the things that we were

thinking about you know and I think that happier than ever we actually made from a place of like I mean no one we haven't seen a friend in months you know and this album again was like an self- explanation and also like not to not to sort of back catalog too much I'm I'm sure several years from now we'll be looking at this album in a retrospective way and that's just the way it is but I think that I'm glad that you're pointing all that stuff out like I think lunch to me it's like yeah

if you can throw some jokes in there totally cuz otherwise why would you write a song check it out you you're a kid and you write these songs some of them are really honest and vulnerable you don't know you're on the record also first song title skinny second song title lunch I didn't up on that that pretty funny that was funny when we figured that out funny okay that's good it's a l you don't know that you know you're going to be on the record and the world is going to start listening to your songs

Through the context of who you actually are and then the characters in the real human being will blur into one weird perception yeah you lose all idea and if you figure that out with all the with the world watching I wonder why anyone shows up at all I really wanted the songs to not be like oh I know what that's about right you know I I think that that we live in such a world where like everyone knows everything beef right it's true everyone is aware of the beef that Happ and aware of the people

that don't like each other and aware of this and that people put songs out especially in the pop world and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it necessarily but it's just we live in a world of like you put a song somebody puts a song out and everyone's like so this is who this is about and this is the entire story of what happened and it's like doesn't even give the listener a chance to interpret it how they want to interpret it and how they naturally hear it and that I find really frustrating I

don't want to hear hear a song that I'm like oh my God every single lyric I'm like oh my oh my God like this is about that person that I know exactly be gross I think you shouldn't listen to lunch and think about who Billy wants to eat for lunch you should think about who you want to eat for lunch that's the whole deal like that's but that's the whole that's a metaphor y'all that's not like that's why I said it's a metaphor but I just mean that it's like I'm I don't I don't listen

to like I don't listen to a song about love and think about being in love do you know what I mean yeah I don't listen to the luckiest by Ben Folds and think about his wife I think about who I'm in love with that's the deal what you've done together as producers on this record is so exceptional when the AR comes in and I hear the op for the first time it's like damn V got the op out the AR why am I not surprised it's the most beautiful sounding AR of my entire life it's

so perfect I know it's going to drop off a cliff and intermediately I can't wait for that moment right and it so funny it it just to me what it say that was the one of the coolest moments of the whole album when you were there when we created that yeah can you describe that cuz I know how I felt when I heard it I don't even remember the it was multiple moments because there's multiple parts and it kind of it turned into like many things but that song has no discernable structure you know apart

from the open up the door at the beginning and the end everything is a yesterday I was plotting out the music video and I was like okay wait this part okay wait but then there's this part but then okay wait but then so so much song I mean it's also 5 minutes long I don't remember if we had the I don't know you at all thing yet but I remember I remember very well Phineas playing around with this production and I had the handheld mic and I was like improvising they like here grab that handheld

just to just to show it off yeah this is and this is the mic you record the whole album this is the mic we wrote basically the entire album on and so basically what we did we had never done this before either um I would sit here here I can pull up the sound if you're interested but this is how we wrote everything and I actually just okay so I filmed pretty much the entire making of the album on this camera and my phone I was just watching the footage back and it was so amazing

to see and there's this one many videos but there's this one video where I'm sitting there like this holding this and Phineas is coming up with what is one of the coolest produced songs of ours in my opinion and he's just like making it up and he's like you know that one part and I literally go impro I'm just improviser and I watched my I had I don't even I don't have any memory of this and I just went like and that's when you told me you was serious were you serious it's like just just

came right out and I had no idea and then I immediately was like open up the door can you open up the door and pH was like I left open up the door was was open up the door open up the door was a huge win was I have a video of the the the making of and it comes up a few times in the album for that reason it's it's a beautiful image because it's actually such a pure request it's such a simple request I know and it's ambiguous and I love an ambiguous line

yeah in my head your childhood bedroom then you saw the world like on Fast Forward no time to have fun really just like have this award just throwing them me with these Awards right and then and then it's like when I heard that up I was like going to actually have fun like it sounded like this could be the beginning of you going out and going clubbing and having a good time and living some life and that's what I got out of that song a big part of I would say 40 you want me to

turn I just wanted to yeah so this is how we recorded the this is how all the vocals of this song yeah all the vocals on to Hero were in the room with this with like the feedback from the speakers in the room so like I actually have so you actually have the if you if you separate everything the I have the is I have the isolated vocals from the song and it's basically the song cuz the speakers were just we didn't use headphones we were just kind of we didn't invent this by the way

not at all but it was extremely useful so I and it's a really really really useful writing uh tool for for me especially like it's a lot easier for me to perform than you can slap like this has verb on it doing both and then you can also put like a bunch of bunch of delay I think this song also had a bunch of delay on it a bunch uh birds of a feather which was also a lot of it written on a handheld even though we ultimately re-recorded those book it was all written on

a handheld um but that but you put some you put some delay on it I mean I was going out a lot on the you know over the course of making this album and it was super I'm such a dork that I never you know been invited any cool and I was really enjoying uh the music I loved through a sort of a lens of dancing to it you know I've never made music that I'm then going to go dance to ever love that the main thing we would say every time we would make anything

is like can this is this danceable and you mean before we ever heard from anything from you two like oceaniz literally dance classes like lit like how is this going to be to a dance class is it are the dancers going to like this like that's all I used to think about and then for many years it kind of became more things than that and whatever and I kind of forgot that and I feel like during this I was like we need to go back to that it's great it opens up the door to a

whole world and it open and it just it it I feel like hey I don't have to be afraid anymore that art just signals a whole new wide open space we're also merciless with time we're you know if a song that's 3 and 1/2 minutes long is more concise and better at 2 minutes 50 seconds like let's get it there but I think the the fun part about the dance thing and again like I don't want to act like I'm Reinventing the wheel here but it was an appreciation for these long pieces because you're dancing

to them you know it being able to stretch out and collaborate in different ways and not just through the lens of the words and the performance but also to work together on how you can make the instrumentation just breathe and live it's been such a beautiful part of this record but but you know then you hit us with birds of a feather okay birds of a feather is like hands down the best pop song you've ever made my opinion and it is such a joy to listen to it makes me happy and cry at the

same time it reminds me so much of like Wham and George just it's like the best Wham song ever made they never made much love to George Michael yeah but you know what I mean that moment when and also we hear you sing you reach a place in that vocal where you go to the day and you go there it's like pop yearning I haven't heard you go I've never heard you s sing like that well and also that ending where I'm like day that I drift off in the space just kept going that that's

like the highest I've ever belted in my life and I remember being in here and being I was in here alone in the dark dark period of time and I was just like I going to get this right and I was recording that like till the day that I die till the light leaves my eyes and then I was like you know what I'm going to I'm going to try something okay till the day and I'm like I die I could just hold it or I could go till the day I die and then I

was like dude I'm going to have to going and I literally was like and I just was like kept going and then I was like I got this one I'm going to just hit the higher one and this is a girl that like I could not belt until I was literally 18 like I couldn't physically do it and I can't I'm like so proud of that I remember coming home and being like Mom I came yeah I came downstairs and this is also the fun thing about like like gradually over the last album I was

teaching her a little bit of this but I was like she has such a good ear and I'm just a like puppet when it comes to comping her vocal because she's so meticulous and I can comp a vocal no prop I've been doing it forever but like she got better and better at knowing like I liked this take and I like this word from this take and like this word and so I just like well let me teach you how to do this it's not that hard and so I taught her how to record herself

and how to comp herself I'd get a call to come downstairs she's like something's wrong come downstairs and fix it but one of the reasons I did it is cuz I've always recorded alone and there's stuff that I am just not brave enough to do in front of somebody else and it's like I know I'm her brother but it's like oh I could never have done that with in the room yeah and also probably probably some other take in there you were like I hate this even though you got the one take that you killed

I think that really Shines on this album as like a person even without their collaborator in the room doing the bravest thing ever and then play this really quick yeah yeah [Music] so good I was really luing so in that moment before you before you go up that final note right which is hi hi are you cuz you've held the the second to penultimate note for quite long time are you in the moment saying to yourself you just going have to go for it yeah I was like I'm I'm just going to try it I

was like I might blow it but I'm going to just have to try it and I did it okay W Wildflower W wo yeah tell me what your thoughts are well Wildflower is is I me I have thoughts and and but I don't want to try not to be too literal with them but first of all it's one of the most brilliantly complete songs you ever made together the whole way that you sign off on start and sign off and everything in between is is um pretty Flawless in terms of capturing a really complex feeling

um it it has one of the most devastatingly sad lines about loving it of all time which is I know that you love me you don't to remind me that cut me in pieces because the reminding you is the point I know it's the point I I know you don't need me to tell you but I want to tell you because it's it's what makes you want to tell me and that's the connection to cut someone off and say I already know you don't have to is like well what the is left my interpretation again

which I love everyone's interpretation of lines like this to me it was that's not going to change how I feel I already huh I already know this and I'm not waiting for you to say it I know it implicitly and I still in the back of my mind thing but it's not going to change the way I feel I feel something for someone else and well it's more like like I'm not asking for reassurance I am 100% confident that you love me I know this that's not the problem the problem is this thing that I

can't shake but it's really interesting because it was kind of onesided like it was that's why I need that's why it was really important to write for me because I I actually came up with the um I see her in the back of my mind all the time that with that Melody I came up with that like as soon as I felt it like like this was like I wasn't even writing much at the time and that that line I came up with remember that you came I came in here and I was like dude

I have this line and I but but of course I couldn't really get what I needed cuz I wasn't being super honest with myself and whatever but um what was so like important about the song is that it was a feeling that I was experiencing that I think I was alone in and I think that the person that I that the song is kind of to and then the person I'm also talking about I don't know if they have they had been experiencing any of those feelings at all but I couldn't stop thinking about it

you know and it's kind of like that whole song is kind of like a it's like a girl code song it's like a breaking Girl Code thing and I think that that's one of the most challenging places is that where the the line got AC cross the line yeah yeah yeah it was really interesting that line as well because accountability has been a through line in your music holding people accountable as well as your own behavior but that's one of first times I've ever heard you actually acknowledge a flaw I know yeah I did something

you know I and I feel anxious about it deeply yeah and it's not a song about cheating at all there's like no no cheating all it doesn't feel there's any physical activity or any in that regard but definitely internally it has nothing to do the thing is it's about something that didn't wasn't even bad like it was just something I couldn't stop I couldn't get out of my head you know I I love that song that is like well it's in the middle all the best it's in the middle it's in the middle and it

was also like I don't know we wrote it it kind of helped me realize it one of the first full songs we'd written was like really one of the first couple it really helped me realize like what was what I what I was feeling and what I was going through and being like oh maybe this is actually affecting me more than I thought yeah cuz then you know the the idea of I I see in the back of my mind like a fever you know the funny thing is we never forget our fevers as kids

at least I yeah really don't don't forget your fevers it's like wow I remember when I had a fever when I was 3 years old you know it's one of the earliest memories I had and so it's it's a very visceral image the idea of this thing you cannot put out I love that song for so many reasons and I think what's what I love about it is that it's such a like tortured over thinky song it's like a song that's just like dude I can't stop thinking about it and it just kind of I

feel like it it's portrayed the more the song goes on and like when I when I start to like sing the second chorus and like go up with it and then it turns into this kind of bigger moment with the drums and everything yeah and then it comes back down and then you have the ending chorus that's similar as the main one instead it says do you see her in the back of your mind in my eyes like classic turn around that right right right we had to hit him with that and then you think

it's over and then we got a little repre and I was very very happy about that I love a little outro after after thought but also that we that happened because I just wanted like a bridge to happen underneath the like guar can I cross the line cuz there's not much going on there and I we wrote that little bit and I was like that's I think that's so beautiful that it needs to have its own it needs to be heard on its own let's talk about the greatest I just think that that's a song

that just reflects how far you've come and where you sit now in your ability to be able to push each other that's a really special one for us I think that to to us the greatest is kind of like the heart of the album and the just it it really completes the whole thing I think and also when we made it that was like the turning point that kind of everything went pretty well after that everything went very well after that it just kind of woke us back there also we wrote it when Billy had

her like I think Billy went from living life to understanding in that moment can you qualify what you think phas means by that a little bit I don't know it's what I was saying earlier it's like really hard to to see what's going on until it's over it's well until after yeah um and I think that this was like the first day really that I was able to be honest and I was like scared to be honest before that and also you know it's really hard to [Music] feel hurt by someone who you love so

much and who is a some like like a person you'd like almost die for like a person who you really have no ill will to like complete like I don't know it's a it's a tough thing but when you realize you're willing to go somewhere that someone else isn't it's so devastating and everybody has been in some dynamic in their life or their relationship like that but like when you realize that you'd you know sacrifice and wear yourself out and compromise all these things and you realize that you're the person you're in love with is

not making those sacrifices and is not in that area to me that's what that song is about it's like so kind of like you don't even you don't even want to know how lonely this is yeah because that's the that's the true nature of the song it's such a journey it it's like when you're at your best the two of you you're able to take something really complex and human that takes people books to write and put it into four or five minutes of a song it's What It's what really sets you apart and I

and I think that is the the highest point you've been able to do that yeah I mean that is really what that song is about it and I think the ending of it that's my favorite part of the song is that ending because because I think it's infuriating when you look at a person and you look at all these things that the person is so amazing at somebody that's like ktic and really loving and really special and just the areas where they're in their own way that bridge is I think my favorite Bridge we've made

and then those lyrics which is they're they're so simple and they're some of my favorites in the world and also the way that I sang them and who knows they are is it it's so to me every time I listen to it it's so it's so gut so emotional cathartic just I loved you and I still do just wanted passion from you oh my God I just wanted back what you just wanted what I gave I gave what I gave you and then I waited and wa I luded this a little bit and now we're

going to go there um L more um L more is brutal know L MO is just brutal it's so it's brutal so many so many ways yeah we got when we were writing that that's a good example of like there's kernels of life in there but we the song started to to exist in a way where we could see it it had less to do with like you know writing about this exact experience that happened and more to do with like sure sometimes you can see what a it's like a song Stell the song is

like archaeology you're like I'm going to I'm going to brush away until you see the skull of the dinosaur I remember writing the chorus and us just being like meaner and like it just got so mean and then the verses were about kind of like how do we justify how up and mean that choruses and then the bridge is so the bridge is so dismissive the bridge of lam more the bridge of the bridge of LaMore is the opposite of the bridge of the greatest oh so you found her go fall in love just like

we were I even if I even was like I I don't even know if I was it's very out of the pocket of what we know you for and there's a re reason for that and I love all the there's reasons for that and I love it and the one that I want to focus on right now which I love is um I love that it sounds like you're actually doing your first ever guest spot on someone else's it toally does you know what happened and I remember this happening Billy had come in and was

like on this like she'd like she was like Juiced she came in from the from the gym she was like I need something to something to lift to or whatever for real and we made this thing it was and she started screaming in the mic we thre autotune on it so F and we had this thing where like the Melodies we liked and the vibe was so kind of outrageous and it was a little like uh yeah we were so we were in a pool that was not we jumped in the Neighbor's Pool you know

what I mean well also we we we were just at that time we had just come up with like random lyrics that were like totally nonsensical and not about anything and I remember we had this feeling once we started to kind of cuz I love a a production tapestry for a record there are sound there are like drum sounds and since that I I put across the whole album and so things like over now which is what we we're not putting that on the album I was like we're not putting that out and I was

like if we do I'll reproduce it in a place where it's like maybe it's the same tempo but it feels more in the same wheelhouse of everything and ultimately like I kept sitting with it and I remember saying to Billy one time I was like the bravest thing we can do is just put it out like this like just put it out put it like on the end of something that that is completely different and just have it be a little secret at the end you know not put it out as its own thing and

it was like minute and a half and also so short it's what's funny is it's it feels like it's part of lam more but it's completely not it's like about a completely different thing that we cuz we we made the original one in I think like November October October um and then we rewrote it in like right before we finished was like one of the last things over a year later it sort of stemmed from the album in in all it's just about Billy it's not a narrative album about a fictional character or something but

we have always loved like songs within songs within songs like a thing where it's like is this a song that the person singing this other song is listening to now you know what I mean and it kind of has that feeling you've kind of just listened to Billy sort of sing she's so heartbroken in the greatest and then she sings this song that's like the anti the antibody of like you know what you anyway and then she kind of found all these different yes but then she kind of goes she kind of goes to the

club yeah it's like it's I'm ready to go out I'm ready to have a good time I've still got you in the back of my mind but I'm going to dance my way through this and this is how it's going to go has it changed your approach to to how you show up on other people's songs um cuz that's rare and yet when I hear it on that I'm like is this the start of of like there's a lot of freedom in your life right now I get a sense that you're like hey man I'm

not as afraid as I was yeah and life is wide open for me we um we did a session with another artist I did a session with another arti artist for the first time in six years holy when was this couple weeks cleeks ago it was so fun and it was really fun and I was really nervous cuz I was like wow I I I I haven't worked with anyone but Phineas in six years and I hated it back in the day I really really hated it I hated Studios I hated collaborating I've never done

a feature even when we do stuff like the Labyrinth thing that's like a person we love who we're friendly with sort of sending us files across the internet priv fully a pen pal situation and he sends it and if we come up with nothing good then it goes away right yeah this was a this was to me like such a fun part of like being in the music business was like Billy was sitting and telling me why she loved this one artist we were watching their music videos together and I know them and I was

texting them and I was like we're sitting here watching your stuff it's so good they were like I'm in La I was like do you want to do a day did your stomach chin when you're like wow yeah trying to get out of it like why are you making me do that what are you talking about what you talk the stuff yeah Billy's whole relationship with music has been so high stakes empathize I make stuff with people so much and the stakes are so low in terms of like we make something we noodle around we

like it or we don't it never goes anywhere whatever Billy is like Billy is like sitting in front of a microphone it's the two of us in a room and she has to think is like I'm going I'm going to have to go out on every stage for the next 50 years and sing this song every day well and also you know becoming successful at like 14 meant that music which was for my whole childhood and my all my pre-teen years before anything was something that I loved so much and enjoyed thoroughly and you know

my friends would sing We would sing together and we would harmonize and do covers of stuff and record it and I I got so much joy out of that and then it became my job and I kind of lost all my friends and I hated working with all these you know grown men when I was 14 15 those were not fun those were not fun I don't know why they would have been but you know I I I literally like realized a couple months ago in hanging out with my my friends and just casually casually

together being Musical and and making music I was like wait this is my passion in life and I love doing this so much and also I'm really good at it I'm a professional musician apparently like I like I'm like oh apparently apparently but I was like I'm like oh wait I'm I'm I'm actually I'm a professional musician I didn't I like don't think about that and I'm I'm I haven't enjoyed it in a really long time and and I'm like and even when I do when we make music I enjoy it but it's not for

enjoyment it's for the making of it and for the putting it out and and to the point like you can enjoy something but we take it really seriously we want to make something great Ser so I never really get to have fun with it and so I found myself in my living room with two of my friends and we were all just playing music and I literally like was going to cry I was like you guys have no idea how much this means to me like the thing that everyone probably assumes is like something all

day I don't really get to enjoy making music like that the conversation seems to be flowing beautifully from one thing to the next because yeah the idea of being free and being able to go out there and make music that gets away from what it was kind of what the din sounds like to me I think the nature of the music and I think the creepiness of the words conjures up a sense of there's an unhinged nature to this song and being human yeah at its very core is kind of an unhinged experience for sure

right so you're really diving into something that defies any conventional logic or understanding in this song it's like why am I even in this song what is going on well I it was yeah and I think that now that I think about it it's a big it was like a a very un unperfected song like it was we kind of yeah we it didn't really change much from where it started in fact that we kept we kept cleaning it up too much and then putting dirt true we would clean it up and be like this

is better when it's rock even the the actual sound of the beat she one of Billy's cool like Loi things that we do is like sometimes I'll be like do you want me to bounce this today she'll go no it's okay and she'll film the computer screen that's what I did for all these other amazing so you're listening to it through iPhone coming through the speakers it's not even I'll take a video with the screen love the slap of the room has a lot of Life yeah and so Billy would then we'd be listening to

then I would bounce it and Billy be like it sounds really sterile it doesn't have AAP sound like my phone and so I I've done that so the beat on that song I reamped so I like set up mics in the room and then played it through the room and then reamped it so a big thing which is also on over now which is the end of L more is the handheld mic we were talking about had this like delay on it and when I was recording at one point I put the mic down and

it was picking up yeah it was feedback it was a lot of feedback and I was like tight and I just hit record and like let it stood to speak so that's why the a guitarist do feedback just holding the mic next to the speaker the production where it started you know we kind of had fun with it and we came up with all that weird stuff and then I remember kind of over time I was like is this like too like silly like is this not serious enough like you know I kind of felt

like it was this is weird to say but it was almost like Billy iishi I was like bil beat yeah be I was like is this a little like that maybe but I was like it's kind of tight though the way that that works you know as as a body of work we couldn't ask for more truth and honesty and also character development which as we've established just so good at in the grand scheme are you are you too close to be able to identify yet but what does this album afford you in the future

where does it allow you to go great question you know I I have a I have a part answer before I feel like you should give a more real answer but I was like I saw this interview years ago with Fiona Apple that was an old interview even then wasn't present day where she was like you should finish an album and feel like you got nothing left yeah and I super felt that way when we finished it and it's been done now that's our whole thing yeah it's been done now for 5 months I guess

about yeah we just felt like we'd given it everything we had and that felt great like it felt great to not have stuff still on the table um and I think that we have like you know we did a session a couple weeks ago and we're we have you know more stuff planned but I think exactly what Billy's talking about like I think we're going to like be jamming and having a kind of an experimental you know fun experience like I think other people well I was going to say that you will are you able

to let each other go in the loveliest way possible now knowing that when you come back it's still there for you if you want it to be well I think it's like not even letting each other go but it's opening up to like more you know and I think like Phineas Phineas works with all kinds of different other artists and writes with a bunch of different people and I think that it makes him I come back better the from the very beginning of working with Billy like I remember just to like the first example I

can think of was like I did some session with somebody the day before Billy and I made copycat and I like was suddenly on the spot with this artist and they were like I want drums like this right and I had to do this thing that and then I put the scent on it and was like all this stuff that then the next day when Billy and I sat down to work I was like do you want like here's some of the stuff I was sort of working on yesterday and I think that yeah you

just gain all this experience you know and again like I'd love to be a part of you know all the steps in between with Billy if she wants but I'm also like all of it's good if Billy and her her friends are sitting around sing you know especially like singing anything that you love or just making stuff up it's like it's so exciting um like this was the album I was always trying to make you know what I mean and and I really feel um I'm so proud of it and I don't I'm proud of

it in a way that like been proud of things a couple times where like I my opinion of it does not hinge on anybody it's so meaningful to hear that you love it but like if I heard that privately you were like I don't really get it I'd be like I love Zay and that's fine and I love this album you I mean like to me it's like it's so kind of a validation from within of like I love how making this album felt I love how listening this album feels you know when we first

went into playing it for people and who whoever like I was really nervous and I genuinely had either no idea what people were going to think and if anything I thought like people might not like I don't know if they'll like it and you know I remembering it for the label when it was not done but there were pieces and a lot of it was done like seven or eight songs were right done and but of course we were like it's not done but I remember um like John janick who is the head of my

label was like this is the best thing you've ever made I want to give a shout out to John and Justin because I was I remember when it had when we' finished it we were like we were playing mixes you know what I mean like production was done um and uh and it was like the first time they were hearing several of the songs and only the second time ever that they were hearing the rest of it and we' never said we'd love to know your thoughts we were just like here's the record and Billy

was like with the lighting until it was the perfect color of blue like that was what we were on and everyone was really nice and we sat there and played it as loud as can be for everybody yeah and I sent John a text afterward and I owe this to Justin and John which is I was like it is not lost on me that you let us operate this way because first of all we we know that most labels do not operate that way most people do not operate that way with their artists where they

want to hear it you know what I mean they're fronting you they're fronting you money they're about to commit a huge amount of resources Rel it's a relationship and sometimes people have to feel like they were involved to even like something sometimes people if if you catch them off guard they're like who it's done it's really you know what I mean they have to be there they have to you have to hold their hand yeah and I also said to John I was like we never would have been able to make this album if you'd

done that to us if we'd been having to give you quarterly reports if we'd been having to like keep updating you on it and sending you mixes we would have like we had to make this album in the dark quietly alone and and to a degree that Billy talked about earlier in the day we weren't even bouncing it to each other that's what I'm you silent one of the if not the first question I asked you is what would you have said to each other if you'd walked in eight years ago whenever it was into

that bedroom and you were making that debut album and I think you've done it I think I think you're still there but you're here if that this might be what we'd say we might say this album yeah that's what I'm saying I I I think youve somehow recaptured that spirit that you had on in those early days and come back home come back to a place but it's like all still possible you know what's possible now with the knowledge and experience of the last five or six years you know what I also have as a

piece of advice to give to anyone watching this that makes any form of Art and maybe you feel this way I'm so relieved that I feel so great about this album because there were weeks on end of making it where I was like I think we've lost it that's what I'm saying and that like I think sometimes you think while you're making something that it has to feel good in the moment to end up good you know what I mean that's so true don't get stuck on that it's hard not to feel that way you

think this feels I feel so out of my comfort zone I feel so vulnerable that's fine what is to to it while you make it to love it while you make it is fart that's a fart that's right that's a fart a little bit of fear is good in that moment it yeah I mean I think I saw a video of us writing what was I made for and there's not one single moment while we wrote it where we were like wow that was good we're just doing the job like okay and okay that line

all right what's the next line that's fear fear it's fear do the best work creating you know it doesn't you don't have to be like okay so what's this album Fe or F fear it's fear and it's growth and it's you know discomfort but also comfort and you know growing and learning and and experiencing and that is all fear I mean what's scarier than changing what is scar oh my god well you know that's part of that's part of the experience of life is to is to accept that you really can't and and and it's

the letting going in the moving forward is that is that all you can really focus on and trust you got the tools to deal with it cuz trust me it's all deal with aable people who talk about and look at their college experience or their High School experience is like this like unbridled period of Joy or whatever like I have so much empathy for like this thing that you cannot get back build again because it's a moment in time I have so much empathy for all the kids that like lost all that to covid you

know what I mean like it's really challenging why did you say what you said at the end of the album um that's great just end it that's Fire end just end done as soon as the album was mastered I was like I want to do the Zan interview I glad you wanted to do we never do this this is f enjoy this you know thank you crew that yeah thanks guys