FINNEAS

Don’t call FINNEAS a bedroom producer. Yes, he’s made records in bedrooms. But he’s also made them in cars, and on planes, and, per an interview honouring him and his sister Billie Eilish as the Apple Music Awards’ Songwriters of the Year for 2019, just offstage, like, 10 minutes earlier. But there’s a reason the tag sticks. No matter where he opens his laptop, FINNEAS—whether solo, with his sister or in collaboration with artists like Justin Bieber or Halsey—has helped bring to mainstream pop a hominess and intimacy more associated with indie and alternative music, collapsing the gap between DIY project and gold record. Born Finneas O’Connell in 1997, he started making music as a kid, playing in bands and working on solo music before beginning to collaborate seriously with his sister around 2015. In 2019, he produced and co-wrote Eilish’s game-changing WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, an arty, nightmarish—and multiplatinum—piece of modern pop that basically redefined the genre. By the end of the year, he’d gotten back to working on solo music, releasing his debut EP, Blood Harmony. In an interview with Apple Music in 2020, he talked about how he used to email producers and engineers as a teenager, hoping to learn the secret. Of course, there wasn’t one—something he tries to hammer home when talking to fans who aspire to make music of their own. “It’s just time and sweat,” he says. “Just doing it over and over and over until you get a little bit better.”