After three albums entirely produced by Finneas, Billie Eilish is learning how to produce on her own.
In a recent interview with Guitar.com, Finneas — who has been the sole producer of all of the pop megastar’s music and collaborates with her on songwriting — wanted to clear up the misconception that all of the pair’s earliest music was made on a laptop.
“We like guitar!” he asserted, citing 2017’s Don’t Smile At Me EP and some of her debut album with having live instrumentation.
Finneas, 27, also revealed that he’s letting go of the reins a bit when it comes to production.
“I’ve been setting up Billie’s recording studio for her so she can do home production without me, because she’s very good at it!” he told the publication. “And it’s funny, I’ve been giving her, like, the bare minimum of stuff, just so that she learns it all.”
Referring to his humble beginner recording setup, Finneas said he is very “unsnobby” about his gear.
“I’m like ‘Listen, I could give you all the stuff that I use now, but it took me years to even have a use for it. And, if I give you this basic thing, it’ll make sense to you right away,’” the Grammy winner said.
During a spicy wing face-off on Hot Ones in July, the sibling duo opened up about the recording process behind Hit Me Hard and Soft and the tension that comes with being such close collaborators.
“I think the longest, biggest argument was during a period of transition in maybe both of our lives where we were just trying to be kind of honest,” Finneas said. He also admitted to being “high and mighty” about pushing Eilish to be more “authentic.”
“I learned a lot from being too egocentric in that process,” he added.
In a May interview with Zane Lowe, Finneas revealed that he wanted to quit production. Instead of fighting back, Eilish understood exactly where he was coming from.
“I was like, ‘I have felt that way and you have always been the thing that keeps the ship moving, and now you feel that way. What does that mean for us? And what are we going to do?’”
The dynamic duo still knows how to work well together. Earlier this month on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Eilish, 22, shared a clip of her and Finneas in the back of an SUV on their way to a show in Brazil where the siblings worked on an early version of “Birds of a Feather.”
“That song never felt right,” she said. “It’s such an old version of the song that I don’t even really remember and it sounds so different and it’s just really amazing to see how far the song has come.”
Eilish was recently named Spotify’s most-streamed monthly artist, raking in over 100 million listeners a month.