Billie Eilish

As of February 2018, Billie Eilish’s entire tour—a total of 31 shows that span across Europe and the U.S. through April 7—is completely sold out. That’s quite a statement considering her first ever headline show (that wasn’t exclusively industry people) was only last July in London. She’s also slated to perform at Tennessee’s Bonnaroo Festival in June and Tokyo’s Summer Sonic Festival in August.

Bringing it back to last July 10 at her first show at the London Courtyard Theatre she says, “I love traveling and that specific trip was like a dream to me, especially since the show was sold out, but I've never, never even had anything similar to that happen in my life [up until that point] so it was unbelievable.”

Billie grew up homeschooled, a daughter of two actor and musician parents. At the age of eight she began singing in the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, where both she and her older brother Finneas O'Connell learned singing techniques, although it was mostly choral stuff. It was in this choir that Billie learned the proper way to sing to not ruin her voice, and she says she owes a lot to the choir as everything she uses, even music theory, was learned there. She and Finneas also gained experience with songwriting at a once weekly program called WISH. Some of the WISH classes were things like cooking and sewing, but Billie’s mom taught an in-demand songwriting class, which taught the basics, not rules, of songwriting; things like where to begin, the structure, and how to get creative with it. One of the assignments Billie’s mom gave her was to watch a movie or a show and write down certain lines she thought were good hooks, good titles, or good names. Billie chose her favorite show at the time, The Walking Dead, and her first song “Fingers Crossed” was based around the apocalypse and unintentionally came out as a love song.

For Billie, she never really “started” singing and performing, she was just constantly singing or making noise or creating wherever and whenever. She says that since she was surrounded by creativity and art, “there was no way to not be creating in that house. There was not a moment where I wasn't making something.” She never had a thought cross her mind that being some sort of artist was something she should “pursue,” since it was already so prominent in her life. “I had so much time that I enjoyed—it wasn't like I was bored and I had so much time—I had time to actually create and make things, like when there's nothing you have to do, your mind can wander, and if you let it wander, it can turn into something crazy. I just used to let myself do that.”

Billie’s dad used to make mixtapes of everything he liked—early 2000’s alt rock like Avril Lavigne, Linkin Park, Green Day—but the Beatles were also huge in their household. Billie then found her way into newer alt rock like Plain White T’s and Twenty One Pilots before being swept off her feet around the age of 12 by the rap and hip hop genres. The latter two are so impressive to her because of the many references amongst the rhymes and flows. She likes the rap that’s just for fun and doesn't mean anything, but what she was really sold on are the songs in which audiences really have to listen to the lyrics to understand them, the reference, after reference, after reference that make you stop and think.

Along with listening to hip hop, Billie loves dancing to it. But back in 2016 while in a more advanced level dance class, she strained her growth plate, which is only something that can happen if you’re under 16. Dance has still played a huge part in Billie’s life, and you could say dance class was how Billie has now become so recognized as the next big female pop star: her track “Ocean Eyes” started out as a track that Finneas—who also produces— wrote for his band, but when he brought it to her and she sang it, they both loved the outcome and it was stuck in Billie’s head for weeks. As fate would play out, her dance teacher asked if she could record a song for a choreography and send it to him.

As a result, “Ocean Eyes” went up on Soundcloud in October of 2015 and when the two siblings woke up, they had a flurry of emails and new plays awaiting them.

That wasn’t the first time the siblings released music online. They had originally put out two songs for fun, one that Finneas wrote and one that Billie wrote. They never had any expectations for either of those songs, and they felt the same way about “Ocean Eyes.” Therefore they were in disbelief when the latter gained traction, and when it hit 100K plays they were overjoyed and didn’t think it could get any better.

A main reason the siblings often collaborate on tracks instead of working with others on a session, Billie says, is to not lose that connection between what you want to say and what you're just saying to be polite. “When you're writing a song with someone, you kind of need to have some sort of bond or connection or trust.” Since her and her brother have always had that bond, they just get each other. She says that writing with him is so much easier than writing with a random person or someone that she doesn’t know very well. “I think it's always been that way and we can be honest with each other and not get insanely hurt by it. Of course, we have feelings and we'll express our feelings, maybe some things won't make us as happy as others.”

Being sad, Billie says, isn’t too unusual for her: “I've been through a lot of depression throughout the years for many sorts of reasons, and a lot just for no reason, just because my head and whatever. That has obviously been a big part of songwriting because it's inspired by thoughts and that’s what my thoughts evolve around.”

Another big motivation in Billie’s writing, she says, are “stupid boys who are aware of what they're doing, but they pretend they're not aware. A lot of dumb situations where I've been used or whatever; all of the above I've been treated in any way you can think of.” She says this helps her writing because she can include all the horrible emotions that go into these relationships. One example is how her song “My Boy” started: “I ran into my brother's room and I just shouted, ‘my boy is being sus!’ and he was like ‘haha, I'm going to write that.’ Then I just stayed in his room and we just wrote the song basically, all around that fact, that my boy was being suspicious.” Another track of hers, “Bored,” was inspired by being trapped in a relationship that was going nowhere. She says that it’s about being in such a toxic place in a relationship where you’re treated so terribly for so long, you become accustomed to it, and it just gets boring. That track was on the soundtrack on Netflix’s series “13 Reasons Why” and was released last year. Her debut EP don’t smile at me was released last August via Darkroom/Interscope, who she signed with in 2016.

Photography provided by Interscope Records | Interview by Heather Hawke