{"id":540874,"date":"2026-06-18T02:43:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T02:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/540874\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T02:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T02:43:15","slug":"finneas-talks-beef-billie-eilish-the-evolution-of-record-producers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/540874\/","title":{"rendered":"Finneas Talks ‘Beef,’ Billie Eilish & the Evolution of Record Producers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFinneas<\/a> O\u2019Connell is one of modern music\u2019s most respected pop<\/a> producers. After first becoming known as the producer<\/a> for his younger sister, Billie Eilish<\/a>, he\u2019s gone on to become a trusted collaborator for a variety of talents including Justin Bieber<\/a>, Halsey<\/a>, Kid Cudi<\/a> and Ashe<\/a>. As a solo artist, Finneas has released two albums including 2024\u2019s For Cryin\u2019 Out Loud! and 2025\u2019s The Dream and crafted original songs and scores for film and television.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the latest episode of On the Record, Finneas talks about the evolution of record production as an art form all the way back from the days of tape recording to now, when recording is cheap and accessible to all. He explains his own evolution as a producer over the last decade, dating back to his rise during the SoundCloud era to his latest project and how he applies his skills to craft the score for the newest season of the hit TV show, Beef. <\/p>\n

\n\tCheck out the full episode of\u00a0On the Record\u00a0below on YouTube, or check it out on other podcast platforms\u00a0here<\/a>. Read a condensed and edited portion of the conversation below.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a Quincy Jones quote where he says, essentially, that the record producer is like the director of film. Do you find that to be accurate for you doing this role today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tFinneas:<\/strong> Yeah, I think of that as the same. I also [think] the artist should be the other director of the film. I think that maybe there are artists that are really put together by a committee, and they are given songs that they haven\u2019t written, they\u2019re put in outfits that they didn\u2019t choose, and maybe that\u2019s a different thing, because I would make that analogous to a movie star. But when I work with an artist, I let them be a director over me. If I\u2019m a director, they\u2019re the superior director, because it\u2019s my job to sort of go like, \u201cYeah, I don\u2019t know, between those two, I like this one better,\u201d but at the end of the day, they\u2019re going to go off and play the song every day for 20 years, so I want them to like it even more than I like it.<\/p>\n

\n\tI imagine there are some artists you work with that don\u2019t have production savvy, so they might struggle to articulate what they\u2019re looking for. Is that a challenging position for you as a producer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThere are pros and cons to the lack of technical vernacular, and I\u2019ve said this to Billie a lot lately, because Billie, over the course of the three albums we\u2019ve made, I\u2019ve hipped her to more and more of her own vocal engineering, because she\u2019s got a great ear, and it just makes her life 20 seconds faster all the time\u2026 One of the things I said to her like a year ago was, one of the challenges with the more you know is the less you imagine, I think. So what I want is for an artist to just be purely imaginative. <\/p>\n

\n\tIf Billie goes, \u201cI want it to sound like the vocal is falling apart,\u201d that\u2019s such a metaphoric way to put that, and then I get to interpret it, and I get to be like, okay, what would I do to achieve that? And then I play it for her, and then she goes like, \u201cYeah, but I want it to start earlier. I want it to feel more broken,\u201d and then I interpret that. I think I love the interpretive quality of being a producer. And so I think sometimes, the more educated you are, the more you\u2019re like, \u201cThrow some delay on that,\u201d and I\u2019m like, yeah, but that\u2019s less exciting. It\u2019s less open-ended. Sometimes I work with artists who know nothing about instruments, even, and it can be kind of a gift, because you\u2019re like, cool, I\u2019ll play by your interesting description that I would never think of.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m curious, what do you think about the Rick Rubin style of production, where he basically claims to be there to provide his taste, not technical ability?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s made work that I\u2019m really inspired by. I\u2019m a little confused by his kind of \u2014 he swears that he knows nothing at all about music, and it\u2019s like, just Google Rick Rubin, Johnny Cash. There are many videos of him setting up the mics. He doesn\u2019t know nothing. I think what I assume he means by that, and I respect this, is similarly to what I\u2019ve said before: There are a lot of people that know a lot more than I do. I don\u2019t know the most, but I also don\u2019t know nothing.<\/p>\n

\n\tI think he\u2019s probably underestimating himself a bit because he\u2019s likely around people who are so technically proficient that he feels he can\u2019t say that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI think it\u2019s an effective \u2014 I think I try to do the same thing, which is, I don\u2019t want to make people feel like it isn\u2019t achievable. I think that you don\u2019t want to intimidate somebody out of trying to make something by way of, \u201cI have my 10,000 hours, I know so much, you\u2019ll never know as much as I do.\u201d So I like that about that. I also think that the other thing that he really does, and I\u2019m sure he is happy to talk about this, is he provides this environment. And I think that environment is incredibly important to me. I sometimes do think that, similarly to him, that\u2019s the best thing I can offer some people.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve said that work hard to set a good environment for an artist to come in, feel comfortable and do their best work. You came up with your sister Billie, and I imagine there is such a built-in level of comfort between you two as siblings. When you started working with other people outside of Billie, sometimes people who you had never met before, what was that like? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll ever feel as comfortable around another writer-artist as I do around Billie. I don\u2019t know that I should even try. But that doesn\u2019t mean I haven\u2019t loved working with other artists and made stuff I\u2019m really proud of. Artists often have found a way to pour as much of themselves into a conversation as they can every time. The amount of artists I\u2019ve worked with where I am meeting them, and within an hour and a half I\u2019ve heard truly intimate, vulnerable things \u2014 and what a gift they\u2019re giving me, right? And also, sometimes it\u2019s much like going to a good therapist. It\u2019s not their job to say what happened to me last week. They\u2019re listening to you. So I think that is what I shoot for with other artists, especially. And when I\u2019m working with Billie, I also am trying to not get in the way of writing the best song with her for her album by being like, guess what I was up to yesterday? That\u2019s for later. That\u2019s for our day where we\u2019re not making music. But yeah, with an artist that I\u2019m not close with, I have been really wowed by artists coming in and being like, here is so much of myself laid bare emotionally. That\u2019s a real gift.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe music that is made is often shaped so much by the time we are in and the technology we have at our disposal. You came up during the SoundCloud era. Splice had just become popular, and beat marketplaces were prevalent. Looking back, do you think your early music was shaped at all by the moment you were in?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tAbsolutely. I mean, certainly from what I was inspired to create. There was this kind of surge of minimalistic production, sort of synth-y, bass-y nontraditional percussion \u2014 meaning not a drum kit, but this kind of like bits and things, very vocal-forward, very choral.<\/p>\n

\n\t[Back then, the audio quality online] also sounded bad. The bitrate was really low. You\u2019d watch a video and it was like 480 or whatever. But that was kind of fun. I don\u2019t know \u2014 when stuff sounds degraded, that\u2019s inspiring to me and interesting, because you\u2019re also not shooting for as much perfection. You\u2019re like, yeah, it sounds kind of rough, but so does everything on SoundCloud. Even if you put Daft Punk on SoundCloud, it would sound crunchy. I said to whoever listened [back then] that I wanted to start producing music, and so I was saving up to buy Logic Pro, and it was like $799 or something, and I was saving up, and in a couple months I\u2019d have enough money, right? And then they dropped the price to like $199 and I was like, bro, I can afford this.<\/p>\n

\n\tI wanted to ask about Beef season 2. You did the score for this season, but it\u2019s not your first time working in film\/TV music. Beyond other composition gigs, you\u2019ve had major success with original songs like \u201cNo Time To Die\u201d and \u201cWhat Was I Made For?\u201d How do you compare crafting the original songs versus a score?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a lot of overlap. I think that you\u2019re living in a world and you\u2019re trying to aid the story, and you have these sort of clear goalposts. It\u2019s an assignment. That\u2019s sort of one of the magical parts of making a song with no guidelines is you\u2019re like, who knows? And I love that. But I also love the specificity. I love when we made \u201cNo Time to Die,\u201d to use that as an example. That sounds like a James Bond song. If we put that on a Billie solo record, somebody would be like, song eight sounds like a James Bond theme song, and that\u2019s a good feeling. Similarly, if we were sending a song in for them to consider for James Bond and it just sounded like a totally likable piece of music but had no identity, they\u2019d be like, sure, but what does this have to do with this James Bond film? <\/p>\n

\n\tSo similarly to making the music for Beef, what I\u2019m looking for is an excuse to make a piece of music that I wouldn\u2019t otherwise have an excuse to make. On this job I recorded sprinkler systems and tennis balls getting hit, golf balls getting hit, and lawnmowers and bees and cars and dogs whining and barking. Some of that stuff is at the fore, some of it is so buried that you might not even hear it, but I know it\u2019s there, and it\u2019s weaving itself through the DNA [of the music.]<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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