How Billie Eilish Exploded onto the Music Scene at 13 (FINNEAS’ Ocean Eyes Story)

When you guys, I mean, you write Ocean Eyes, you're 18, I think she was 13 at the time, you make that song and put it on SoundCloud and just kind of take me back to that moment. Like, were you doing it just because you wanted to work with your sister because you liked her voice and you wanted to make music with her? Presumably that was the motivation. I mean, it was, there was no way you could have known that that would actually get you attention. I loved the sound of her voice. I was really excited and passionate about being a producer, and I was begging the people around me to let me be a producer, right? Like, to me, a fundamental part of being a producer is an artist, right? So it's like, who's the person I know the best that's willing to be a surrogate artist with me, you know? My sister, probably. And she's 13, and so she's not going to come in and look at me and be like, you don't know what you're doing, even though I didn't. She's going to be, you know, down for whatever. I write Ocean Eyes. I play it with my band at a couple gigs or one gig. It sounds bad. I don't like how my voice sounds on it. I don't like how real drums and guitars sound on it. But I love the song. I feel really proud of the song. And I go home, and I'm like, I think a girl should sing this song. Hey, Billie, do you want to sing this song? She was like, yeah. So I play it on guitar. She sings it. I think it sounds great. I ask her if I can record it. She says, yeah. She has a dance teacher who's like, we need a song for the recital. So if you guys finish it by X date, this can be the recital song. I'm like, okay, cool. We do it in this kind of, like, alt, synthy, indie vibe. There's, like, very minimal drums, very minimal synths, a lot of vocal layers. That has a lot to do, candidly, with, like, what we were listening to at the time, which are artists like Lapsley, and Silvanesso, and Aurora. So kind of a style that was really influential to us. And we finish recording this song. I go to New York to sleep on a couch and visit my, like, high school girlfriend. She's going to college in New York. And my parents lived in New York and met in New York, basically, before they had kids. So I'm, like, doing that thing that you might do at, like, 18, where you're, like, calling your parents' friends from New York and being like, hey, I haven't seen you in nine years. Can I sleep on your couch? And I have a very vivid memory of being at my dad's friend, Alan Kennedy's apartment. I think it was, like, Alan and his wife and his son, maybe. And he was like, what are you doing? You know, that was, like, the big question. I'm college age. I had no interest in going to college. And so they're like, what's going on? And I was like, I have a very vivid memory of being like, I'm going to play you this song that I produced for my sister. And I played Ocean Eyes. And I remember even in that room of, like, people I didn't really know being like, this is good. Like, that was the feeling that I had. I was like, this kind of slaps. It does. It's a beautiful song. Yeah, we really lucked out. So I go home from New York. I was there for, like, nine days. Go home from New York. I forget the exact day. It was, like, early November, like, November 15th or something like that. It was, like, a Wednesday night. And I was like, should we upload it? I was like, let's upload it tonight. And so we uploaded it on, like, I think a Wednesday night. I have a memory, I think, of, like, I don't know what was going on that night, but it was pretty late. Like, we uploaded it at, like, 9 p.m. And probably I shared it to, like, my Facebook and my Instagram or something. You know, both followed by, like, nobody. Yeah. Like, very few people. Next day, my stupid band is going to do a radio interview at a college. Like, just whatever, any favor we could pull. We go do this interview. I think it's in Orange County, so it's a long drive. The interview goes terribly. We sound terrible. I'm driving home from this interview feeling so bad. I'm like, this is, like, maybe I should go to college. I stop at a pizza place on my way home to check my email. And Danny Ruckuson, who at the time managed a producer that we had worked with, Eric Palmquist, and who I'd been sort of bugging for, like, a year and a half. But our band had no momentum at all. And so it was like, he was just kind of doing us a favor by, like, responding to our email and giving us advice and whatever. Danny Ruckuson had emailed me, and he was like, hey, what is this? What's Ocean Eyes? And I was like, why? And he was like, well, I saw you post about it, and now it's on Hilly Dilly. And I was like, what's that? And he was like, it's a really buzzy blog. It's, like, a really, you know, influential, buzzy blog. They were, like, the first blog to post about, like, Lorde and the first blog to post about that. And this is all kind of a funny part of the process, because, of course, this is, like, blogs like this, I didn't know what Hilly Dilly was, but, like, we had been trying to get a blog to post my stupid band for, like, two years. Like, you know what I mean? I was like, what? And he goes, yeah. He goes, this blog posted Ocean Eyes. And I was like, really? And he was like, yeah. He goes, you know, I didn't know you had a sister, like, you know, I remember you mentioning it maybe in passing, but this is so cool. How old is she? Because he knew I was only 18. And I go, she's 13. And he was like, oh my god. He was like, I thought, you know, maybe you guys were the same age or whatever. She doesn't sound 13. And the blog, the blog wasn't, you know, New Music Friday on Spotify. It wasn't, like, instant huge streams, but it was buzzy. And, oh, and Danny, our now manager, but at the time, you know, but the guy I knew was like, he was like, you should turn the free download link off on SoundCloud. He was like, because people will download it, and they'll re-upload it, and they'll rip it and whatever. And I was like, OK, OK. And I remember, like, I think going to pick Billy up from a dance class, because I drove, and I was like, hey, the song is on a blog. And it's, like, getting, it's, like, got hundreds of streams. Like, it was, like, every increment of it was crazy. You know, I was like, yeah, I think it has, like, 2,000 streams. And that blew our mind. And, you know, like, really, like, the rest is history. Like, we suddenly were like, OK, I guess we should make some more stuff. You know, and we start sitting and writing songs together and trying to record them. And the song didn't come out on, like, Spotify, I think for, like, many weeks. Like, I think it, my memory is that it got, like, a million plays on SoundCloud before it was, like, really on Spotify. That could be wrong. It might have been, like, 100,000. Was it posted as a Billy Eilish song? Oh, yeah. It was all, it was totally posted as a Billy Eilish song. Which, again, like, sort of in my quest to be a producer, right? I'm like, you're the artist Billy Eilish, and I'm the producer behind the scenes. I was not sort of trying to be, like, front-facing with that.