You go to a truck stop and there are key chains with names on them, and there’s no Finneas. There’s no Billie. They’re little things, but as a kid, you just feel weirdly ostracized.
A lot of the time, in pop music especially, there’s reverb. And the reason is that reverb makes vocals sound better 99% of the time. It makes the notes ring out.
Obviously I’m very grateful ‘Bad Guy’ is doing so well – it’s shocking and surprising and gratifying – but I do think it’s important to try to make the next song that people are gonna be excited about.
What I really didn’t want to do is work with other people and have them go, ‘Oh, Finneas just does that sound for everybody.’ The Billie sound is only Billie – I’ll only do that for her.
I feel like you’re able to be your most creative in private environments, and not a studio where an A&R person is coming in, telling us a song isn’t a smash.
I stopped telling people what lyrics meant to them when I saw them tattoo it on them, because it clearly meant much more to them than it ever did to me.
My dreams as a kid were so far below the Grammys, like, maybe selling out a show, or, like, seeing your album on a shelf in an Urban Outfitters… and the Grammys are so far above that. It’s very ridiculous.
