July 20, 2022 • 31 mins
How do you make a hit record? To try to answer this not-so-simple question, we're sitting down with someone who helped define the sound of popular music in recent years, Finneas, to take us through the life cycle of a song from studio to stage and everything in between.
You may know his sister, Billie Eilish. Their first song together, "Ocean Eyes," went viral practically overnight, and the album that followed became one of the most important records of the decade. Since then, he's written and produced radio smashes for the likes of Justin Bieber, Camila Cabello, Selena Gomez, Halsey, and Kid Cudi, not to mention nine Grammys.
Now he's embarking on a new phase of his career, stepping into the spotlight as a solo artist with 2020's full length Blood Optimist, last year's Optimist, and his latest single "Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa." This season on Song Stories, Finneas takes us on a tour through the creative process and what it means to be a success in the music industry.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Song Stories is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome the Song Stories, a new I Heart Radio
podcast where we try to figure out how do you
make a hit? To answer this not so simple question,
(00:21):
we're sitting down with some of the biggest names in music.
They're gonna take us through the life cycle of a song,
from studio to stage and everything in between. Along the way,
or learn all about the heart, soul and skills that
go into your favorite tracks. Hopefully you'll learn to appreciate
these songs in a whole new way. And hey, maybe
we'll even inspire your own creative pursuits. For our inaugural season,
(00:44):
we're gonna talk with someone who helped defind the sound
of popular music in recent years. It all began with
a song called Ocean Eye So We had originally written
it for his own band, he decided to give it
to his teenage sister to sing you May Know or
as Billie Eilish. The song went roll practically overnight, paving
the way for their first full length, When We Fall
Asleep Where Do We Go? The album became one of
(01:06):
the most important records of the decade and one of
the most beloved since then. He's experienced success on pretty
much every metric you can imagine and probably a few
you can't. Along with Billy, He's played sold out arenas
across the globe and high profile performances at the Academy Awards,
Saturday Night Live, and the Democratic National Convention. He's also
(01:27):
written and produced radio smashes for the likes of Justin Bieber,
Camilla Cabello, Selita Gomez, Halsey, and Kid Cutty, not to
mention a bomb theme that arn him and Oscar. He's
netted nine Grammys and this year was up for a
Best New Artist nomination. The distinction is amusing considering the
lengthy resume assembled by the hard working musician all about
(01:48):
the age of twenty four, I might add, but now
he's embarking on a new phase of his career after
years is what The New York Times is called pop
secret weapon. He recently stepped into the spotlight as a
solo artist. Last fall, he released his debut LP Optimist,
an album shaped in large part by the events of
a year unlike any other. With Optimists, he's truly coming
(02:10):
to his own as the full package writer, producer, and performer.
And now he's back with a new single, Mona Lisa,
Mona Lisa, a rock and repsodic reminiscence of his romantic
partnership with YouTuber Claudia Saluski. His name is Phineas Bairt O'Connell,
but you can just call him Phineas. Now. I'm a
major music fan, but writing songs and making records is
(02:32):
way outside of my area of expertise. It's total sorcery
to me. If you told me magic spells were involved,
I'd probably believe you. So during our talk with Phineas,
I'll be joined by my friend, colleague and executive producer,
Noel Brown, who's a talented musician, songwriter and producer in
his own right. He'll be able to bring a new
perspective and fresh insights to our conversation. I hope you
(02:54):
enjoy taken it way back. Where did this begin for you?
When was there a moment when you knew that this
was going from a private passion to something that you
knew would be the driving force in you know, in
your life, well, from the time I was like twelve
years old. It's It's what I've always wanted to do
(03:16):
and and and by it, I just mean you know, uh,
make music for a living. That was sort of the
the sort of broad um, you know, career path I
wanted to go into. I don't think I could have
told you at twelve really like what the exact role
of like a producer or a songwriter or a you know,
engineer or a touring musician was. I just was like
(03:37):
seeing Green Day concerts and thinking like that something in
that world looks like a blast um started writing songs
at that age. And I don't know, like I've talked
to some friends who relate to this sort of struggle,
which is that I think there's sort of there's like
kids with no idea what they want to do yet,
(03:59):
you know, twelve of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, as Sometimes they're
you know, they're they're midway through college, you know, with
a major, they're not sure what they want to do.
And then there's kids who like have passions and interests
and are kind of enjoying what they want to do.
And then they're sort of like I'm in the third category,
which a lot of people are too, which is like
I knew exactly what I wanted to do, I wasn't
(04:19):
ever sure if like I'd get the chance to do it,
but but had you know, always had sort of a
bucket list fantasy, you know, this is what I'd like
to do with my life. UM. And I spent most
of my teams like pretty sort of like anxious that
I wouldn't ever get to UM because I just I
(04:40):
felt like I was always aware that it seemed like
there was a lot of luck involved and UM. So
you know, so in terms of when it became sort
of a viable career path, was like the moment that
Ocean I started to UM get picked up by blogs
and you know, our are now manager Danny was, you know,
taking meetings with us and stuff. That was when I
(05:00):
was like, oh my god, maybe I'll maybe I'll get
to have kind of a career UM, which was so thrilling. UM.
And that was in two thousand fifteen, end of two fifteen.
And it seems like, I mean, you have such a
tight knit family unit, and you and your sisters some
so incredibly close and obviously developed sort of in tandem.
But I mean you're older, so I mean she was
(05:21):
obviously looking to you in certain ways. How did that
relationship and that kind of closeness sort of inform one
another you know, in your kind of little symbiosis of
music creation. I mean we've always been very close as people. Um,
when we started working together, Billy was thirteen and I
was turning eighteen, and uh, and that was sort of
like age gaps get bigger and smaller depending on the age, right,
(05:45):
So like four years from four to eight huge, from
eight to twelve, huge, from thirteen to eighteen, fairly big.
But at at thirteen, you're you're, you know, starting to
have sort of more discipline and ambition than maybe you
are when you're like a Evans. So you know, to me,
it was never about forcing her into anything. That was
kind of the age where she was like getting interested
(06:06):
in music, and I was sort of like trying to
learn as much as I could about recording music, and
you know sort of invited her to to learn with me.
You know, did you want to record some stuff, try
it out. I'm I'm figuring it out as I go.
I'm you know, I'm by no means a professional yet.
So it's like, you know, this kind of fun collaborative
thing that we started to do. UM. But we always
(06:29):
liked each other a lot, and we always you know,
got along as much as siblings. Do you know, we
bicker and we argue and stuff, but only in that
like I don't know who gets the front seat in
the car when your kids and stuff like, you know,
just meaningless little arguments. So I always just loved hanging
out with her, and that was that was sort of
(06:50):
the genesis of of working together. Was just like, oh,
she's thirteen, she's interested. Now she's old enough to take
it seriously, and you know, she she was very talented
to that was sort of the other caveat was she
was just incredibly talented. The loose premise of the show
was talking was to hit on the different sort of
(07:11):
stages in the life cycle of a song writing, recording
and engineering, you know, and and then but talking to you.
It was curious, I imagine probably a lot of those
stages in the cycle kind of blend. How much of
writing for you is sitting down acoustically and you know,
getting chord structures together versus building it up brick by
brick and sort of building a soundscape and going from
(07:32):
there or is it a mix of both, mix of both.
The first several years of my songwriting experience where only
that sort of like sitting at a piano, sitting at
a guitar writing lyrics and melody. Uh. And that was
just because I didn't know how to produce music. Um.
And then I would also write. I'd write stuff and
then bring it to I was in a band in
(07:52):
high school, and so that would help me kind of
write more rhythmic stuff. Right. It's it's easier to write
rhythmic lyric, melody or you know, drums and stuff like
that inspires you differently. Um. Now that I spend so
much time producing, it's it's I don't want to say
fifty because it's it's not exact always, but it's like
it's it's bouncing back and forth. It's let me write
(08:14):
a song at the piano. Let me go write a
song over a cool drumbeat. And they all inspire different
sort of writing styles. They all inspire different lyrics, different melody. Um.
And Uh. You know, I think I still believe that
there's this sort of a you know, one of the
dangers of writing and producing simultaneously is depending on what
(08:37):
kind of producer you are. I'm this way like like
the sounds have to be great, you know, so I
may be working on a kind of a mediocre lyric
and melody, and I might be really distracted by the
kick drum not being perfect, and I spend two hours
making the kick drum the perfect kick drum, and then
I have kind of stupid lyric and stupid melodies, And
so it's like, you know, there's something to be said
(08:58):
for like righting a song at a piano with with
no distraction from melody and lyrics and writing something amazing
and then translating it and spending as much time as
you need to getting the sonics right. So it's like,
you know, that's sort of what I would recommend the
kids starting out, I guess, but you know there's merit
to all of it. I feel like lately I've been
(09:20):
craving UM and and writing accordingly, like craving sort of
like acoustic material, even if the end result is very
electronic and you never know I wrote it on a piano.
I've been craving sitting at a piano, writing chords, lyrics,
melody before I opened the computer UM, so that I
just have to focus on lyrics and melody. Sometimes you
(09:42):
just get such a banging drum pattern. You're just like,
any anything I write over this is gonna be fire,
and it's like, really true, you still write something really
lame over a really cool beat. How do you balance
musical and artistic growth without alienating your fans. You kind
of mentioned friends of yours who do their I mean
this is these are my words to kind of do
(10:04):
their hit over and over again, and you so clearly
don't do that. How do you navigate that? What I
imagine is a very difficult needle to thread by, you know,
innovating and growing while without completely leaving behind the people
who loved your last work. I'm always going to be
in the business of giving people what they want. That's
to me, that's exciting. I think when Billy and I
(10:25):
make albums, we don't think about making hits, but we
think about the show a lot. We think about who
the audience will love to sing that line, or oh
this will be a great closer or a great opener.
I feel the same way about my own music. And
here's the real here's the real truth. People's taste changes,
and so I think that's kind of like the most
(10:47):
liberating thing is if we made one of our popular
songs again, if I made Let's fall in Love for
the Night again, today the person who's loved that song
since the day it came out, Like they're craving something new,
you know what I mean. And so the best thing
you can do is not repeat yourself, you know I
(11:07):
think I think you have to kind of live within
the context of what feels authentic to you. Like the
best example, like give is like if I put out
a rap album tomorrow, like people would be like, I
don't believe you, and I wouldn't believe myself, you know
what I mean, Like if I if I was trying
to be someone I'm not, I think that's where people
would be like, what is what's going on now? You
(11:28):
know what I mean. It's like, as long as you're
being authentic to yourself and your identity, I think you
can be pretty experimental and pretty adventurous. It's just that
kind of like why is he suddenly making a jazz album?
Like that's so inauthentic to him, you know, Like, and
then there's examples where it's authentic to people, like like
(11:49):
a really good example of an artist who's who's switched
genres successful he's like Childish Gambino went from sort of
like internet rap kid to sort of like like he
did some kind of transitional work on on his um
what's it called Kauai that EP with like Jaden Smith
and stuff that was really cool, kind of transitional, had
(12:09):
some R and B, and then he made Awaken My
Love and it was like full blown like funk R
and B. But it was clearly his identity had had
been formed over the course of this eight years, and
so it was like, yeah, actually it would be inauthentic
for him to make another internet rap album at this
point in his life, because he has changed as a person,
(12:32):
you know, And and I think that was really informative
to me, Like you can change as a person, but
you can't, like you can't just sort of do it
on a whim without really walking the walk of like
I have. I have a different identity now, and I
feel like sotimes I see, I feel like it's really
easy to relate to an empathize with, Like an artist
(12:54):
who has a sound. We'll hear a song, you know,
and love it right by another artist and they'll they'll
try to steal some of that juice, and it's always like,
well you can, you can. You can be inspired and
influenced by something, and it's still really have it become
your own and still really sort of like where it
(13:16):
you can see really cool clothing at a store and
go into the changing room and put it on and
be like, oh, this doesn't look good on me. It's
really cool. I can't wait to see somebody else on
the street in this. But like I I can't rock this,
like I'm not you know, I'm not there yet. Um
So I think that to me is like you know,
knowing who you are, knowing what feels authentic about you. Hello,
(13:56):
and welcome back to Song Stories. I'm your host, Jordan
runt Hog and we're in the midst of talking to
Phineas Now his career, Sin has become something of a
modern music fable. It's a success story that reflects the
times and tastes almost as much as his sounds do.
In the beginning, he and his sister Billy were just
two teenagers making music in the bedroom of their childhood
(14:17):
home in Los Angeles. The track Oceanized was famously recorded
as an assignment for a dance class Billy was enrolled in.
They uploaded the song of SoundCloud to share it with
her teacher, and their whole life changed. A convergence of talent, luck,
and algorithms made oceanize the grassroots indie hit practically overnight.
Now they're far from the first to make a popular
(14:39):
song at home with a laptop, but the scale of
the success, mixed with the personal nature of the recording
made it unique in an error. When sharing art on
the Internet can feel like screaming into the abyss, Billy
and Phineas broke through seemingly without compromise or help, simply
on the merit of their music. As media consumption habits
continue to evolve, their story has given an untold number
(15:02):
of basement beat makers something to aspire to. From the start,
Phineas's work has been inextricably linked with the Internet. It's
both a delivery mechanism and his muse. Allowing him to
simultaneously share his music will also explore the history of
recorded sound that's now available to anyone with a WiFi connection.
Like most of us, he has a love hate relationship
(15:24):
with the Internet. Unlike most of us, his highs are
much higher Grammys, bomb themes, sold out stadiums. I could
go on, but the lows are much lower. To hit
records kind of make you something of a troll. Magnet
after all. He addresses this psychotomy and his debut solo album, Optimist,
notably on the track the Nineties, which finds him pining
(15:46):
for a pre digital age. He expanded on this in
conversation with me and my colleague Noel Brown. I hope
you enjoyed it. I put out that song in the nineties,
and um, it got kind of like like some some
some mean people on online where like sort of like
(16:07):
trying to be hyperpop. And I had this feeling of
like no, but you know that's fine, Like I don't know,
I was like this. I just was making it. How
like I had this sort of feeling of like wow,
if I had I'm like, I had this feeling like, yeah,
I guess if I was trying to do that, I failed.
But but I wasn't. I was trying to just make
(16:28):
this thing and and and you know, and make what
I was hearing in my head, um, which is like
I don't know, would be a little bit like be
a little bit like taking some amazing hyperpop song and
being like, wow, this is this doesn't sound like hip
hop at all, Like this sucks and it's like no,
it's like it's doing its own thing. So I don't know,
(16:49):
I'm know, I'm I'm continually and forever annoyed by the
comparative nature of the Internet of like this, this is
like this is like this, It's like it's one think
if it's about songwriting and it's like ripping off a melody,
but like the sort of approach to something like I
actually made this joke in the Billy's documentary that gets
(17:10):
quoted to me a lot. That's like people who don't
make music always say songs sound like other songs, and
it's like, I don't know it's really true, and the
Internet is like king of that where I was like,
I don't know, it's it's just all there's this sort
of like need for like this sounds like this, like
the Internet loves to say that everything and I just
(17:32):
think it's very like why are we why do we compare?
Why do we compare everything? Why do we rank everything
and compare everything? It's all different and um and it's
and it can all be appreciated. I don't know, like
I don't think. I think. I think it's very clear
when something's a rip off, and I feel like if
it's if it's not rip off, category like territory, Like
(17:55):
don't worry about it, you know what I mean, Like
we can all suss out, Like you can all see
like a kid who's dressing like Billie Eilish suddenly and
be like, oh, yeah, they're dressing like Billy. But it's
like to take someone else who's like also a young
girl who's writing songs you know, about similar themes, and
like have that be the only context that's similar and
(18:16):
like just pit the two against each other is like
very stupid, Like the world's very big. We don't really
do that. We don't really do that with other art.
Like we don't take an amazing abstract artist and compare
it to another abstract artist. It's just kind of a
music thing. We don't take actors. We don't take a
generic white male movie star and be like, oh, same guys,
(18:37):
this guy, Like it's we don't do it. So it's
kind of a music thing. You do sometimes tell like oh,
that's a poor man's McConaughey, you know, or something like that,
like that that's the dismissive version of that, I think.
But that's what I'm saying. That's the copycat thing. That's
like that guy's not it doesn't have an original vibe.
But but yeah, you know what I mean. I'm a
fan of like sessing out influences, and I think that
(18:59):
can be a conversation. But when you start going when
you go too far, it can be just like self defeating.
It's like sort of like shutting people down, shutting down creativity,
and that's that's no good. Yeah, or you know what
like gate like gatekeepers who are like, you can't listen
to this, You can't listen to this album without listening
to who this artist was loving when they were young,
and you like listen to their favorite album from when
(19:20):
they were kids. You're like, I don't like this at all, man,
Like I don't know that like that stuff. That stuff
is tedious to me. I agree. I agree. You obviously
achieved huge success relatively quickly, and it's just kind of
gone from there. Like how do you do how do
you not get numbed and like, you know, jaded to
those experiences and continue to grow and continue to find
(19:44):
things about yourself and not you know, drink your own
kool aid and you know and kind of like lose
sight of yourself. I know that's a big question, but
I just It's something I think about a lot. Yeah,
I think one of my coping mechanisms, whether it's good
or not, has been this kind of like you don't
get to decide how long this lasts. A lot of
(20:05):
these are are once in a lifetime moments, twice in
a lifetime. If you're unbelievably lucky, probably once in a lifetime.
And so one of the sort of defense mechanisms I've
had is kind of this, like you can't define yourself
by these things, because we've all seen like celebrities who
like who do define themselves by those things, and five
(20:28):
years in there they're panicking and spiraling because they're not
number one on a chart, you know what I mean.
It's like these things really need to be looked at
as these like you achieve them once and and and
be grateful that you ever achieved. They're not they're not
to be maintained, you know what I mean. Like nobody
gets to be president for forty years. It's a it's
a there's there's term limits to this kind of ship.
(20:51):
And so you know, I think sometimes in an effort
to not define myself by that, I've like not let
myself sort of like basking it much, But I don't know,
it's it's trickier. That's that's the thing. I'm deeply afraid
of my self worth and my self concept relying on
(21:13):
some sort of like external metric of achievement and stuff.
I'd I'd really like that not to be the case.
I'd like to you know, I'd like to not wake
up one day and feel like a failure because of
something I'm not in control of at all, you know
what I mean. Like, to me, the most healthy thing
I can place self worth in is my personal relationships
(21:35):
with my family and friends and my and my work itself,
like writing a song, feeling proud of that, my work ethic,
you know, like sales metrics, chart statistics, like that stuff
is pretty inconsequential and certainly not within my control. So
it's like, you know, the same time I'm I'm winning
a Grammy, I'm sort of like trying to trying to
(21:58):
be like, all right, this isn't this isn't the usual, now,
you don't you don't just do this every year, you know,
like this this could be the only year ever, you know,
and uh, you know, human beings are are habitual, like
we we eat a good meal and we want to
eat it again. So it's like it's a little bit
of of fighting against that subconscious nature of like, hey,
(22:22):
when when they told me I was the number one
producer in the world, that felt pretty good. I'd love
to feel that way all the time, you know. And
it's like it's your responsibility to go like it shouldn't
feel bad when you're not just because you were, you know.
I think it's similar to the way you reconcile the
idea of relationships and knowing that it's sort of an
irrational thing to think I have to be the only
(22:45):
thing to you forever and all time. And sure that's
nice and it hopefully will last. But also there's a
certain acceptance and peace that I think comes from maybe
not hanging your entire identity on that concept. Um. I
think it's similar, honestly, you yeah, and and it's you know,
you know, I think I think the number one thing
(23:05):
and I think this is fair is like I love
my career. I don't want my career to go away,
you know what I mean, Like I don't I don't
want to not be able to make albums and go
on tour anymore. Like I'd like to do that forever. Um.
I just don't think it's healthy to be like placing
your worth in accolades and sort of metrics. It's like,
(23:28):
you know, the ongoing sort of working hard and doing
what you love, Like that's pretty cool. Um. And I
don't want to confuse it for that. I don't want to.
I don't want people to think like he doesn't really
care about his career. It's like, I care so much
about my career. I just don't think caring about your
career is synonymous with caring about trophies, Like I think
that's not up to you as much. And the troupe
(23:50):
like the like you win if people sell out your
show man, that's like the that is the ship, Like
that is so dope. So that feels like winning to me.
(24:13):
Hello and welcome back to Song Stories. I'm your host,
Jordan run talk Now. Until recently, Phineas was perhaps best
known as the guy behind the scenes, or more appropriately,
the guy behind the mixing desk. He shared the stage
with his sister Billie Eilish strumming a guitar or playing
a keyboard, but literally and figuratively he mostly stayed out
(24:34):
of the spotlight yet that changed with the release of Optimists,
his first full length solo album. It's an interesting position
for an artist to find himself. Well, this is indeed
his debut, He's already won Grammys, played stadiums, written Bond themes,
and done pretty much all the things that are bucket
list items for any artist. On one hand, this has
a liberating effect, with all his dreams satiated, he's free
(24:58):
to follow his muse. But separating himself from his illustrious
prior work and defining himself as a solo force in
his own right is a complicated and delicate process. What's
it like for one of pop's most collaborative artists to
go it alone, writing, producing, in many cases, playing all
the instruments himself. He had a lot to say about
this in conversation with me and my colleague Noel Brown.
(25:20):
I hope you enjoy what is Optimist to you? I mean,
it's obviously I don't want I mean inherently you know,
it's you're gonna be playing smaller rooms like it's more
of like an indie kind of feel to it, And
it's obviously very very you and very personal. Was that
an escape in some way from the big, you know,
stadium world, like just to kind of do something very
(25:41):
intimate and very you that maybe you didn't have to
feel like you had to fill those like take the
same boxes as you know your other life. Well, Billy
and I achieved super mainstream success by accident, and I'm
very grateful for the fact that it was an accident.
Like I feel like there's a school of writer producers
(26:02):
who are making like quote unquote hits, and we were
just making what we wanted to do and they happened
to get really popular. And so what that did for me,
which was liberating, was when I was making this album,
I just had this feeling of like, I'm just gonna
make what I want and It'll get as popular as
it gets, and the people that like it will like
it and they'll show up to the show and uh.
(26:25):
And so then I didn't have to define it by
any sort of form of like, oh, it didn't sell
as many copies or it did sell you know whatever,
because because to me, it was just like, these are
the songs I wanted to make, and I'm so glad
I did that. Because I just finished this tour. I
did a four week eighteen show US tour and uh,
(26:45):
you know, to be honest, I was playing. I was
playing bigger rooms than I ever thought I'd play as
a solo artist, which you know, our our clubs and theaters.
Was playing will Turn in l A and Irving Plaza
in New York and club Um having a blast. I
was having such a good time. And you know what's
cool is like seeing the song's impact on people in
(27:07):
real life, right, like not seeing the YouTube Spotify streams
of which one's most popular, seeing which one is, you know,
a person's actual favorite in the room. Um, and yeah,
I just it was super awesome. I it's it's been
the coolest thing about being involved in Billy's touring career
(27:28):
and also having my own touring career as sort of
like getting to retrace steps, you know what I mean.
Like we did a lot of the rooms I just
did on this tour we did in me and Billy,
and it's like I loved I loved these rooms. So
it's like it was so fun to get to come
back and do them again. And you know, it's there's
an intimacy and a sort of an immediacy that you
(27:49):
don't you don't get an arena and the trade off
is when you're an arena, you get to put on
this unbelievable show and you know, give people this kind
of like incredible experience that's sort of budgeted out for
the space of an arena, and you know they both
have pros and cons, so yeah, it's just a it's
a really lucky experience. And I think this tour just
(28:11):
made me want to make another album like that that
I think. I feel like playing live shows has always
been a source of inspiration to me because you see
what what really is reacted to and what people love
about what you do. This might be kind of a
corny question, but what is the best thing that someone
(28:33):
can say to you about your music to make it think?
You know what? Something like how It Ends and love
is Pain? That that song took me to a really dark,
scary place and it really it was really a lot
of pain went into it. But you know what, it's
totally worth it. Because someone said that does that exist
or does that kind of validation not really exist externally? Well, um,
(28:55):
I don't think that validation exists externally. If you don't
like your ship, maybe like that's I have friends who
don't really like the stuff they make for whatever reason,
and that's pretty common. Like, it's pretty common that artists
make make Yeah, I don't know if that's insecurity or nervousness,
but like artists will like especially their hit, they'll sort
of shoot on their their hit, um and and you know,
(29:19):
it is what it is. I feel so grateful to
have people show up to things because of songs I've made.
That the idea of ever complaining about something I've done
that's popular, it's alien to me, but you know, I
think the it's all pretty great and meaningful. What I
think I resonate with the most because it's it's the
most similar to my life experiences. Like I was on
(29:41):
a hike the other day and the dude past me
in the other direction on the hike. I was like,
are you Phineas. I was like yeah, and he was
like bro, he was like that song I Lost a
friend has gotten me through so much. And I think,
like saying something like that because there are so many
songs that have occupied that space for me, that's the
thing I can relate to the most, you know what
(30:02):
I mean, Like, you know, there are songs like the
best of You by Food Fighters that like over the
course of my adolescents, Like if I was going through something,
I'd listen to that song a billion times. Or like
there's a song called saw You in a Dream by
Beach House, Like these songs that when you're when you're
in your most emotional state, you put the song on
for weeks on end. It's like when kids tell me
(30:24):
that something I've made has done that for them, that's
that's sort of the most like, oh I get it,
I get exactly what that is doing to you. Um,
but all of it's an honor. Covers are an honor.
You know when kids, you know, when something makes them
want to make music whatever, it's all. It's all very dope.
I think that's just the thing that I have the
most experience with. It's like, oh, yeah, me too. I
(30:44):
listened to songs when I feel heartbroken. Song Stories is
the production of I Heart Radio. The show was hosted
an executive produced by Noel Brown and Jordan roun Talk,
who was supervising producer Mike John's. If you like what
(31:05):
you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For
more from my Heart Radio, please visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows,
Song Stories is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome the Song Stories, a new I Heart Radio
podcast where we try to figure out how do you
make a hit? To answer this not so simple question,
(00:21):
we're sitting down with some of the biggest names in music.
They're gonna take us through the life cycle of a song,
from studio to stage and everything in between. Along the way,
or learn all about the heart, soul and skills that
go into your favorite tracks. Hopefully you'll learn to appreciate
these songs in a whole new way. And hey, maybe
we'll even inspire your own creative pursuits. For our inaugural season,
(00:44):
we're gonna talk with someone who helped defind the sound
of popular music in recent years. It all began with
a song called Ocean Eye So We had originally written
it for his own band, he decided to give it
to his teenage sister to sing you May Know or
as Billie Eilish. The song went roll practically overnight, paving
the way for their first full length, When We Fall
Asleep Where Do We Go? The album became one of
(01:06):
the most important records of the decade and one of
the most beloved since then. He's experienced success on pretty
much every metric you can imagine and probably a few
you can't. Along with Billy, He's played sold out arenas
across the globe and high profile performances at the Academy Awards,
Saturday Night Live, and the Democratic National Convention. He's also
(01:27):
written and produced radio smashes for the likes of Justin Bieber,
Camilla Cabello, Selita Gomez, Halsey, and Kid Cutty, not to
mention a bomb theme that arn him and Oscar. He's
netted nine Grammys and this year was up for a
Best New Artist nomination. The distinction is amusing considering the
lengthy resume assembled by the hard working musician all about
(01:48):
the age of twenty four, I might add, but now
he's embarking on a new phase of his career after
years is what The New York Times is called pop
secret weapon. He recently stepped into the spotlight as a
solo artist. Last fall, he released his debut LP Optimist,
an album shaped in large part by the events of
a year unlike any other. With Optimists, he's truly coming
(02:10):
to his own as the full package writer, producer, and performer.
And now he's back with a new single, Mona Lisa,
Mona Lisa, a rock and repsodic reminiscence of his romantic
partnership with YouTuber Claudia Saluski. His name is Phineas Bairt O'Connell,
but you can just call him Phineas. Now. I'm a
major music fan, but writing songs and making records is
(02:32):
way outside of my area of expertise. It's total sorcery
to me. If you told me magic spells were involved,
I'd probably believe you. So during our talk with Phineas,
I'll be joined by my friend, colleague and executive producer,
Noel Brown, who's a talented musician, songwriter and producer in
his own right. He'll be able to bring a new
perspective and fresh insights to our conversation. I hope you
(02:54):
enjoy taken it way back. Where did this begin for you?
When was there a moment when you knew that this
was going from a private passion to something that you
knew would be the driving force in you know, in
your life, well, from the time I was like twelve
years old. It's It's what I've always wanted to do
(03:16):
and and and by it, I just mean you know, uh,
make music for a living. That was sort of the
the sort of broad um, you know, career path I
wanted to go into. I don't think I could have
told you at twelve really like what the exact role
of like a producer or a songwriter or a you know,
engineer or a touring musician was. I just was like
(03:37):
seeing Green Day concerts and thinking like that something in
that world looks like a blast um started writing songs
at that age. And I don't know, like I've talked
to some friends who relate to this sort of struggle,
which is that I think there's sort of there's like
kids with no idea what they want to do yet,
(03:59):
you know, twelve of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, as Sometimes they're
you know, they're they're midway through college, you know, with
a major, they're not sure what they want to do.
And then there's kids who like have passions and interests
and are kind of enjoying what they want to do.
And then they're sort of like I'm in the third category,
which a lot of people are too, which is like
I knew exactly what I wanted to do, I wasn't
(04:19):
ever sure if like I'd get the chance to do it,
but but had you know, always had sort of a
bucket list fantasy, you know, this is what I'd like
to do with my life. UM. And I spent most
of my teams like pretty sort of like anxious that
I wouldn't ever get to UM because I just I
(04:40):
felt like I was always aware that it seemed like
there was a lot of luck involved and UM. So
you know, so in terms of when it became sort
of a viable career path, was like the moment that
Ocean I started to UM get picked up by blogs
and you know, our are now manager Danny was, you know,
taking meetings with us and stuff. That was when I
(05:00):
was like, oh my god, maybe I'll maybe I'll get
to have kind of a career UM, which was so thrilling. UM.
And that was in two thousand fifteen, end of two fifteen.
And it seems like, I mean, you have such a
tight knit family unit, and you and your sisters some
so incredibly close and obviously developed sort of in tandem.
But I mean you're older, so I mean she was
(05:21):
obviously looking to you in certain ways. How did that
relationship and that kind of closeness sort of inform one
another you know, in your kind of little symbiosis of
music creation. I mean we've always been very close as people. Um,
when we started working together, Billy was thirteen and I
was turning eighteen, and uh, and that was sort of
like age gaps get bigger and smaller depending on the age, right,
(05:45):
So like four years from four to eight huge, from
eight to twelve, huge, from thirteen to eighteen, fairly big.
But at at thirteen, you're you're, you know, starting to
have sort of more discipline and ambition than maybe you
are when you're like a Evans. So you know, to me,
it was never about forcing her into anything. That was
kind of the age where she was like getting interested
(06:06):
in music, and I was sort of like trying to
learn as much as I could about recording music, and
you know sort of invited her to to learn with me.
You know, did you want to record some stuff, try
it out. I'm I'm figuring it out as I go.
I'm you know, I'm by no means a professional yet.
So it's like, you know, this kind of fun collaborative
thing that we started to do. UM. But we always
(06:29):
liked each other a lot, and we always you know,
got along as much as siblings. Do you know, we
bicker and we argue and stuff, but only in that
like I don't know who gets the front seat in
the car when your kids and stuff like, you know,
just meaningless little arguments. So I always just loved hanging
out with her, and that was that was sort of
(06:50):
the genesis of of working together. Was just like, oh,
she's thirteen, she's interested. Now she's old enough to take
it seriously, and you know, she she was very talented
to that was sort of the other caveat was she
was just incredibly talented. The loose premise of the show
was talking was to hit on the different sort of
(07:11):
stages in the life cycle of a song writing, recording
and engineering, you know, and and then but talking to you.
It was curious, I imagine probably a lot of those
stages in the cycle kind of blend. How much of
writing for you is sitting down acoustically and you know,
getting chord structures together versus building it up brick by
brick and sort of building a soundscape and going from
(07:32):
there or is it a mix of both, mix of both.
The first several years of my songwriting experience where only
that sort of like sitting at a piano, sitting at
a guitar writing lyrics and melody. Uh. And that was
just because I didn't know how to produce music. Um.
And then I would also write. I'd write stuff and
then bring it to I was in a band in
(07:52):
high school, and so that would help me kind of
write more rhythmic stuff. Right. It's it's easier to write
rhythmic lyric, melody or you know, drums and stuff like
that inspires you differently. Um. Now that I spend so
much time producing, it's it's I don't want to say
fifty because it's it's not exact always, but it's like
it's it's bouncing back and forth. It's let me write
(08:14):
a song at the piano. Let me go write a
song over a cool drumbeat. And they all inspire different
sort of writing styles. They all inspire different lyrics, different melody. Um.
And Uh. You know, I think I still believe that
there's this sort of a you know, one of the
dangers of writing and producing simultaneously is depending on what
(08:37):
kind of producer you are. I'm this way like like
the sounds have to be great, you know, so I
may be working on a kind of a mediocre lyric
and melody, and I might be really distracted by the
kick drum not being perfect, and I spend two hours
making the kick drum the perfect kick drum, and then
I have kind of stupid lyric and stupid melodies, And
so it's like, you know, there's something to be said
(08:58):
for like righting a song at a piano with with
no distraction from melody and lyrics and writing something amazing
and then translating it and spending as much time as
you need to getting the sonics right. So it's like,
you know, that's sort of what I would recommend the
kids starting out, I guess, but you know there's merit
to all of it. I feel like lately I've been
(09:20):
craving UM and and writing accordingly, like craving sort of
like acoustic material, even if the end result is very
electronic and you never know I wrote it on a piano.
I've been craving sitting at a piano, writing chords, lyrics,
melody before I opened the computer UM, so that I
just have to focus on lyrics and melody. Sometimes you
(09:42):
just get such a banging drum pattern. You're just like,
any anything I write over this is gonna be fire,
and it's like, really true, you still write something really
lame over a really cool beat. How do you balance
musical and artistic growth without alienating your fans. You kind
of mentioned friends of yours who do their I mean
this is these are my words to kind of do
(10:04):
their hit over and over again, and you so clearly
don't do that. How do you navigate that? What I
imagine is a very difficult needle to thread by, you know,
innovating and growing while without completely leaving behind the people
who loved your last work. I'm always going to be
in the business of giving people what they want. That's
to me, that's exciting. I think when Billy and I
(10:25):
make albums, we don't think about making hits, but we
think about the show a lot. We think about who
the audience will love to sing that line, or oh
this will be a great closer or a great opener.
I feel the same way about my own music. And
here's the real here's the real truth. People's taste changes,
and so I think that's kind of like the most
(10:47):
liberating thing is if we made one of our popular
songs again, if I made Let's fall in Love for
the Night again, today the person who's loved that song
since the day it came out, Like they're craving something new,
you know what I mean. And so the best thing
you can do is not repeat yourself, you know I
(11:07):
think I think you have to kind of live within
the context of what feels authentic to you. Like the
best example, like give is like if I put out
a rap album tomorrow, like people would be like, I
don't believe you, and I wouldn't believe myself, you know
what I mean, Like if I if I was trying
to be someone I'm not, I think that's where people
would be like, what is what's going on now? You
(11:28):
know what I mean. It's like, as long as you're
being authentic to yourself and your identity, I think you
can be pretty experimental and pretty adventurous. It's just that
kind of like why is he suddenly making a jazz album?
Like that's so inauthentic to him, you know, Like, and
then there's examples where it's authentic to people, like like
(11:49):
a really good example of an artist who's who's switched
genres successful he's like Childish Gambino went from sort of
like internet rap kid to sort of like like he
did some kind of transitional work on on his um
what's it called Kauai that EP with like Jaden Smith
and stuff that was really cool, kind of transitional, had
(12:09):
some R and B, and then he made Awaken My
Love and it was like full blown like funk R
and B. But it was clearly his identity had had
been formed over the course of this eight years, and
so it was like, yeah, actually it would be inauthentic
for him to make another internet rap album at this
point in his life, because he has changed as a person,
(12:32):
you know, And and I think that was really informative
to me, Like you can change as a person, but
you can't, like you can't just sort of do it
on a whim without really walking the walk of like
I have. I have a different identity now, and I
feel like sotimes I see, I feel like it's really
easy to relate to an empathize with, Like an artist
(12:54):
who has a sound. We'll hear a song, you know,
and love it right by another artist and they'll they'll
try to steal some of that juice, and it's always like,
well you can, you can. You can be inspired and
influenced by something, and it's still really have it become
your own and still really sort of like where it
(13:16):
you can see really cool clothing at a store and
go into the changing room and put it on and
be like, oh, this doesn't look good on me. It's
really cool. I can't wait to see somebody else on
the street in this. But like I I can't rock this,
like I'm not you know, I'm not there yet. Um
So I think that to me is like you know,
knowing who you are, knowing what feels authentic about you. Hello,
(13:56):
and welcome back to Song Stories. I'm your host, Jordan
runt Hog and we're in the midst of talking to
Phineas Now his career, Sin has become something of a
modern music fable. It's a success story that reflects the
times and tastes almost as much as his sounds do.
In the beginning, he and his sister Billy were just
two teenagers making music in the bedroom of their childhood
(14:17):
home in Los Angeles. The track Oceanized was famously recorded
as an assignment for a dance class Billy was enrolled in.
They uploaded the song of SoundCloud to share it with
her teacher, and their whole life changed. A convergence of talent, luck,
and algorithms made oceanize the grassroots indie hit practically overnight.
Now they're far from the first to make a popular
(14:39):
song at home with a laptop, but the scale of
the success, mixed with the personal nature of the recording
made it unique in an error. When sharing art on
the Internet can feel like screaming into the abyss, Billy
and Phineas broke through seemingly without compromise or help, simply
on the merit of their music. As media consumption habits
continue to evolve, their story has given an untold number
(15:02):
of basement beat makers something to aspire to. From the start,
Phineas's work has been inextricably linked with the Internet. It's
both a delivery mechanism and his muse. Allowing him to
simultaneously share his music will also explore the history of
recorded sound that's now available to anyone with a WiFi connection.
Like most of us, he has a love hate relationship
(15:24):
with the Internet. Unlike most of us, his highs are
much higher Grammys, bomb themes, sold out stadiums. I could
go on, but the lows are much lower. To hit
records kind of make you something of a troll. Magnet
after all. He addresses this psychotomy and his debut solo album, Optimist,
notably on the track the Nineties, which finds him pining
(15:46):
for a pre digital age. He expanded on this in
conversation with me and my colleague Noel Brown. I hope
you enjoyed it. I put out that song in the nineties,
and um, it got kind of like like some some
some mean people on online where like sort of like
(16:07):
trying to be hyperpop. And I had this feeling of
like no, but you know that's fine, Like I don't know,
I was like this. I just was making it. How
like I had this sort of feeling of like wow,
if I had I'm like, I had this feeling like, yeah,
I guess if I was trying to do that, I failed.
But but I wasn't. I was trying to just make
(16:28):
this thing and and and you know, and make what
I was hearing in my head, um, which is like
I don't know, would be a little bit like be
a little bit like taking some amazing hyperpop song and
being like, wow, this is this doesn't sound like hip
hop at all, Like this sucks and it's like no,
it's like it's doing its own thing. So I don't know,
(16:49):
I'm know, I'm I'm continually and forever annoyed by the
comparative nature of the Internet of like this, this is
like this is like this, It's like it's one think
if it's about songwriting and it's like ripping off a melody,
but like the sort of approach to something like I
actually made this joke in the Billy's documentary that gets
(17:10):
quoted to me a lot. That's like people who don't
make music always say songs sound like other songs, and
it's like, I don't know it's really true, and the
Internet is like king of that where I was like,
I don't know, it's it's just all there's this sort
of like need for like this sounds like this, like
the Internet loves to say that everything and I just
(17:32):
think it's very like why are we why do we compare?
Why do we compare everything? Why do we rank everything
and compare everything? It's all different and um and it's
and it can all be appreciated. I don't know, like
I don't think. I think. I think it's very clear
when something's a rip off, and I feel like if
it's if it's not rip off, category like territory, Like
(17:55):
don't worry about it, you know what I mean, Like
we can all suss out, Like you can all see
like a kid who's dressing like Billie Eilish suddenly and
be like, oh, yeah, they're dressing like Billy. But it's
like to take someone else who's like also a young
girl who's writing songs you know, about similar themes, and
like have that be the only context that's similar and
(18:16):
like just pit the two against each other is like
very stupid, Like the world's very big. We don't really
do that. We don't really do that with other art.
Like we don't take an amazing abstract artist and compare
it to another abstract artist. It's just kind of a
music thing. We don't take actors. We don't take a
generic white male movie star and be like, oh, same guys,
(18:37):
this guy, Like it's we don't do it. So it's
kind of a music thing. You do sometimes tell like oh,
that's a poor man's McConaughey, you know, or something like that,
like that that's the dismissive version of that, I think.
But that's what I'm saying. That's the copycat thing. That's
like that guy's not it doesn't have an original vibe.
But but yeah, you know what I mean. I'm a
fan of like sessing out influences, and I think that
(18:59):
can be a conversation. But when you start going when
you go too far, it can be just like self defeating.
It's like sort of like shutting people down, shutting down creativity,
and that's that's no good. Yeah, or you know what
like gate like gatekeepers who are like, you can't listen
to this, You can't listen to this album without listening
to who this artist was loving when they were young,
and you like listen to their favorite album from when
(19:20):
they were kids. You're like, I don't like this at all, man,
Like I don't know that like that stuff. That stuff
is tedious to me. I agree. I agree. You obviously
achieved huge success relatively quickly, and it's just kind of
gone from there. Like how do you do how do
you not get numbed and like, you know, jaded to
those experiences and continue to grow and continue to find
(19:44):
things about yourself and not you know, drink your own
kool aid and you know and kind of like lose
sight of yourself. I know that's a big question, but
I just It's something I think about a lot. Yeah,
I think one of my coping mechanisms, whether it's good
or not, has been this kind of like you don't
get to decide how long this lasts. A lot of
(20:05):
these are are once in a lifetime moments, twice in
a lifetime. If you're unbelievably lucky, probably once in a lifetime.
And so one of the sort of defense mechanisms I've
had is kind of this, like you can't define yourself
by these things, because we've all seen like celebrities who
like who do define themselves by those things, and five
(20:28):
years in there they're panicking and spiraling because they're not
number one on a chart, you know what I mean.
It's like these things really need to be looked at
as these like you achieve them once and and and
be grateful that you ever achieved. They're not they're not
to be maintained, you know what I mean. Like nobody
gets to be president for forty years. It's a it's
a there's there's term limits to this kind of ship.
(20:51):
And so you know, I think sometimes in an effort
to not define myself by that, I've like not let
myself sort of like basking it much, But I don't know,
it's it's trickier. That's that's the thing. I'm deeply afraid
of my self worth and my self concept relying on
(21:13):
some sort of like external metric of achievement and stuff.
I'd I'd really like that not to be the case.
I'd like to you know, I'd like to not wake
up one day and feel like a failure because of
something I'm not in control of at all, you know
what I mean. Like, to me, the most healthy thing
I can place self worth in is my personal relationships
(21:35):
with my family and friends and my and my work itself,
like writing a song, feeling proud of that, my work ethic,
you know, like sales metrics, chart statistics, like that stuff
is pretty inconsequential and certainly not within my control. So
it's like, you know, the same time I'm I'm winning
a Grammy, I'm sort of like trying to trying to
(21:58):
be like, all right, this isn't this isn't the usual, now,
you don't you don't just do this every year, you know,
like this this could be the only year ever, you know,
and uh, you know, human beings are are habitual, like
we we eat a good meal and we want to
eat it again. So it's like it's a little bit
of of fighting against that subconscious nature of like, hey,
(22:22):
when when they told me I was the number one
producer in the world, that felt pretty good. I'd love
to feel that way all the time, you know. And
it's like it's your responsibility to go like it shouldn't
feel bad when you're not just because you were, you know.
I think it's similar to the way you reconcile the
idea of relationships and knowing that it's sort of an
irrational thing to think I have to be the only
(22:45):
thing to you forever and all time. And sure that's
nice and it hopefully will last. But also there's a
certain acceptance and peace that I think comes from maybe
not hanging your entire identity on that concept. Um. I
think it's similar, honestly, you yeah, and and it's you know,
you know, I think I think the number one thing
(23:05):
and I think this is fair is like I love
my career. I don't want my career to go away,
you know what I mean, Like I don't I don't
want to not be able to make albums and go
on tour anymore. Like I'd like to do that forever. Um.
I just don't think it's healthy to be like placing
your worth in accolades and sort of metrics. It's like,
(23:28):
you know, the ongoing sort of working hard and doing
what you love, Like that's pretty cool. Um. And I
don't want to confuse it for that. I don't want to.
I don't want people to think like he doesn't really
care about his career. It's like, I care so much
about my career. I just don't think caring about your
career is synonymous with caring about trophies, Like I think
that's not up to you as much. And the troupe
(23:50):
like the like you win if people sell out your
show man, that's like the that is the ship, Like
that is so dope. So that feels like winning to me.
(24:13):
Hello and welcome back to Song Stories. I'm your host,
Jordan run talk Now. Until recently, Phineas was perhaps best
known as the guy behind the scenes, or more appropriately,
the guy behind the mixing desk. He shared the stage
with his sister Billie Eilish strumming a guitar or playing
a keyboard, but literally and figuratively he mostly stayed out
(24:34):
of the spotlight yet that changed with the release of Optimists,
his first full length solo album. It's an interesting position
for an artist to find himself. Well, this is indeed
his debut, He's already won Grammys, played stadiums, written Bond themes,
and done pretty much all the things that are bucket
list items for any artist. On one hand, this has
a liberating effect, with all his dreams satiated, he's free
(24:58):
to follow his muse. But separating himself from his illustrious
prior work and defining himself as a solo force in
his own right is a complicated and delicate process. What's
it like for one of pop's most collaborative artists to
go it alone, writing, producing, in many cases, playing all
the instruments himself. He had a lot to say about
this in conversation with me and my colleague Noel Brown.
(25:20):
I hope you enjoy what is Optimist to you? I mean,
it's obviously I don't want I mean inherently you know,
it's you're gonna be playing smaller rooms like it's more
of like an indie kind of feel to it, And
it's obviously very very you and very personal. Was that
an escape in some way from the big, you know,
stadium world, like just to kind of do something very
(25:41):
intimate and very you that maybe you didn't have to
feel like you had to fill those like take the
same boxes as you know your other life. Well, Billy
and I achieved super mainstream success by accident, and I'm
very grateful for the fact that it was an accident.
Like I feel like there's a school of writer producers
(26:02):
who are making like quote unquote hits, and we were
just making what we wanted to do and they happened
to get really popular. And so what that did for me,
which was liberating, was when I was making this album,
I just had this feeling of like, I'm just gonna
make what I want and It'll get as popular as
it gets, and the people that like it will like
it and they'll show up to the show and uh.
(26:25):
And so then I didn't have to define it by
any sort of form of like, oh, it didn't sell
as many copies or it did sell you know whatever,
because because to me, it was just like, these are
the songs I wanted to make, and I'm so glad
I did that. Because I just finished this tour. I
did a four week eighteen show US tour and uh,
(26:45):
you know, to be honest, I was playing. I was
playing bigger rooms than I ever thought I'd play as
a solo artist, which you know, our our clubs and theaters.
Was playing will Turn in l A and Irving Plaza
in New York and club Um having a blast. I
was having such a good time. And you know what's
cool is like seeing the song's impact on people in
(27:07):
real life, right, like not seeing the YouTube Spotify streams
of which one's most popular, seeing which one is, you know,
a person's actual favorite in the room. Um, and yeah,
I just it was super awesome. I it's it's been
the coolest thing about being involved in Billy's touring career
(27:28):
and also having my own touring career as sort of
like getting to retrace steps, you know what I mean.
Like we did a lot of the rooms I just
did on this tour we did in me and Billy,
and it's like I loved I loved these rooms. So
it's like it was so fun to get to come
back and do them again. And you know, it's there's
an intimacy and a sort of an immediacy that you
(27:49):
don't you don't get an arena and the trade off
is when you're an arena, you get to put on
this unbelievable show and you know, give people this kind
of like incredible experience that's sort of budgeted out for
the space of an arena, and you know they both
have pros and cons, so yeah, it's just a it's
a really lucky experience. And I think this tour just
(28:11):
made me want to make another album like that that
I think. I feel like playing live shows has always
been a source of inspiration to me because you see
what what really is reacted to and what people love
about what you do. This might be kind of a
corny question, but what is the best thing that someone
(28:33):
can say to you about your music to make it think?
You know what? Something like how It Ends and love
is Pain? That that song took me to a really dark,
scary place and it really it was really a lot
of pain went into it. But you know what, it's
totally worth it. Because someone said that does that exist
or does that kind of validation not really exist externally? Well, um,
(28:55):
I don't think that validation exists externally. If you don't
like your ship, maybe like that's I have friends who
don't really like the stuff they make for whatever reason,
and that's pretty common. Like, it's pretty common that artists
make make Yeah, I don't know if that's insecurity or nervousness,
but like artists will like especially their hit, they'll sort
of shoot on their their hit, um and and you know,
(29:19):
it is what it is. I feel so grateful to
have people show up to things because of songs I've made.
That the idea of ever complaining about something I've done
that's popular, it's alien to me, but you know, I
think the it's all pretty great and meaningful. What I
think I resonate with the most because it's it's the
most similar to my life experiences. Like I was on
(29:41):
a hike the other day and the dude past me
in the other direction on the hike. I was like,
are you Phineas. I was like yeah, and he was
like bro, he was like that song I Lost a
friend has gotten me through so much. And I think,
like saying something like that because there are so many
songs that have occupied that space for me, that's the
thing I can relate to the most, you know what
(30:02):
I mean, Like, you know, there are songs like the
best of You by Food Fighters that like over the
course of my adolescents, Like if I was going through something,
I'd listen to that song a billion times. Or like
there's a song called saw You in a Dream by
Beach House, Like these songs that when you're when you're
in your most emotional state, you put the song on
for weeks on end. It's like when kids tell me
(30:24):
that something I've made has done that for them, that's
that's sort of the most like, oh I get it,
I get exactly what that is doing to you. Um,
but all of it's an honor. Covers are an honor.
You know when kids, you know, when something makes them
want to make music whatever, it's all. It's all very dope.
I think that's just the thing that I have the
most experience with. It's like, oh, yeah, me too. I
(30:44):
listened to songs when I feel heartbroken. Song Stories is
the production of I Heart Radio. The show was hosted
an executive produced by Noel Brown and Jordan roun Talk,
who was supervising producer Mike John's. If you like what
(31:05):
you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For
more from my Heart Radio, please visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
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