Tools of the Trade

These days, you don't need a studio or a $10,000 microphone to make a good sounding record. In fact you probably have everything you need available on whatever you're using to listen to this podcast! 

Finneas is one of the most visible beneficiaries of this democratization of music. This episode, he talks about the tools and tricks he uses to create, stay inspired, and make the music that he hears in his head.  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Song Stories is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to 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,

(00:20):
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. My name
is Jordan run Talk. Thank you so much for listening
this season. We're talking to Phineas, a singer, songwriter and
producer extraordinaire by age four, He's helped to find the

(00:40):
sound of contemporary pop through the work he's done with
a host of artists Justin Bieber, Camill, Cabo, Selina Gomez, Halsey,
Kid Cutty, and most notably his sister Billie Eilish. They
famous the record of Billy's breakthrough debut When We All
Fall Asleep? Where Do We Go? In the bedroom of
their child at Home and Home recording is more or

(01:02):
less than his m O. Ever, since if it ain't broke,
don't fix it, you know, Phineas is one of the
most visible beneficiaries of the recent democratization of technology. It's
a seismic shift that's affected essentially every artistic medium, including film, photography,
and publishing. Self producing records is no longer limited to
those who can afford costly equipment. These days, you don't

(01:24):
need a studio or a ten thousand dollar microphone to
make a good sounding record. In fact, you probably have
everything you need available on whatever you're using to listen
to this podcast. During our chat then, he has talked
about the tools he uses to stay inspired and make
the music that he hears in his head. He's pretty
unprecious for a budding pop guru. It could be a

(01:44):
cheap backpackers guitar, obscure drum machine, or something a little weirder.
Phineas is notorious for using more unconventional sounds in his music.
If you listen close to his work, you'll hear dentist drills,
beeps from a cross rock signal, and a struct among
other things. If it serves the song and its emotions
it's going in. On this episode of Song Stories, Phineas

(02:07):
takes us through the nitty gritty of hit making. Over
the course of the discussion, I'll be joined by my friend,
colleague and executive producer, Noel Brown, who's a talented musician
and songwriter in his own right, he'll be able to
bring a new perspective and fresh insights to our conversation
on behalf of us both please enjoy. What is your

(02:31):
room like it? What can you give a little quick
like audio tour of your of your workspace. Yeah, I'm
using the amphions which are on the sub stack. That's
my sort of go to monitoring. Um. I run everything
through the the Apollo, the U A d apollos. Um.
I have a Chandler read microphone or so what I

(02:53):
use from my own voice and some other singers, and
then I record Billy through a telephone in two fifty
one um. And then I have a I'm sitting at
my desk, which is like not a it's not an
analog console, but it's it's a console desk in that
it's it's wired up. It has my you know, compressor units,

(03:13):
my preampts, my nord um. But I'm still in the box. Nice,
very cool, And this question is going to give away
the fact that I've never successfully written a song in
my entire life. But I'm always curious when talking to
people who are blessed with the ability to do so.
What compels you to sit down and write a song?
Is it a desire to connect with other people or

(03:35):
is it almost like an exorcism? You have something inside
that you need to get out of you. And if
you were on a desert island, you'll be writing just
as much. There's a little bit of that. I mean
to me, you know, I feel like I I sit
down to write a song the way that I think
most people at least in their their youth, like doodle
on a piece of paper, you know what I mean.
Like you have a piece of paper in front of you,

(03:57):
and you have a pen, and you you don't draw stuff,
and um, you know, maybe you're inspired, maybe you're looking
out the window. Maybe you draw what you're seeing out
the window. But but even if you were in a
you know, on a plane sitting there board, you'd you'd
you'd use your imagination. To me, it's using my imagination. Um.
And then there are instances of like you know, true

(04:20):
sort of like needing to articulate something that's happened to
me personally. Um. But you know, I just yeah, I
have I have an itch. I have a I have
the creative itch. That's sort of the main thing and
I think also like making music. I was talking to
my girlfriend about this the other day, like, like making
music is the thing that consistently brings me the most fulfillment.

(04:45):
And so sometimes even if if maybe I don't, like
if I'm uninspired, I'll still sort of like sit down
to try. Maybe nothing will come out, but I'll sit
down to try, because sometimes you surprise yourself and you
write something that you're proud of, and then you have
this sort of like glow about you like I made something.
So yeah, I would sort of say that, like I'm

(05:07):
not tremendously precious about writing. I don't wait for like
the muse to hit me or whatever quote unquote you know, um,
sometimes it does. Sometimes I I am very inspired, and
that is wonderful and lucky, but it's like I don't
I don't put too much stock into that. I feel like,
you know, you can always make something. Do you find

(05:29):
yourself like if you maybe take a sound first approach
with this doodling, whether maybe you're not writing lyrics first,
you're more like trying to get some things down like
a sketch book, and then you find yourself almost inspiring
yourself just with the timbre of things like I know
you're into, you know, using unconventional materials for sampling, like
lighters and you know, things like that. Do you find

(05:50):
yourself kind of like hearing things within the abstract, things
that you sort of use as building blocks and from
there find your way to like, oh, here's a melody
that I didn't even necessary they think about it. It's
kind of presented itself from what I laid down. That's
a great way to articulate it. Yeah, for sure. I
feel like what I'm always looking for is tools to

(06:11):
inspire me. Right, So if that's the sound of a
hand knocking on a door, if that's you know, um,
some phrase that my my dad said in passing that
I thought was sort of poetic and worth you know, singing, Uh,
you know, anything that inspires me. I feel like that's

(06:32):
I haven't talked about this with a lot of people,
so I don't know if this is truth? Are you?
But that that, to me is one of the challenges
with having written now hundreds of songs, is you know,
if you're not sort of focusing on the right way,
like a g chord on a guitar that maybe once
held all this inspiration for you as a new musician,

(06:52):
like you've you've written twenty thirty songs with just that
G chord, and so it's like that chord alone may
not inspire you the same ways. So it's like, oh,
let me, let me buy a little toy synthesizer on
eBay and play some sound and go like, oh, that's
a different way to hear it. And then you you know,
just anything that reinspires you. Um, and sometimes it's like
a it's like a sort of a cyclical thing where

(07:15):
you you get away from that simple G chord, you
do some other stuff, and then you come back and
there's new inspiration in it. So you know, I think, um,
I think it's always to me about like tools for
inspiring myself. That's like what I'm That's what i'll that's
what you know is sort of anything that does that
is like essentially priceless, right, Like you know, I could

(07:36):
buy I could buy the most expensive guitar and you know,
if it doesn't inspire me, it's not worth it. Or
I could buy a toy guitar and it could you know,
inspire me is sixty bucks and it's like invaluable. So
that's sort of what what I'm always looking for is
like a catalyst for inspiration, kind of a conduit there.
There there's UM speaking of inspiration. If you haven't seen this,

(07:58):
I highly recommended on YouTube. UM there's a series of
British television programs called The south Bank Show. UM. There's
ones about artists. There's one about Francis Bacon, there's one
about talking heads making fear of music, and the one
for me that is just the quintessential, like you know, inspiration.
One on one is Peter Gabriel making security and he's
got this ta light sampler like which is like at

(08:20):
the time was probably like fifty grand just like you know,
unachievable piece of tech that like only people like Peter
Gabriel could have in his like a state in bath
and he's doing things that you can now do enableton,
like you know, recording, like smashing a TV in a
junkyard and then he makes it into this loop and
it becomes this tone and then he writes a song
around the tone, and like, how do you feel about

(08:41):
the kind of democratization of technology and the availability of
like folks like yourself from where you started and I
think you probably haven't you too far off that, of course,
just being able to do it in a bedroom, do
it with these like widely available tools, and you really
don't need a massive studio anymore. It's nice to have
cool PRIs and toys, but ultimately the creative tools are

(09:01):
in the computer. Yeah, I mean, I feel like the
sort of yeah, what did you call it, the democratization
of of of these sort of tools at your disposals,
Like it's so exciting because it it just means that
the best idea wins, right. You know, you read Outliers
when I was thirteen or fourteen, and um, you know,

(09:23):
there's there's so much circumstance in people people's lives, right,
Like Bill Gates grew up within the the mile radius
of like one of the only computers that anyone in
the country could have access to learn computing on one
of those computers that took up a whole building in
Bill gates youth, you know, and Bill Gates spent years,
you know, sort of with this with this super rare

(09:45):
privilege at his disposal of like being able to have
access to something no one else had access to. And
it's like, you know, that just means that a lot
of people who would otherwise be brilliant who don't have
the you know too, was that their fingertips, you know,
aren't gonna be able to get the experience that you
need to get good at something. So I'm so excited

(10:07):
that it's getting easier and easier for kids to to
to you know, make music and use these tools that
are readily available, and really is sort of a best
idea wins scenario, you know. And even though like the
MacBook Pro that I use is fairly expensive by you
know a lot of people standards, you know, it's not

(10:29):
it's not fifty dollars. And and then also I remember,
like a couple maybe a year or two into my
burgeoning career, when I was like twenty, I was working
with a kidney Methan, and he had made a song
that I was really impressed by, and I said like,
would you use logic ableton pro tools? And he was like,
I made it on an iPad. And I remember like,

(10:51):
I I have never made a I've never made an
instrumental on my iPad. But I remember being like, oh,
hell yeah, Like I love that. I love that you
can take this thing that's you know, an even more
paired down piece of hardware, slash software, you know, and
make something awesome on it. So it's a thrill to me,

(11:11):
you know, and it's you know again, it's like just
just just easier to be inspired. I think you're at
the point in your career where you could have, you know,

(11:33):
any resource really available. I magin a whole wall of melotrons,
a nine piece orchestra, whatever, you know, analog thing that
you wanted. Do you any desire to to expand your
sonic palette like that or do you really have everything
that you need just in your laptop. I I've over
the last eighteen months, you know, purchased some gear I

(11:53):
either couldn't afford when I was younger, or just you know,
I hadn't learned. And it's it's twofold, right, There's like
gear that I you know, I couldn't afford. And then
there's also just the understanding component, you know what I mean.
If I get a analog compressor unit, it's like that's
only going to be as useful as as I'm able

(12:15):
to make it useful. So anytime I purchase anything like that,
I have to devote some sometime and energy to to
really learning and understanding it. Um you know, and then
the caveat there is sometimes my lack of understanding of
something is what's interesting about it. Sometimes if I use
a piece of equipment wrong, the misuse of it will

(12:36):
create some interesting sound or texture and I love that.
So yeah, I mean I've expanded that, you know, I've
never I've never had some kind of like complex about it.
You know, I don't have some sort of like, you know,
I don't use any old gear, I don't use any
analog stuff. I don't have like a sort of a
I'm not precious about it, um, but yeah, I don't.

(12:57):
I don't really sort of like, you know, ascribe any
any inherent value to that stuff beyond what you can
do with it. Right, It's like I have the benefit
of like having made songs I'm proud of with the
most paired down set up. And then it's like, you know,
there's a lot of instances now where I, you know,

(13:19):
have have made songs I'm also proud of with with complicated,
you know, sort of vintagy gear setups. You know, to me,
what what I'll always value above anything else is expedients
like that. To me, like the quickness of something is
like always what I'm after and I mean this whole
thing right now this week, which is driving me crazy

(13:41):
where I'm trying to um move all my stuff from
one computer to a new computer, and it's like, oh, dude,
in the music world, like with plug ins and stuff,
it is such a bear to do that. And you know,
it's like one of those things where if I have
a day where I I've you know, have a task
to accomplish, I have to make a song, It's like

(14:01):
I can't spend two hours that day screwing around with
logins for plug ins and authorizing them in an eyelock.
It's like, I'm just gonna use my old computer because
it's the one that works, you know what I mean.
So that's kind of how I feel about Gear too.
It's like the guitar that I'm gonna play the most
on my album is the guitar that I can reach
over here and grab. It's like it doesn't have much
to do with whether it's the nicest guitar I've ever

(14:22):
played or whatever. It's just what's closest to me, What
can I pick up? What can I play the best?
You know? And and I guess to me, that's like
you know what what can help me articulate my idea
the fastest is always what I'm gonna you know, place
the most value one. I mean that's true for a
lot of my favorite artists, like Radiohead. If you look
at you know, the gear they use, none of it's

(14:43):
particularly fancy, Like look at their pedal boards. It's like
all stuff like the old line six green looper that
everyone used because it's like a course and it just
kicks as and does one thing really well. And like
they just use these cool little vox amps. And like
Tom York he has a nice Gibson that he uses
every now and then, but he may only plays like
the same kind of guitar that he's always played. And
Johnny Greenwood has this like you know, starcaster, Like it's

(15:05):
it's vintage and cool, but he just plays it because
that's the one that he feels the most comfortable with. Um.
I love what you said about gear using things wrong.
I would almost argue that that is how most sonic
gear came to be used. Interestingly, is like like a
compressor was built as a broadcast tool to like level
out signals so that commercials weren't you know, wild widely

(15:26):
later than like the other thing in the program. But
then someone figured out how to, Oh what if I
crank up the game and make it distort and then
turn the threshold up so it like pulses. That'd be cool.
But then some as will be like no, no, no, no,
you could break it. That's the wrong. But that's ultimately
what we think of as a compressor. Now, I mean,
can you speak a little more to those kind of
happy accidents or sort of like you know, getting your
your hands dirty by kind of like using things wrong,

(15:48):
or just like letting the kind of warts shine through,
because I think that's what makes a lot of really interesting. Yeah. Absolutely,
I mean I've sort of become a little known as
a producer for for like the what's called like digital clipping,
just like when when the signal strength is too too
high and it sort of kicks in, and and that
stems from from just being inexperience, right, just being young

(16:09):
and not understanding how to how to limit signal correctly,
and so I was just letting stuff clip. And then
over the years, you know, it's it's just like a
guitar on over drive or a you know, a voice
screaming or something, right, so you know, like the best
example I can give is like there's a song of

(16:30):
Billy's called Zanni and there's a there's a thing that
happens there. There was like compilations on YouTube anyone can
look up called R I P Headphones, which is basically
like sub base. It's smacking like a limiter will distort
the high end of things in this fabulous kind of
like granular like because bass is like only heard with

(16:54):
a subword for really like when bass blasts through like
the high end of a signal on a sort of
you know, a tinny speaker, the voice kind of like crumbles,
like the voice goes like and it's really cool. And
I basically was like using I was making the songs Danny,
and I wanted the base to come in in the
chorus and just blow out the vocal. But I sort

(17:16):
of was like, that's kind of all or nothing. And
also like ultimately, I after I finished producing a song,
I send the files to a mixer, The mixer mixes them,
and then the mixer sends them to a mastering engineer
the mastering edge or whatever. And so I was like,
how do I achieve this vocal effect without you know,

(17:36):
having it be this, like you can only hear it
when the base and the vocal are being played at
the same time, and they're both being played, you know,
with a limiter on them, Like how do I do this?
And so I realized that in the digital age, there's
there's a plug in called our compressor by by Waves,
and you can do a thing called side chaining, and
side chaining I've used a lot, and so side chaining

(17:57):
is like it takes the signal from something else and
it compresses your track or uses it as the threshold
to duck or increase the volume based on the signal
from something else. So it's how you get all that
trance dance, like where the kick hits and the synth
goes like it's all sort of corresponding compression. It's taking

(18:18):
the signal strength from this ducking this thing down so
it has this kind of pump, which is really cool.
And I basically realized that, because it's we're in a
digital era, you could side chain a signal and then
mute the signal and the coding of the compressor would
still interpret it even though it's muted. So it was

(18:39):
like it was like taking like the data which is
such a cool phenomenon that like, I don't I could
be wrong. I didn't grow up in the analog era,
but I don't think you could do that in the
analog era because it's physical sort of like sound, right,
it's not it's not data. So I realized that you
could put this plug in on the vocal side chain
the base and then mute the bay ace. But as

(19:00):
long as the signal hypothetically is hitting the compressor, it's
still blowing out the vocal even though there's no base.
And it was just this like ah ha moment of
like like I created this thing, I'm so proud of it.
And then I bounced that a couple of times and
got the camp worked out, and then it was just

(19:23):
like this great discovery of like this thing that you
know they never meant to make happen. Here's the other example.
I have this synthesizer UM over here called an a
Stone top six that's a Japanese synth from I think
the eighties or seventies. UM. That thing has some of
the best sub base I've ever heard in my life

(19:45):
on it, and I know because of p A systems
that they didn't know how good the sub woffer was
when they made it, And to me, that's like what's
cooler than that? Like, what's cooler than making a synth?
And thinking like this is pretty cool? And then you
you take you know, thirty forty years in the future
and it's got this epic sub sound that that they

(20:08):
weren't even aware of, Like it's so exciting to me. No, great, Well,
put man, I'm touching earlier on what you're talking about

(20:29):
with all these sort of unorthodox sounds like you know,
an Australian crosswalk beep or or lighting a matchss something.
How how does those? How do those work for you?
Do you have an arsenal of sound effects that you
just find really interesting that you pull from or do
you have a sound in your head that you're trying
to create through any means necessary it's necessary, be it
a piano or you know, a traffic beep, Like, how

(20:52):
do you how do you work with those? Threefold One
of the you know, the primary one is like experimentation,
you know, I uh, trying to find something exciting and interesting, right,
So maybe that's listening through a bunch of sounds I've
recorded and finding something and modulating it and going Oh
that's now, that's exciting interesting to me. That's kind of
experimental inspiring myself. The second one is like sort of

(21:17):
the literal interpretation of a song. You know, there's a
lot of a lot of songs I have, especially done
with Billy, where there's like lyrics about something burning and
I'm like, oh, let me light a match stick and
then turn that into a beat. And that's kind of
like a literal interpretation and then trying to make it
as musical as possible. And then the third example is

(21:37):
just like hearing something out in the world and thinking
it's awesome and recording it and then figuring out how
to use it, you know what I mean, where I'm
just like, oh, that's that's awesome, let me record it.
A lot of the recording I do is like recording
with nothing in mind, recording and just kind of going
like I'll record five minutes while I'm walking through Portland,
and then I'll listen to it tomorrow and I'll see

(21:59):
if there's a good moment in there. But then there
there are these sort of like like my girlfriend has
like a drawer in her closet that makes this like
sound when you open it, Like some friction he sound.
I'm always like, dude, I gotta sample that. I gotta
turn that into some component of a rhythm. So that's
just like sometimes there are sounds that you just hear
that you think are super cool. I just dropped it

(22:19):
in the chat. By the way, if you're interested. This
Peter Gabriel thing that I'm gonna never keep talking about.
He has this quote where he says that in the
history of great songs, there have been dozens hundreds with
awful lyrics, but there have never been any that sound back.
That's something I'm not quite getting it right, but it's
something along those lines and very much speaking to the
kind of attitude that you're bringing forth. And I think,

(22:41):
you know, you can definitely have some cringe lyrics or
unintelligible lyrics, but if they hit a mood or click
with the sonics, then it can totally be its own thing. Yeah.
I I respectfully not not that Peter Gabriel is any slout.
She's amazing, but I would, you know, I disagree. I
feel like there's there's a lot of songs that are

(23:02):
huge hits that on a sort of a technical level,
sound bad or at the very least are like poorly recorded, engineered,
but they have they have that that vibe, that feeling.
They have the greatest vocal or they have great lyrics
or great melody. So I feel like there's there's a lot.
I feel like what they're what there isn't is a
hugely popular song with with uninteresting melody and lyrics like

(23:27):
those two things, at least one of those two things
always present, you know what I mean, Like, it's very
true that they are a song. I mean, there's there's
also a whole litany of of you know, songs from
other countries that I don't understand a word of that
I am obsessed with and think are amazing. But it's like, yeah,
you know, um, I love the asthetic. But you know,
on a on a technical level, the first couple of

(23:49):
Strokes albums, which are some of my favorite albums, are
recorded in very unorthodox ways. The drums are recorded with
super paired down mike set up. They're all compressed to
ship and they're you know, the and it's awesome. It's
a great vibe, but it's definitely not like you probably
would not get your degree at a recording school with

(24:11):
that record, even though it's amazing and it shouldn't be different.
Um you know, so that stuff all in But the
Strokes is actually the reason I reference the Strokes is
the Strokes is one of the things that made me
want to start producing music because there was something I
was responding to it so emotionally. I loved the music.
I love the way it sounded, but I could tell

(24:31):
that there were imperfections and there were flaws. And I
think sometimes you listen to some incredible, you know, like
butch VG album or something, and it sounds it sounds
so amazing that there's this kind of like I could
never do this feeling, like these drums are so flawless
and the guitars are amazing, and you know, he's such
a master at his craft. And I think there's something

(24:52):
about like the Strokes album Um Come Down Machine that
like sounded like they made it in a bedroom even
if they didn't, and made me go like, oh my god,
I I could make something like this and I love
this album, so I could make something that I love
and I'm proud of. It's almost like what punk rock
did for like people that wanted to be in bands
versus like people don't want to produce records. It's like, oh,

(25:13):
this is like the aesthetic, you know, I can I
can achieve this with my you know, meager talents. Then
obviously you've got no place where you've expanded way beyond that.
But I would still argue that these imperfections and these
kind of wrong things are and they sound good. Like
there's I'm saying, Yeah, that's that's all I was getting,
And I think that's what Gabriel was getting into with

(25:34):
that quote, like, Yeah, if something is recorded badly and
it just doesn't pop, that's that's different than if something's
recorded kind of in a raunchy forward way and totally
matches with the vibe or the aesthetic or the or
the The worst way you can do something in music
is a lifeless way, Yes, that's the worst. The worst
thing you could make is something that doesn't evoke emotion,

(25:56):
you know, And and it can be perfectly quanti eised
and beautifully mixed and beautifully mastered, but if it doesn't
have a emotional component, if it doesn't elicit a response,
then you've then you've failed, you know. And if you've
elicited a response, it could be the worst mix, or
it could be the Yeah, it's just about that that
human reaction. Song Stories is a production of I heart Radio.

(26:27):
The show was hosted and executive produced by Noel Brown
and Jordan run Tug, with supervising producer Mike John's. If
you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us
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