Music Maverick Finneas is Mr. Brightside
With a new solo album out, the music powerhouse Finneas contemplates '90s nostalgia, the future, and the power of the Internet as he fronts L'OFFICIEL Hommes USA Fall 2021.
Photography Zackery Michael
Styled in AMI PARIS by Liz McClean
Finneas Baird O'Connell, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter and music-producer wunderkid, has more than enough reasons to be "happier than ever"—to borrow the name of his younger sister and co-conspirator Billie Eilish's sophomore album, which he himself produced. After all, the record debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in July, with nine of the album's songs flooding the Hot 100 chart.
But long before Finneas, as he is mononymously known to fans, was helping craft Eilish's critically-acclaimed catalogue—Bad Guy won record of the year at the 2020 Grammy Awards; Everything I Wanted was bestowed the same honor the following year-the siblings were simply teenage collaborators uploading experimental electronic pop on SoundCloud from Finneas' childhood bedroom in Los Angeles. "Ocean Eyes," an introspective ballad written and produced by Finneas, was originally conceived for his own band at the time, before he decided it was better suited for the lush vocals of his sister. After it was self-released in 2016, the moody track caught the attention of label executives and exploded online in a post-Lorde streaming landscape. The pair quickly summited the top of the pop charts on the backs of Eilish’s 2017 Don’t Smile at Me and the release of her debut studio album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Two years later-both of which were helmed by Finneas.
Not that being pop’s prolific prince of production (besides Billie, he has written songs for Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez) has gone to Finneas’ head. His solo debut album, Optimist, is full of self-effacing hypotheticals about “what happens to people like me when we go out of fashion.” Perhaps most surprisingly, the record largely foregoes Eilish’s signature ambient trip-hop beats for the soft-rock sound of radio hits from the 1990s in the vein of “Hey Jealousy” by the Gin Blossoms and piano ballads reminiscent of early-2000s crooners like Chris Martin of Coldplay or John Mayer.
Starting with the grunge-era ironic detachment embedded in the album’s title, Finneas is hardly subtle in his yearning for the innocence of the pre-dotcom world that he was born too late to experience. This is made most clear by the album’s lead single, “The 90s,” a decade the singer praises for being a moment in time “when I was not a problem yet.” The song’s music video features Finneas sporting a shaggy blonde mane and a loose-fitting polka-dot dress shirt—a look last made popular on VH1 by acts such as the Goo Goo Dolls.
Thankfully, Finneas uses nostalgia more as a generational wake-up call than mere cosplay. Track after track, he self-consciously contemplates the ridiculousness of being a music superstar in today’s era shaped by political unrest, global health crises, and a changing climate. (“How can you sing about sex when the school is on lockdown?” he sings on the track “The Kids Are All Dying.”) Here, Finneas discusses the upside of recording music from home, the mental toll of social media, and why he knows you think his Tesla is a “douchebag car.”
ALEX HAWGOOD: First things first: Would you like to do this Zoom call with our videos turned on or off?
FINNEAS: I’m in a room where I’m fully clothed, so I’m happy to do video today. Sometimes there are those rare occasions where videos, you know, are not an option. [laughs]
AH: Ok, great. Now that we can see each other, why don’t you tell me where you are currently?
F: I am in my studio in my house in Los Feliz in Los Angeles. It was actually rebuilt very recently. Back in April, the studio flooded and was destroyed. It had to get rebuilt over the course of the next four months. This time we were like, “You know what, let’s redo the flooring.” We dug trenches in the foundation and hid all of the cables and microphone cords. We also did Dolby Atmos, with speakers in all of the walls and in the ceiling. I was able to get back in here at the end of July, but I admittedly don’t know how to use it all. I need to get a tutorial on it.
AH: You’ve recorded music for your sister, Billie, and other artists like Selena Gomez. How are your collaborators liking the renovations?
F: Billie and I have done all of her music here since it was built. We made her whole second album [Happier Than Ever] here. The occasions on which I’m maybe not bringing artists here is if they’re at a different studio that they already love because that is where they’re the most comfortable. I like to make the artists as comfortable as possible, so if they have a room at recording studios like Westlake or Conway or somewhere in LA. and they’re in there every day, I’ll bring my gear and I’ll set up there just to make their lives as easy as I can. But if an artist doesn’t care, they’re welcome to come here to work. That’s fun for me, and they get to hang out with my dog.
AH: Dog breed check, please?
F: I have a pitbull names Peaches. She just turned three. We rescued her when she was about one, so we’ve had her for almost two years. She likes to ride around on a raft in our pool. She looks very aquatic to me. She’s like a sea lion or something.
AH: Did you record your new album, Optimist, at your home studio?
F: I actually did not record it here because I did a predominant amount of the recording during the period when this place had flooded. I was in a rented room in North Hollywood that was really small, had no windows, and was really, really hot. The air conditioner was so loud that if I was recording anything it had to be turned off, so I was constantly sitting there sweating like I was in a hot yoga studio or something. But I wrote a lot of the music that ended up being on my album in this room over the past 12 to 18 months. So, even though I recorded it somewhere else, it was kind of being written here slowly.
AH: I want to talk about the title: Optimist. Many of the songs have feel-good instrumentation and whistle-friendly melodies, but the lyrics are deeply cynical about the state of, well, everything.
F: That’s a good analysis. I had a lot of fun with the instrumentation and the production. It was like I was painting some terrible Renaissance tableau where a bunch of people are dying, but the painting is done in pastel colors. To me, the title is about the fact that being observant and articulate about all the things going on around you doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be an optimist. I don’t think you’re an optimist if you’re ignoring problems or ignoring heartbreak or loss or death. I’m an optimist, still, even though these are the things that I’m paying attention to and caring about and worried about and concerning myself with, if that all makes sense. The root of the album is like, Yeah, I’m worried about all this stuff. I’m worried about the political landscape of our country and of the world. I’m worried about women’s rights in general. Right now, I’m worried about religious zealots. I’m worried about climate change. Reparations need to happen. But I’m still optimistic, you know? If you pay attention, it’s very easy to become cynical and think, like, we’re doomed, but I’m not willing to feel that way because that’s useless. I’m hopeful, even though I’m concerned.
Maybe people think you're an idiot or maybe people think you're a genius. Neither is true. You're just trying your best.
AH: The album’s second track is “The Kids Are All Dying.” The song includes lyrics like, “How can you sing about drugs when the politicians are lying?” and “The Internet is mad/they say you’re problematic.” Are these words directed at yourself or about other artists you come across in the industry?
F: The perspective is sort of open to interpretation. I think when I was writing it I was predominantly singing those lyrics to myself. My actual feeling was like, What am I doing? What am I doing singing about all this self-involved stuff about my girlfriend and about my sex life when there’s all this shit happening in the world? On one hand, why am I bothering to sing about this? And then on the other hand, it’s like, the Internet is always going to question you about that stuff anyway. As soon as you’ve spoken out about one issue, the Internet holds you to either no standard or all standards. I respect the need for high standards, I really do. But I guess my main issue with it is that I’m not an expert on every issue, you know? I mean, when I talk to people who are experts in their field, they don’t seem to want to hear my stupid opinion on some 30-year-long issue we’re still figuring out. [laughs]
AH: My personal thesis on being online is that we’re damned if we share our opinions but we’re also damned for not speaking out on any given topic. It can feel like a bind.
F: It can be a little tricky, right? I don’t want to talk out of my ass. I’d rather make a donation without telling anybody than just shout about an issue on my Instagram and do nothing in real life. “Actions speak louder than words” still rings true to me. So, for “The Kids Are All Dying,” the lyrics are about those two things: It’s me feeling like, Man, what am I doing singing about all this stuff when there’s so much bad stuff happening?, while at the same time, the audience is like, “You have to talk about all of these issues.”
AH: On “Happy Now,” you sing about the difference between personal happiness and people telling you that they are happy for your success.
F:To be clear, I am basically happy now. But I think about the song this way: I just played a festival for the first time in, like, two years. And, as I walked off stage, my crew asked, “Did you have fun?” Well, it was fun, but I was concentrating and working out how I wanted to put on as good of a show as I could for the audience. There were moments of fun in there, of course, but mostly I was making sure to remember my lyrics, to sing on pitch, and to play well. I want to work hard and to do a good job because if I look back and I didn’t give the project as much attention as I should have, I’ll regret it. When you start to have any amount of real attention being paid to your work, you get both ends of the spectrum. Maybe people think you’re an idiot or maybe people think you’re a genius. Neither is true. You’re just trying your best. So there are lines in that song about those moments when everybody is talking about you, but you don’t remember who you are. It’s really easy to have that happen. You have a sense of self a person, but if you look around and everybody’s talking about you, then it’s very easy to believe all the things that they are saying—both negative and positive. If you’re reading all your best reviews, then you have to also go read your worst. It’s all just opinion.
AH: At one point, you joke about taking a “drive around town in my douchebag car like the superstar that I pretend to be.”
F: I got a Tesla a couple years ago. I love that car, but it also made me feel kind of like a douchebag. So that whole song is about the version of myself that maybe I’m acting like I am versus the version of myself that I really feel like I am. It all circles back to perception, right?
AH: One of the album’s lead singles is “The 90s,” the decade you were born.
F: I was born in ’97. There’s this sort of misconception about that song that it’s about my childhood, but it’s really not. It’s about that period of time before I was born—a modern time that was still devoid of the Internet. In many ways, the ’90s are very close to where we are now as a culture, just sans Internet. When I read about the ’90s or watch films that take place during that period, there is this optimism that is not present anymore. It was the dawn of the digital age and the invention of the Internet. It felt like anything was possible. And now the Internet has changed so much of the rest of the world. God, you know, misinformation spreads so easily. I will get shit from Edward Snowden for saying this, but I don’t like anonymity on the Internet. I don’t think we should be anonymous on the Internet. People say things to you because their anonymity shields them. So the song is about this period of the world before I existed and before all my neuroses and anxiety existed.
AH: Even though many of the songs on Optimist are autobiographical, it feels like the lyric “not everything is about you” is something of the album’s rallying cry.
F: Definitely. We all feel anxious about everything happening in the world. At the same time, I think sometimes nervousness can lead to narcissism because you’re always so worried, right? Sometimes I meet a 25-year-old and their worldview is pretty small and insular. They still think everything is about them. I’m like, How do you still operate this way? How did you not get the memo? Because I know when it hit me, it was like, “Oh, everything is not about me at all.”
L'OFFICIEL Hommes USA Fall 2021 is now available to order online here.
GROOMING Patricia Morales
SET DESIGN Bryan Porter
TAILOR Hasmik
PRODUCTION Paul Preiss
PHOTO ASSISTANT Mike Lopez and Delilah Jesinkey
STYLIST ASSISTANT Rachel Tubbs
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Emily Kovac
