Despite being best-known as a songwriter and vocalist, Billie Eilish is also a guitar player. Though sometimes, it seems, a slightly reluctant one.
However, her brother Finneas has told Guitar World that he tries to encourage Eilish to contribute more guitar to her albums, all of which he has produced.
“I always try to get her to play as much as she’s willing to on our records because, even though she feels like she’s less experienced, I really like her sensibilities,” he says.
Finneas also reveals that he often teaches Eilish to play their songs’ guitar parts on a Fender Acoustasonic - he recently launched his own signature model - principally because it’s easy to play.
“It’s much closer to an electric guitar’s action than an acoustic action,” he explains. “Billie has spent less time than me playing guitar. I often teach her how to play our songs on the Acoustasonic because it’s easier for her to get the chord shapes down and practise on it.”
Discussing his own playing, Finneas goes on to discuss Eilish’s most common complaint about the guitar parts he records on her albums.
“Her number one piece of feedback is to be quieter!” he admits. “She’s a big fan of me thumbing stuff. Oftentimes, it’s not even between an actual pick or me strumming - she’s like, ‘I want the thumb!’ She wants that super, super tender thing.
“Then, sometimes, we bicker and maybe I win… With Wildflower specifically, I was strumming a certain way and she wanted it way quieter. I said, ‘I think this strumming is really effective for this song – it has a lot of rhythm in it. We’ll turn it down and it’ll be great!”
Elsewhere in the interview, Finneas has words for artists who blame their inability to cut through to the mainstream on the fact that ‘guitar music isn’t popular anymore’.
“If you’re making music that’s got guitar on it, and it doesn’t feel like it’s reaching the masses, you might be like, ‘Wow, people just hate guitar music, huh?’ Well, I don’t think we can blame the guitar - I think we’ve got to blame the band!”
