Role reversal

Meet Finneas. Not as an actor or producer, but as a multi-hyphenate musician.

- Derrick Tan

Genres are restrictive. Sure, they allow listeners to identify music characteristics easily, but that pegs melody creators to a specific style. For Finneas O’Connell, it’s the least of his concerns and this stance has prevailed so far.

As the mastermind producer and co-writer for younger sister Billie Eilish’s double platinum debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, O’Connell marched to his own beat and presented a sound that wasn’t anything like the others on the current official music charts or radio. Weird-pop, Gothicpop, Avant-pop, Art-pop. These definitive terms by critics can’t pin down O’Connell. Or he simply rejects the notion.

Bolstered by the success of Eilish’s debut and strong positive reception of his earlier-released singles, O’Connell stepped out from the production shroud and into the solo limelight with his first seven-track EP Blood Harmony.

But neither this nor being Eilish’s producer was his first exposure to public attention.

A true blue SoCal who was raised in East Los Angeles, California by actor-musician parents, O’Connell entered show business as a child actor. From the Cameron Diaz-headlined Bad Teacher and his mom’s (actress Maggie Baird) Life Inside Out to comedy favourite Modern Family and musical TV series Glee, the 1997-born elder sibling knew not to let his personality get in the way of his acting role.

In a Skype interview with Esquire Singapore, O’Connell explained that his actor guise exists “only when playing the assigned characters and Finneas the musician is purely him as it’s the songs he’d written about his life and experience encountered”.