FINNEAS

Finneas O'Connell, a Los Angeles native who performs and releases music under the name FINNEAS, maintains a multifaceted career as a behind-the-scenes songwriter, music producer, actor, and singer/songwriter. His sleek and intimate alternative pop style has earned widespread notice. He first reached international audiences through teenage acting parts in the 2011 film Bad Teacher and on the 2015 season of Glee, among additional roles, before earning acclaim in the late 2010s for Grammy-winning contributions to the outcast anthems of his sister Billie Eilish. After her breakthrough full-length When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? appeared in March 2019 and he joined her live band for touring, FINNEAS issued his own debut, the Blood Harmony EP, still in 2019. His first full-length, Optimist, arrived in 2021. Although the album retained some of the economical, interior-facing production for which he had become known, its focus on piano, excursions into brighter pop, and his warmer, more assertive vocal delivery distinguished him from his sibling. Between 2022 and 2024, FINNEAS and Billie Eilish claimed two Oscars for best song—one for the James Bond theme "No Time to Die" and one for the vulnerable Barbie ballad "What Was I Made For?," both sung by Eilish. He released his second solo LP, the more uplifting For Cryin' Out Loud!, later in 2024.

Born in Los Angeles in 1997, Finneas Baird O'Connell was raised in a creative household by actress and screenwriter Maggie Baird and actor Patrick O'Connell. His sister, Billie Eilish (full name Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell), is four-and-a-half years his junior. As a child actor he began writing and recording music around age 12. He made his film debut with Cameron Diaz in 2011's Bad Teacher and appeared on the soundtrack of the 2013 music-themed drama Life Inside Out, in which he starred alongside his mother. Subsequent parts came on Modern Family and Aquarius, and in 2015 he portrayed the recurring character Alistair during the sixth season of Glee. Early the following year his guitar pop group the Slightlys released their debut single, "Desperate Measures." Later in 2016 Eilish achieved her breakthrough with the FINNEAS-produced "Ocean Eyes," a track he had originally written for his band; after accumulating tens of millions of streams the song reached number 84 on the U.S. Hot 100.

The siblings sustained their professional partnership as FINNEAS co-wrote and produced Eilish's debut EP, Don't Smile at Me, issued by Interscope in 2017. Their stand-alone single "Bored" was featured that year on the soundtrack for the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. By the time Eilish had become a pop superstar, her 2019 full-length debut When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? topped the Billboard 200, with FINNEAS credited as producer and co-writer. Before the year ended he had also begun producing material for Selena Gomez and Camila Cabello.

In October 2019 FINNEAS unveiled his solo debut, the EP Blood Harmony. The intimate relationship songs, released on the OYOY label, propelled him into the Top Five of Billboard's Next Big Sound chart. That November he received six Grammy Award nominations for his work on Eilish's debut album, covering Record, Album, Song, and Producer of the Year as well as Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; he ultimately won all six. He issued the song "What'll They Say About Us" in September 2020, drawing inspiration from the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 death of Broadway performer Nick Cordero. Early 2021 brought the single "Till Forever Falls Apart," a collaboration with Ashe that reached the Top 20 of the Billboard alternative songs chart. Two further Grammys arrived that March for Record of the Year on Eilish's "Everything I Wanted" and Best Song Written for Visual Media for the Bond theme "No Time to Die," which Eilish sang and co-wrote. Three months after delivering his sister's second chart-topping album, Happier Than Ever, FINNEAS released his own first full-length and Interscope debut, Optimist, in October 2021; it peaked at number nine on the Top Alternative Albums chart. During the same period he supplied the keyboard-based score for the teen drama The Fallout, and in early 2022 "No Time to Die" received the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

FINNEAS continued issuing singles in 2022, among them "Naked" and "Nobody Like You," the latter appearing on the Turning Red soundtrack. His rock- and electronic-instrumented score for the comedy-mystery film Vengeance came out on Back Lot Music that year. He joined composers including Chris Bear for the FXX sitcom Dave ahead of its third season in 2023. In July the fragile Eilish ballad "What Was I Made For?" appeared on the chart-topping soundtrack Barbie: The Album. Written by both siblings, the track earned a Golden Globe for Best Original Song, Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Best Song Written for Visual Media, and their second Academy Award for Best Original Song in three years.

FINNEAS returned with new solo material via the August 2024 single "For Cryin' Out Loud!," a horns-injected midtempo love song that served as the title track for his second solo album. The more uplifting collection For Cryin' Out Loud! arrived that October, the same month the Alfonso Cuarón thriller series Disclaimer premiered on Apple TV+ with a score by O'Connell.