Billie Eilish, the Unofficial Biography Read online

  First American edition published in 2021 by Zest Books™

  Copyright © Michael O’Mara Books Limited 2020

  First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Michael O’Mara Books Limited

  Published by arrangement with Michael O’Mara Books Limited

  All US rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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  Front and back cover photography: Luigi Rizzo/Pacific Press via ZUMA Wire/Shutterstock

  Main body text set in Trade Gothic LT Std Light.

  Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Besley, Adrian, author.

  Title: Billie Eilish, the unofficial biography : from e-girl to icon / Adrian Besley.

  Description: Minneapolis : Zest Books, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Audience: Ages 13–18 | Audience: Grades 7–9 | Summary: “Billie Eilish is a phenomenon, a teenager whose beautifully crafted hits defy categorization and whose defiant persona mirrors the attitudes of a generation. Explore the life, talent, and philosophy of the fastest-rising star in pop music” —Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020033415 (print) | LCCN 2020033416 (ebook) | ISBN 9781728424163 (library binding) | ISBN 9781728424170 (paperback) | ISBN 9781728424187 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Eilish, Billie, 2001—Juvenile literature. | Singers—United States—Biography—Juvenile literature.

  Classification: LCC ML3930.E35 B47 2021 (print) | LCC ML3930.E35 (ebook) | DDC 782.42164092 [B]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033415

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033416

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-49266-49386-10/8/2020

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Homeschool Days

  Chapter Two

  Overnight Sensation

  Chapter Three

  The Real Deal

  Chapter Four

  Bellyache

  Chapter Five

  Dont Smile

  Chapter Six

  On the Road

  Chapter Seven

  The One to Watch

  Chapter Eight

  Lovely

  Chapter Nine

  Wearing The Crown

  Chapter Ten

  Blohsh

  Chapter Eleven

  The Monster Under The Bed

  Chapter Twelve

  Fourteen Pieces of Art

  Chapter Thirteen

  Festival Girl

  Chapter Fourteen

  Finneas

  Chapter Fifteen

  Happy Now . . .

  Chapter Sixteen

  Grammys, Oscars, and James Bond

  Acknowledgments

  Picture Credits

  Index

  Introduction

  “She’s so young!” People have been saying that about Billie Eilish since 2013.

  Long before her incredible start to 2020, when she swept the board at the GRAMMYs and had a hit single with the James Bond theme “No Time to Die.” When she had a viral hit on SoundCloud, they marveled at her age. When she rocked Coachella, she was a teen sensation. And when she had a US Number 1 in 2019, she was heralded as the first artist born in the twenty-first century to top the Billboard 200.

  And yet Billie has never defined herself by her age. She’s never tried to hide it or play on it. She’s worn her Gen Z heart on her sleeve, because that’s who she is—but she’s a whole lot more besides that. Billie is a wonderfully creative person, as interested in filmmaking, dance, fashion, and art as she is in music. She won’t be restrained by music or fashion genres. She’s a natural performer who can communicate as well with a twenty-thousand-strong festival crowd as she can with an intimate club audience. She’s family-centered and close to her brother, mother, and father. She’s a sensitive soul who has suffered with bouts of depression, and she has an intelligent, engaging, and very funny personality.

  Billie has always been an open book. For a long time, she bared her heart and soul on social media, and she still gives full and frank answers to even the most difficult questions. In the Vanity Fair interviews, which have taken place every year, she is sometimes aghast at or amused by the responses of her younger self, but she is never embarrassed. That was who she was then, and this is who she is now—people change.

  However, there is one thing that remains constant. Billie has always known what she wants. You hear it from her brother and musical collaborator, Finneas, from her parents, from her managers, and from Billie herself. Why would she want to create something just because somebody else wants her to do it? Her success has been driven as much by her creative vision and her single-minded desire to make it come to life as it has by her singing and songwriting talent or her ability to perform.

  This is the story of a girl who has, by being true to herself, found that millions relate to her, and who has, by making songs she likes, created music that is loved all around the world. It may only be the beginning of what will turn out to be a long journey, but what a journey it has already been . . .

  Chapter One

  Homeschool Days

  Billie Eilish’s first song was about falling into a black hole.

  She was just four when she wrote it, and although she was astonishingly young when she became a star, at that age even she was still a work in progress. However, the fact that she wrote it, and continued to write songs through her childhood (on James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke” she shared “What a Wonderful Life,” a song she wrote with a friend when she was seven), gives some insight into the creativity and desire to perform she had as a child.

  Billie was born on December 18, 2001, in Highland Park, a neighborhood a few miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. In the 1990s it had appealed to people living on a budget, like Billie’s parents, who were willing to brave an area with a high crime rate; but twenty-first-century gentrification changed the vibe. The Highland Park that Billie grew up in still had an edge, but was increasingly full of renovated houses and new bars, coffee shops, music venues, and restaurants. By 2019 Time Out magazine was featuring it as one of the top-ten coolest neighborhoods on the planet!

  Here Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell entered the world. Eilish was originally going to be her first name (her parents had liked it since hearing it on a documentary about Irish conjoined twins), but when her maternal grandfather, Bill, died shortly before she was born, she was named Billie in his memory. Meanwhile, the fabulous Pirate moniker was insisted upon by her then four-year-old brother, Finneas. Baird came from her mother, Maggie Baird, and her father, Patrick O’Connell, provided the last name.

  Maggie and Patrick were actors. They had met back in 1984 when they were both working on a play in Alaska, moved to LA in 1991 in order to find TV and movie opportunities, and were married in 1995. They were clearly talented—both had performed on Broadway in New York—but show business is a tough world. Although Maggie appeared on Friends and Curb Your Enthusiasm and joined the comedy troupe the Groun
dlings (where she appeared alongside Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, and Melissa McCarthy), and Patrick had parts in The West Wing and Iron Man, these roles were minor and short-lived.

  It is often assumed that growing up in LA with actor parents, Billie had a privileged and affluent upbringing. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Long periods of unemployment are a regular occurrence for so many actors, and Maggie had to fall back on teaching jobs, while Patrick earned money through his carpentry skills or as a home repairer. They even renovated a house across the street from their own to sell and make a little money.

  The house they bought in Highland Park is the one Billie grew up in and still calls home. It is a cozy, two-bedroom bungalow with a slightly chaotic but incredibly homey feel. Paintings, art created by members of the family, photographs, and handwritten notes adorn the walls; the shelves creak with books; and musical instruments lie everywhere. The house has three pianos, including a grand piano that Patrick managed to find for free online. Outside, the yard has a handmade tree house, a tire swing, and a patch of grass—everything a young child might need.

  To complete the scene of domestic bliss, they were joined by two rescue pets: Misha, a black cat with a white “scarf” and a tabby face, and Pepper, a cute black-and-white pit bull mix with a black patch over one eye. Pepper can be seen alongside Billie in many photographs and seems particularly fond of licking her face. One picture, taken when Billie was around seven, shows the whole family all sporting a Pepper-style eye patch.

  Two bedrooms were plenty for the young family. For many years they all slept together in one room. When Finneas turned ten, he got his own room, but soon, when Billie needed her own space too, the arrangement became problematic. Typically, in a family focused on the happiness of the children, the parents gave up their room and slept on a futon behind the piano in the living room. It was just a matter of priorities.

  They might have had little money, but on the plus side Maggie and Patrick had plenty of time for their children. They created an atmosphere of warmth and freedom for Finneas and Billie, often built around their own passions for music and performance. Patrick played ukulele and piano, and Maggie ran songwriting workshops, even releasing her own country-music CD, called We Sail, in 2009.

  Making music and singing together was a permanent feature in the house. They would listen and sing along to Patrick’s varied mixtapes, which threw together Green Day, the Beatles, Avril Lavigne, Linkin Park, ABBA, and others. On “Carpool Karaoke,” Billie picked up the ukulele to play “I Will” by the Beatles, a song she learned when she was six years old, and on YouTube there’s a clip of her performance of the Beatles’s “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” at the age of eleven. Billie recalls how “music trumped everything” in the house—even bedtime, because no one was sent to bed if they were playing any kind of music.

  Making music and singing together was a permanent feature in the house.

  Billie certainly couldn’t complain about her parents being strict. The only rule she has mentioned was not being allowed to drink soda. The desire to allow their children the utmost freedom was highlighted by Maggie and Patrick’s decision to homeschool both Finneas and Billie. When Maggie was pregnant with Finneas in the early summer of 1997, the song “MMMBop” by Hanson was Number 1 in the charts. Hanson comprised three brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who had been homeschooled. Reading about these talented kids, Patrick was taken with the way they had been allowed to follow their own interests, and although he and Maggie were bringing up a family in exciting LA and not the Southwest, they vowed to homeschool their children too.

  In interview after interview, Billie credits her homeschooling for nurturing her independent and creative spirit. There was no school schedule to follow, so the siblings’ days were taken up with whatever enthusiasms they had. Although Billie learned enough to pass the equivalent of her high-school graduation at fifteen, much of her time was taken up with art, music, and other creative projects. She loved to make costumes and work on craft projects and, as she got older, would set up a camera in the backyard and star in her own mini movies. She admits she loved being photographed and filmed, and once harbored ambitions of being a model.

  Billie credits her homeschooling for nurturing her independent and creative spirit.

  Finneas had already followed in his parents’ footsteps and set out on a career as an actor. At fourteen he played opposite Cameron Diaz in the movie Bad Teacher. Two years later, he starred in the independent film Life Inside Out (cowritten by his mother) and appeared in two episodes of Glee. Billie would have her own opportunities to act but spurned them. “I went on, like, two auditions,” she told Rolling Stone magazine. “So lame. This creepy, cold room. All these kids that looked exactly the same. Most actor kids are psychopaths.” She did, however, enjoy recording background dialogue for movies with a bunch of other kids. You’ll never pick her out, but her voice is there on Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Ramona and Beezus, and X-Men.

  Being homeschooled with her brother meant that Billie and Finneas weren’t just siblings but best friends too—a relationship so strong it has endured all the tribulations of songwriting, recording, and touring together. However, it wasn’t a solitary life. Homeschooling was popular in LA, and the families formed a community providing friendship and support. There would be regular get-togethers and performances by the children. Once a week, parents would lead classes in a variety of subjects, such as cooking or sewing, and Billie took a songwriting class run by her mother. Maggie was an accomplished tutor; she taught the children how to begin writing a song, but gave them free reign by setting projects that would fire their imaginations. At eleven, Billie began songwriting in earnest and over the next few years surprised friends and adults with songs that showed great sophistication.

  Being homeschooled with her brother meant that Billie and Finneas weren’t just siblings but best friends too.

  Billie and Finneas were also receiving a musical education at the LA Children’s Chorus (LACC). She joined when she was eight years old and became a valued member of the group, only leaving when she was fifteen. Founded in the late 1980s, the chorus established an international reputation for its bel canto style of singing, which emphasizes smooth transitions across the vocal range. Billie credits the LACC with giving her the perfect grounding as a singer, not only teaching her technique and how to look after her voice but also how to read and write music.

  At the same time she was also learning to dance. Inspired by the films of Shirley Temple, the dancing child star of the 1930s, she started tap lessons. By the time she was eight, she was learning ballet and jazz too, and then she progressed to hip-hop and contemporary dance. Billie displayed real talent, joining a competitive dance company at twelve and enrolling in a number of classes, often with much older and more experienced dancers. We will never know how far she could have taken these skills, though, because within a year injury had forced her to focus her energies elsewhere.

  Inspired by the films of Shirley Temple, the dancing child star of the 1930s, she started tap lessons.

  Away from performance, Billie had developed another passion: horses. Her parents had saved money to pay for her to spend a week learning to ride at a local stable, but couldn’t afford to pay for regular lessons. So Billie worked—mucking out, grooming, or helping with children’s parties—in exchange for riding time. This lasted a couple of years, long enough for Billie to ride regularly on a beautiful black mare named Jackie O.

  Despite paying her way, Billie was self-conscious around the rich girls who frequented the stable. When a wealthier girl was given Jackie O to ride ahead of Billie, it became all too much and she quit. She loved that horse, and although she didn’t ride, she continued to visit the stable to spend time with her. Horses have remained a part of Billie’s life, an escape from the pressures of fame and work. On tour, whenever she gets the opportunity, such as on the beach in Auckland, New Zealand, or at a country club outside Glasgow, Scotland, you will find her smiling
and contented, riding horses.

  Billie’s inspirations

  When Billie was twelve years old she was watching the music video to Aurora’s “Runaway” and it all fell into place. That, she decided there and then, was what she wanted to do. Whether she would be successful and where it would take her, she didn’t care. Those looking for similarities with the Norwegian singer can point to the fact that she wrote “Runaway” when she was twelve, but the clear voice and lo-fi synth backing were obviously something a young Billie could emulate. Years later, Aurora would return the love, saying of Billie, “I think the world needs more artists who just do what they want. She uses her voice in such a cool way.”

  Inevitably, Billie is compared to virtually every young female singer ever, especially those she has picked out as personal favorites—Amy Winehouse, Marina Diamandis, Halsey, Melanie Martinez, and even 1950s singer Peggy Lee. Lana Del Rey is perhaps the most obvious match—Billie once described her “Off to the Races” as the “most badass song I’ve ever heard in my life.” It is clear that Del Rey’s vocal range, phrasing and delivery, as well as her authenticity and ability to find beauty in sadness, were a major influence. Billie, however, rejects close comparisons with the acclaimed singer. “I don’t want to hear that Billie Eilish is the new Lana Del Rey,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2019. “Do not disrespect Lana like that! That woman has made her brand so perfect for her whole career and shouldn’t have to hear that.”

  Another name spoken alongside Billie’s is that of New Zealand-born singer Lorde. Both of them had viral hits on SoundCloud at a young age, although Lorde’s 2013 track “Royals” became a chart hit just months later. They share minimalist instrumental backing, sharp lyric writing (some might mistake “We’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams” for a Billie Eilish line), and a hip-hop influence. Lorde’s production is also heavy on vocal layers, while her singing has been called restrained, hushed, and haunting—terms often used to describe Billie’s vocal style. However, for all the characteristics they share, they are totally different in many more ways, and as their careers developed, they have both proved that they are unique artists who stand on their own merits.