FINNEAS on Making “Ocean Eyes" with Sister Billie Eilish and How He Learned to Trust His Taste

Key Takeaway

Treat your taste as a compass, then create enough repetitions to sharpen it. Today, choose one small project—a song draft, presentation, design, or essay—finish a rough version, share it with one trusted person, and note one specific improvement for the next attempt. FINNEAS’s early work improved incrementally because he kept making, uploading, getting encouragement, and returning to the process. Judge success first by craft, learning, and whether you are proud of the work—not by immediate scale or external validation.

Episode Overview

FINNEAS reflects on learning production in his childhood bedroom, making “Ocean Eyes” with his sister Billie Eilish, and growing from an inexperienced teenager into a Grammy- and Oscar-winning producer, songwriter, and artist. He explains why he prefers serving the song over being recognized, how cross-disciplinary projects expand his creative toolkit, and why deliberately choosing difficult, unfamiliar work keeps him improving.

Full Transcript

Transcript of FINNEAS on Making “Ocean Eyes" with Sister Billie Eilish and How He Learned to Trust His Taste from How I Built This. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

and I remember going to pick Billy up from a dance class cuz I drove and I was like Hey the song is on a Blog It's like got hundreds of streams like it was like every increment of it was crazy I think it has like 2,000 streams and that blew our mind and really the rest is history suddenly we're like okay I guess we should make some more stuff hey it's Guyz here and welcome to the great creators this is the place where I have conversations with some of the most incredible artists actors and performers of our time on the show today Phineas the Grammy and Oscar winning producer is probably best known for his collaborations with his sister Billy ish in this conversation Phineas breaks down how he and Billy work together he'll also tell the story about their viral hit ocean eyes that was uploaded to SoundCloud and made when Phineas was just 18 and Billy was 13 plus how he's found his own sound on his own albums including his latest for crying out loud so without further delay please enjoy this conversation with Phineas I've seen you over the years break down your music which is really interesting I mean really really fascinating obviously I mean clearly you are you love what you do you love the process of making music and of producing music it's your profession but it's your hobby is that fair to say super yeah I mean I think that I don't know if you feel this way about any part of your job but I I feel like I get to do the thing that I would be the big fan of you know if I were working some other job I'd come home and i' I'd immerse myself in nerdy uh recording esoterica and I'd be watching behind the scenes stuff and that's just the person that I am so it's a real privilege to get to you know actually be doing this for a living and I do think that like I do think that the more that you can articulate what's important to you about what you do the more important it is to the person sort of receiving it so I always sort of try to remember that I've seen you talk about with equal passion about music and lyrics as you talk about like logic and Protools and plugins yeah yeah I mean they're definitely not um I definitely don't favor one over the other I think like the whole kind of conglomerate entity is the thing that's really exciting to me you mentioned we're obviously we've start our interview but you mentioned this idea and I love this idea that if you weren't doing what you were doing right like cuz you grew up in a middle class House in La your parents were in the industry but never made sort of quote unquote made it but they weren't they weren't rich or anything no right and so you know let's say today you were I don't know working at the Gap or something let's let's say you know you would come home every night and you would do this you would dream about yeah this 100% yeah I mean it's it's it was always like I I I've talked to some some people who relate to this like I've I've been so obsessed with making music as a kind of a job since I was like 13 um 12 13 that was when they they lowered the price of logic pro the doll so I could suddenly afford it and um I would sit in my room and I'd sort of try to figure out how to record myself and produce and write songs and again like I was 13 so I wasn't very good at all uh but I was already very convinced that that was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and you know I was I was already stressed out which is a little ridiculous but is true nonetheless I mean in another parallel universe because I I know sort of types character types like you who I've worked with in my over the course of my career you could have been like a brilliant field producer for radio or like a you know you would have made these soundscapes for podcasts like there are there's a certain kind of person who just connects with the technology 100% 100% I think it's funny I feel like I I locked into the most sort of celebrated versions of this you know the the jobs that you are just talking about are like kind of unsung heroes of correct podcasting and broadcasting and and I mean let's talk film let's talk F artists and film you know a field that I think most people don't even know exists at all right un Zimmer right yeah they're like there's or Danny Elfman nobody knows well and those are composers I'm literally talking about like the guy who does the watermelon cracking open to simulate you know a zombie's head getting blown off right like I think that most people's perception is that the the the dragon actually breathed fire and you're like no dude there's not a dragon and some person in a room saw that CGI of the dragon breathing fire and was like I wonder what we should use to make sound and they tried this sound and they Blended them together so it's like a real thing um anyway the point I'm trying to make is just kind of like I feel like I got lucky because the thing that I found success in doing is a is a popular mainstream version of this craft but I'm still kind of like a fan of the craft at large you know what I mean like that's you know the kind of broad awareness is something that's like important to me and something I try to kind of instill in in other people too it's not sure a given that you know a producer is going to be known I remember I interviewed David Getta of all people I don't know like six seven years ago and he really was the first really the first DJ to kind of become um the artist you know like like it was he was the first one that was you know David geta featuring Rihanna rather than you just Rihanna and you know when he was spitting music in the in the 80s and 90s he was just a DJ he even when he was producing he was just a producer but I I think that even now I mean when he produces other people's work or when you produce other people's work clearly you love the craft of doing that I mean you you you love the process of it I love the process of it and it's and and counter to what I've sort of said about being celebrated my real goal as a collaborator for other artists is that I am um not noticeable you know hopefully I'm noticeable in the quality hopefully I'm noticeable in the fact that you like it right you hear somebody's song and you're like this is cool but I really I fantasize about and and a couple times I have I have had this come true and it's been exciting obviously like my work with Billy is very known I'm I happen to be her blood brother you know there was a documentary uh made about her and our family and so there's a lot of awareness of my involvement in the process of Billy's music so at this point in time probably you know if Billy went and made an album with another producer people story people would think that it was me do you know what I mean like I'd have to make a big statement and be like it wasn't me that's how kind of aware people are of my involvement in that process and a couple times I've worked with artists I did this song where I did some production on a a song by an artist called girl in red uh in 2021 and I I ran into a friend somewhere and he was like dude I just was listening to this song by girl in red called seratonin and I was like who made this I love it and I checked the track listing and you're one of the producers and I was like oh my God that feels so good to be a a quiet part of this process because again my fear is that the thing I do is like maybe too recognizable or not versatile enough that you're you know you'd hear somebody's song and you go did the guy that does Billy's music do this and you'd You' check and you like Ah that's what I thought like I really want to be a um a chameleon in the production space because my heroes are like that the people that have made um you know many many albums that I've Loved are like that the old scho you know down to Old School Brian Eno is made you know this album by this great artist and then this other album and it's totally different um but V he does he does Heroes and he also does like YouTu records and so there's something cold play Fred again he does all this his tapestry is Broad and you don't like you don't have to be a fan of this person to be a fan of all of it and I love that about him even though there may not it's not like the Phil Spectre wall of sound right that's so distinctive but even though briano you may not know that it's a briano record there's there's something special about the record and then you discover oh okay briano was involved in this record right yeah that makes sense and that's sort of your like the the thing that that's like your North Star it's my wish list yeah yeah I think you know the same way that like maybe if you're an actor you know and you're not like on the movie poster with your name on the movie poster like maybe you appear like we were watching Oppenheimer last summer and like uh what a movie what a Gary Oldman pops in and you have no idea it's Gary Oldman for like 10 minutes you know you're like that's the president you know and then you kind of squint your eyes you're like oh my God is that Gary Oldman like to me that's like if I'm Gary Oldman I'd be like so pumped about that you know what I mean I'd be like they didn't even know yeah um I'm I mean so much has has been written about you your family obviously your relationship with your sister we'll talk a little bit about that but I want to go back to something you alluded to which was this idea of getting joy and also fulfillment from kind of being in the background and I think that it's connected to this idea of you know some people have a hard time putting themselves out there because they're they're it's not about the concern about putting themselves out there but it's about the concern of appearing maybe selfish or like hey look at me but there's something but often times those people are more interested in being in service to other people right like I was thinking about this kind of reading about you and and listening to a lot of your music in that I think a lot of your career so far and you're so young but you've done so much is about like helping to enable other people to do their best work like it seems to me that that's really where you get a lot of your energy from definitely I mean I also am really the most inspired by it you know I think that that's the other kind of more selfish component of this right is that I I go in the room with an amazingly talented artist and I'm mad inspired you know I'm like this is amazing and it inspires me to do a better job and inspires me to work harder uh I learn stuff I'm always learning stuff I was just talking to a friend of mine the other day I was like there's this producer Dylan Brady who's one half of the musician Duo 100 geks and Dylan Brady has been doing uh production for other artists and he he did some production on this album called what's wrong with New York by the Dare and I was I was talking to my buddy David yesterday I was like I think I want to just go sit with Dylan Brady and like just bug him just ask him so many questions cuz he's doing stuff that is blowing me away right now so yeah I think you know being of service to the sort of bigger thing is a is a fulfilling experience to me I think sort of your your points your musings are very are very sort of astute and accurate in terms of like the the music space I think that on one hand true high visibility Fame is like a is a real prison and um you know without a real fortune to back it up it's really dangerous and it's really um scary and and limiting you know and hopefully you're you're famous as a byproduct of your art doing really well and your art you know sold a lot of copies or whatever and you made a You made millions of dollars in the process and so you know you counterbalance the drag of like not being able to go to the grocery store not being able to walk through an airport easily with the fact that you have all this money but if you want to be famous as a kind of an abstract like these internet kids you know internet Fame is the is the least monetizable in a lot of ways you're part of a meme or a viral video and Suddenly It's Like on the street you're very famous but that nobody paid for that video so didn't make any money that's a very dangerous challenging experience like I'm being honest like it's hard to be famous without a kind of an infrastructure to back it up so I think of it as like a real luxury that I'm 10 times less famous than Billy if not you know 50 times less famous than Billy but it's like it's a it's a luxurious experience you know Billy also started her musical Journey you know when she was like 13 so she's yeah she has no sort of understanding she doesn't miss being a 22-year-old and navigating a world anonymously she never did it you know and she she also is an enigma and and a very sort of like she's really cut out for the whole thing but like yeah I you know I've I was 18 and 19 and 20 with nobody caring who I was at all and you know the fact that now once or twice a day somebody stops me on the street and says I love what you've done with Billy or whomever else like that's a real honor and it's fine but it's like I am very happy to be the the less famous component of the duo you know it's very exciting you get to have one foot in normal quote unquote normal life that's right and then and then how and then sort of another foot in in that other world which you know I mean listen I mean you know you've won 10 Grammys and two Academy Wars like you you interact with very famous people you go to these places you appear on stage in front of lots of people so there's that world that you both have to inhabit and do inhabit and probably part part of it is fun and interesting but then it can also be stressful and tiring and you kind of just want to be able to go to the grocery store or go to a restaurant or go you know hang out at the park and walk your dog or something yeah it's all good fun I mean it's really like they're they're real privileges like I I I never I so never thought we'd get to do any of this stuff you know what I mean like I often joke but it's very sincere that like I had a really specific dream when I was like 15 16 17 I had a dream that one day my band and then you know Billy and I felt this way one day my band would maybe be big enough to open for a band playing a venue in La called the Fonda which is like a 1200 person theater right the Fonda theater but in the scheme of that's not a Arena that's not the Staple Center like the Fonda is like 1,200 people and that was my dream because as a teenager I would go see bands I loved play there you know because I wasn't listening to music that was was like the biggest most popular music um but you know yeah all of the stuff that's that's followed us around you know accolades Grammys the fact that billy gets to play these enormous venues we've headlined festivals like oh my God that was so far-fetched you know that was not ever a thing that we thought was going to happen so we really appreciate it um but it has all been kind of a a surprise to us I think the you know the thing about being a sort of a collaborative part of a process is really that like and I see this happen especially I see this happen really early on with artists and I get it I do get it like people want credit for their work you know people if somebody worked on some piece of music and like let's say you're the writer producer that worked on a song with an artist and everybody you know is talking about how brilliant the artist is and they don't know that you were involved that feels you have a feeling of like they don't know that I worked really hard on this and oh my God you know what if what if because they don't know they don't hire me for another job you know what I mean like I really get it I have a lot of empathy so I'm not trying to discredit that part of the thing but I think like once I realized that people were very aware of my involvement in especially Billy's music I was like oh I think then like I think I'm just not going to push it like I think I'm going to just focus on the work and be like hey like people seem to be pretty clued in and I'm pretty lucky that they're clued in at all you know um so outside of that I just kind of try to focus on like the craft you were I mean you this has been talked about and documented both of you were kind of raised I guess today it's not as Oddball of a way because so many kids are homeschooled it's just so much more common and I actually I do a children's science podcast that lots of parents listen to use for their homeschooled kids if I were a little younger I would have listened to it you would have listened to it yeah how wow in the world um you and but you and your sister you guys were homeschooled and so you were a little bit of an oddball I mean I mean right you were like there was you I mean there were kids who went to school and probably they' be like wait you don't go to school I was partially an oddball uh I was partially homeschooled because I was an oddball I mean I was explaining this to somebody recently because we were talking about some kid who was homeschooled and a friend of mine who was not homeschooled was like yeah but they don't fit those stereotypes like they're not they're not weird and I was like you know for what it's worth like a lot of the kids I knew that were homeschooled that were socially atypical or neurode divergent or you know whatever you want to label them they were homeschooled cuz they were bullied mercilessly in that school you know what I mean like I have to be real like that was a big driving factor in a lot of the kids who were kind of unusual and misfits and and you know whatever it was they had they had been they tried it they went to school and kids were like you're different I don't like you you know I'm going to call you names so I think like in many ways I was homeschooled I was kind of homeschooled on a kind of a a um pragmatic Way by my parents they were both actors which meant they were out of work actors we lived in um Highland Park in Los Angeles which at the time was like the only neighborhood we could afford in LA and the you know only School options are you know we had friends who we knew who were in a different tax bracket and their kids were in cool weird charter schools and Waldorf and private schools and those all seemed really sick but my parents couldn't afford it and so the school they could afford was like whatever was closest and they were like you know what we're around all the time we're so out of work that we like we we have the time to be kind of you know teachers so to speak to these kids and I was a pretty odd child I had a lot of separation anxiety and a lot of just sort of like generalized anxiety um and so it it ended up being a really good fit for us and our parents are really pretty learned eared you know they they they had a pretty deep wealth of knowledge to teach us Claudia my partner and I talk often about like would we know enough to homeschool kid like you know like that's kind of a joke in our friend group of like could you could you homeschool a kid do you think you know enough but um they certainly did our parents did and um uh and it was a great experience and then also I had a lot of drive and I had a lot of passion and I think that that's probably the the area that I've seen homeschooling not be affect Ive for kids is when I find a kid who has not connected with something in a or maybe they've connected with like the internet you know just sort of broad they they you know they just love fortnite or whatever it is but like if you have a I think a thing that that you can study that fulfills you then it's a great you know way to sort of dedicate your time I mean I have wanted to be a songwriter and a musician from the time I was like 12 and so that was like a lot of hours per day I could spend sitting and writing songs whether as alone or with my buddies in my band or you know watching Berkeley clinics parsed out into YouTube series or you know rock docs music music docs um so it was like a lot of kind of it's like a pre kind of college major uh when all my friends were in high school I mean you were initially on on a path to becoming an actor you did like bit Parts in in in TV and film and Glee and Modern Family and and um but obviously that wasn't the direction you chose I'm curious a as you were like sort of entered your teenage years and really leaned into just songwriting and and making music for fun who were your influences what were you listening to yeah um the acting uh portion of it was funny it was you know I I did some version of some like Children's Theater um when I was like 11 and found that really exciting and fulfilling um and because our parents were both um you know had agents uh I was like Mom I really want to I I want to go audition for your agent and she was like okay so I remember like looking up a monologue online and then going into the agency and Performing the monologue for the agent who again it's like they don't pay you any money they just send you on auditions it's like it's like an amount of work for them and they get a percentage of your um salary if you get a job uh anyway so I I really liked the Performing component the agent agreed to take me on and then within like I think about a year maybe I got that movie Bad Teacher which was like this Cameron Diaz movie and I was one of the kids in the classroom and that was a really fun experience and then I don't think I worked again for like five or six years and then I did um a couple episodes of Modern Family and then I did the show Glee um but all kind of it's from before the first minute of that I was like if you'd kind of if a genie were before me and was like what you know you can have any career you want I would have been like I want to make music like that's it's always been the thing that's really um taken a kind of a precedent over everything else internally yeah I mean that was kind of the the Genesis in terms of like um switching over to that I would say the music I was listening to I I've been joking recently that like I kind of only was aware of bands like that was the stuff I was listening to like M helical romance and Green Day and yeah Cage the Elephant and kings of leyon and uh yeah my my sort of awareness from a kind of a Sonic place was like drums and bass and guitar and vocals and I would like listen to some whether it was like a pop artist or something else and I'd hear like a bunch of synths or a bunch of like cool like electronic drums that weren't like a a drummer at a drum kit you know samples and I was like what I was like this is crazy what is this so so real kind of like blind spot for me through through high school I was playing in bands and I was just like listening to bands incessantly I mean System of a Down uh Thrice was a friend of mine's favorite band so I got all into Thrice um Foo Fighters Nirvana Muse we thought Muse was really cool M like this is again like this is a little bit like showing our hand like we were like Muse is Muse is the future they're doing stuff no one's doing because they were playing like crazy you know dig guitars apparently the entire Twilight series was written listening to Muse so you know there's something to be said there that's sick yeah that's that's a story I've heard she wrote the entire thing listening to Muse so there you go um I know that by the time you you were in high school or around sort of 15 16 you kind of started to develop a reputation for for you know hey that kid knows how to produce music like he knows how to make um he knows how to record it and tell me a little bit about what what that actually meant I mean you had a a laptop and you know Garage Band and that's right yeah okay so logic pro had had they they'd slashed the price logic pro had dropped from like $800 to $200 and I suddenly could afford it cuz I had some money from my acting jobs then I looked up what is an audio interface which is like the thing you plug the mic into that PL you plug in a computer yep and then I bought a mic called a at2020 which is like a the AIO audio Technic mic it's like 80 bucks and I was off I was I was recording and you were singing into that mic and sing into it also recording music playing guitar and you know clapping and whatever um in your bedroom in my bedroom how how were the Acoustics in your bedroom well the Acoustics were this I would later come to find they were quite good it was a small room and it had all my stuff in it it had a bed and bookshelves and whatever so it sounded pretty good all you need absorbing the sound sounded so much better than like when moved out of my parents house at 21 into a empty house and had an empty studio and it sounded horrible I was like oh my God this was so much better in my childhood bedroom um okay so I had all this gear and I knew how to use it barely I was like not good um and I was singing in this choir as a teen which Billy and I both sang in the LA Children's Chorus and I had this friend Frank Dana and Frank was like a a seemingly I didn't go to his school so whatever he's he was a seemingly very popular kid at his school he'd post on Instagram and he'd get he'd get hundreds of likes it was it was mind-blowing he had good taste he liked good stuff I remember the first time I met him I was like hi man nice to meet you and he was like do you listen to The Offspring like I remember like he was he would like cut right to the chase um anyway so we're 17 at this point and I've been fighting for my life trying to record demos of my band and stuff like that and Frank comes to me and he goes you you produce right and I was like uh a little and he was like great I need you to make an album for me and I was like okay and he was like are you around this weekend I can come over tomorrow I was like okay and he comes over and he plays me some references he played me some references by black bear who's a like cool rapper musician former Warp Tour kid uh and he plays me these references and he's like I want to make something like this I think the first thing we did was actually a cover of black bear he's like we're going to do this cover and so I pulled up like a stock logic preset synth and I played that and then I pulled up like a stock logic vocal preset for him to sing into and God bless Frank Frank gassed me up so hard Frank was like this sounds unbelievable he was like this sounds incredible and like you know it didn't it sounded very bad but it was fulfilling to him and you know he saw the vision whatever and he was like this is perfect and he was like I'm uploading it right now and he put it on Soundcloud and sent you know sent it to his friends and his friends started streaming it and that was like you know exciting and it sort of showed me like wow we just made this thing and we put it up an hour later um and he was like when are you free again and I was like uh you know all the time I'm homeschooled and uh and he came over several days later and we made another thing and we got better like I don't know that anything we made ever was like particular ularly good but it was it got you know incrementally better every time we'd work and you know I had this person telling me I was talented that was like the real that matters motivator was like I was mediocre I could tell I was mediocre and my friend was saying you've got this man like that you're so good and he was willing to you know rap and sing and whatever um and so it was this really fulfilling fun year I think we we made music together for about a year and it fed directly into me going to Billy and saying hey we should do this like you should sing on stuff and I'll produce it and that you know again is then leads us to upload stuff straight to SoundCloud right it's like you know I've been shown by my friend Frank that that's that's what you do you just put it straight on Soundcloud obviously Billy was in the in the choir with you 5 years younger so she's your baby sister yeah I mean clearly she at least in the family maybe even beyond that was known for having I mean you you you had recognized that there was something special about her voice she had a really incredible voice um always she really just had amazing tone an amazing pitch like amazing pitch um and it's funny now because I I really think she's like one of the best singers ever now uh and it's funny to like listen back to her early stuff and be like wow we we thought you were one of the best singers eight years ago amazing um but yeah she'd always loved to sing she'd always loved to perform she was also doing like kids plays and stuff um and you know she she also had other interests she loved gymnastics she was really passionate about dance she was in a dance like a kids dance company uh JK DC you know uh and and and dance was a thing she was really passionate about I think if we hadn't um you know made music and had that take off I'm I'm assuming she would have probably spent her high school years in an actual High School this was a a little tangent to go on both of us threatened to go to actual school for high school because the public high schools in LA are pretty cool like Locka is a cool performing arts high school there's also a school called vapa downtown that we had friends go to that was seemed cool to us and both of us separately when I was 12 I suddenly did that movie Bad Teacher and and then I was in this band and so that was what prevented me from going to high school and then Billy same deal Billy was like I think I'm going to go to high school and then suddenly we make this music and it starts to work um but yeah I think she was really passionate about being a dancer and probably would have devoted a lot of time to that uh because it's so kind of farfetched to imagine that at 13 you'd be like a recording artist I mean when you when you guys I mean you write ocean eyes you're 18 yeah I think she was 13 at the time maybe 14 I can't remember and you make that song and and put on Soundcloud and just I'm just kind of take me back to that that moment like were you doing it just because you you you want to work with your sister because you liked her her her voice and you wanted to make music with her presumably that was the motivation I mean it was there was no way you could have known that that would actually oh my God you attention I loved the sound of her voice I was really excited and passionate about being a producer and I was begging the people around me to let me be a producer right like to me a fundamental part of being a producer is an artist right so it's like I you know who's who's the person I know the best that's willing to be a surrogate artist with me you know my sister probably and she's 13 and so she's not going to come in and look at me and be like you don't know what you're doing even though I didn't she's going to be you know down for whatever um I write ocean eyes I play it with my band at a couple gigs or one gig it sounds bad I don't like how my voice sounds on it I don't like how real drums and guitars sound on it but I love the song I feel really proud of the song and I go home and I'm like I think a girl should sing this song hey Billy do you want to sing this song she was like yeah so we I play it on guitar she sings it um I think it sounds great I ask her if can record it she says yeah she has a dance teacher who's like we need a song for the recital so if you guys finish it by X date this can be the recital song like okay cool we do it in this kind of like alt cynthy Indie Vibe there's like very minimal drums very minimal synths a lot of vocal layers that has a lot to do candidly with like what we were listening to at the time which are artists like Lapsley and silvanesso and Aurora so kind of a style that was really influential to us yeah um and we we finish recording this song I go to New York to sleep on a couch and visit my like high school girlfriend she's going to college in New York and I my parents lived in New York and met in New York basically before they had kids so I I'm like doing that thing that you might do at like 18 where you're like calling your parents friends from New York and being like hey I haven't seen you in nine years can I sleep on your couch um and I'm I I have a very vivid memory of being at my dad my Dad's friend Alan Kennedy's apartment I think it was like Allan and his wife and his son maybe and he was like what are you doing you know that was like the big question I'm I'm College age I had no interest in going to college and so they're like what what's going on and I was like I have a very vivid memory of being like I'm going to play you this song that I produced for my sister and I played ocean eyes and I remember even in that room of like people I didn't really know being like this is good like that was the feeling that I had I was like this is this kind of slaps um it does it's it's a beautiful song I mean yeah we really lucked out um so I go home from New York I was there for like nine days go home from New York uh I forget the exact day it was like early November like November 15th or something like that and I was like it's like a Wednesday night and I was like hey do you want can we should we upload it I was like let's upload it tonight and so we uploaded it on like I think a Wednesday night um I I I have a memory I think of like I don't know what was going on that night but it was pretty late like we uploaded at like 900 p.m.

and probably I shared it to like my Facebook and my Instagram or something you know both followed by like nobody like very few people uh next day my stupid St band uh is going to do a radio interview at a college like just whatever any favor we could pull uh we go do this this interview I think it's in Orange County so it's a long drive the interview goes terribly we sound terrible I'm driving home from this interview feeling so bad I'm like this is like maybe I maybe I should go to college like this is stupid um I stop at a pizza place on my way home to check my email uh and Danny Ruckers who at the time managed uh a producer that we had worked with um Eric Palmquist and who I'd been sort of bugging for like a year and a half but our band had no momentum at all and so it's like he was just kind of doing us a favor by like responding to our email and giving us advice and whatever Danny Ruckers had emailed me and he was like hey what what is this what is what's oceaniz and I was like why and he was like well I saw you post about it and now it's on hilly Dilly and I was like what's that and he was like it's a really Buzzy blog it's like it's like a really you know influential Buzzy blog they were like the first blog to post about like Lord and the first blog to post about this and and this is all kind of a funny part of the process because of course this is like blogs like this I didn't know what hilly Dilly was but like we had been trying to get a Blog to post my stupid band for like two years like you know what I mean we were I was like what um and he goes yeah he goes this blog posted ocean ey and I was like really and he was like yeah he goes you know I didn't know you had a s or like you know I remember you mentioning it maybe in passing but this is so cool how old is she cuz he knew I was only 18 yeah and I go she's 13 and he was like oh my God he was like I thought you know maybe you guys were the same age or whatever she doesn't sound 13 um and the blog the blog wasn't you know uh new music Friday on Spotify it wasn't like instant huge streams but it was buzzy and oh and Danny our our uh now manager but at the time you know but the guy I knew was like he was like you should turn the free download link off on on Soundcloud he was like cuz people download it and they'll re-upload it and they'll rip it and whatever and I was like okay okay um and I remember like I think going to pick Billy up from a dance class cuz I drove and I was like Hey the song is on a Blog and it's like getting it's like got hundreds of streams like it was like every increment of it was crazy you know like I think it has like 2,000 streams and that blew our mind and you know like really like the rest is history like we M suddenly were like okay I guess we should make some more stuff you know and we start sitting and writing songs together and trying to record them and the song didn't come out on like spottify I think for like many weeks like I think it my memory is that it got like a million plays on Soundcloud like before it was like really on Spotify that could be wrong it might have been like a hundred thousand was it posted as a billy ish song oh yeah it was all it was totally posted as a billy eish song which again like sort of in my in my quest to be a producer right I'm like you're you're the artist Billy ish and I'm the producer behind the scenes I was not sort of trying to be like front-facing with that you know the the thing I mean I'm I'm curious about so many things but but the thing as a parent myself of of two two two kids and two boys um who are really close you know um that's great I'm I'm really inspired by the I mean the the relationship between you and your sister hasn't isn't hasn't been incredibly creative and fruitful I mean 10 Grammy Awards and two Academy Awards I mean it's amazing at age you're 27 you know to to have done that by by by um I mean a lifetime for most people wouldn't wouldn't produce that but but also how you collaborated at such an early age you know a 13-year-old to an 18-year-old is a big gap at that time and often times there's not a whole lot of overlap or a lot of interest or a lot of in common what what do you think it was that was it your parents who cult I was I know it was just the two of you right and but was it your parents who cultivated that or was there just a did you just connect which just just that the chemistry between you and your sister was just there we got along great I would say that our parents have forced us to work exactly zero times um they might have sometimes reminded Billy specifically of like a deadline you know what I mean like like you might remind your teenager of a deadline you know of like hey you know they remember the you know the tour is two months from now so if you want to finish the thing you know yeah we always really loved hanging um and I was so driven and she's very driven too but um you know I think especially those early the first album the first EP you know I was a real kind of like let's let's do this let's make this um Force you know she she here's the funny thing about Billy Billy loves maybe more than I do loves to listen to the thing we make so like I might kind of like the process more typically like that's kind of the breakdown of like the the the day where we sit and write and record the song I might be kind of in my zone and Billy might be a little like rolling her eyes at like how long it's taking me to do the drum beat or you know something like that uh sometimes it's a tedious process and but I kind of with it and then we finish it and then I have a bounce I send her a audio file and then that's where like the joy kind of Begins for her often is she loves to listen to the thing she just was a part of making she's like that's a real like scratches an itch for her so I think that's kind of our symbiotic thing and and not to discredit her I think as she's aged she's gotten better and better and better at the creating part and and more and more enthusiastic about it to a point where like there are days where she's more enthusiastic than I am but I think at 14 when I was 18 19 for her it was like this is tedious and my brother doesn't know what he's doing but when we make a when we have an exp court and I get to listen to it you know on my headphones I'm really satisfied obviously ocean eyes struck a cord and there were there was a lot of interest in that track but you had gone from like producing your buddy Frank you know your bedroom to now pretty soon after that getting a record deal right getting a a record deal that that would be real and I wonder whether part of you was nervous were you thinking oh my God so nervous and was there pressure at all coming from any quarters to say you know Phineas you're you're really good but really we should have professionals involved in this record because you know this is big time now 100% to both I was so nervous I had such imposter syndrome I felt like I'd gotten really lucky and made a good thing I did not think like I can make many good things right lightning doesn't strike twice or whatever right we often often we think that yeah ex yes it's 100% you know the label was about to you know put forward a financial advance and and you know they have to get a return on their investment and whatever else and and also you know one of the things that a label can do that's really powerful is you know connect you with people right so Billy and I go in for meetings um props to our managers props to my mom for letting me be a part of these meetings even though like you know it's Billy and not me you know and we'd sit there and we'd say oh we love Lana Del re and the label would say well Emil Haney produced that Lana Del re album let's why don't you guys go hang with him you know um and why wouldn't they if I were a label and a 13-year-old kid came in I would do the same thing and her brother who was 19 right um and uh two things went on one is that Billy was underage and so I was kind of her like chaperon Guardian whenever she went to work with anybody so I was kind of always in the room I wasn't kind of always in the room I was always in the room um and the other thing was that I had written ocean eyes and so I think there was a kind of a at least an acknowledgement on behalf of the label of like well he did write the song that we signed her off of so let's have them both go in and we did many many many sessions with people for you know honestly like 2 years and I also you know okay Billy and I are going to going to go work with somebody on a Monday and then on Tuesday Billy is going to do a photo shoot for this tiny magazine that wants to do a photo shoot with her I'm trying to be a producer so my manager would be like here's a unknown artist if you want to work with them so I feel like I did like what felt like four or five sessions a week for like two years working with other artists working with random people and and the idea behind that was to give you the confidence and experience to become better or or or to give you the confidence to be able I don't know like to I think just like living the dream just like you know I all I wanted to do was be a kind of a producer collaborator person and now suddenly I've made one thing that people hear and want right so some artist however small or large reaches out to my team and goes hey I love ocean eyes who made that I want to work with that guy you know even though in my opinion I wasn't qualified I made the thing they liked so I'd go in with them Billy and I would be working with um you know people I don't I don't want to get too namey because we didn't we didn't end up putting any of it out which is very typical by the way like we would go work with all these people and then we'd come home and we'd write a song Alone Together and that would be our favorite and then we'd record that one and then that that kept happening until the label finally was like all right we get it just work with each other that's fine and by the way I have been that guy for several artists um like in The Last 5 Years some new artist is it comes along and I'm like this kid is brilliant and I work with her or him and we make stuff that I think is cool but then they go make stuff with their primary collaborator that's even better and I you know on the on the back of like the Billy thing I'm like I get it like we did it and it's totally fine that you're doing it but it is a funny kind of like music industry thing that it's like you know Billy Billy and I who are like entirely self-contained and everything we've put out pretty much has just been the two of us there's like hundreds of people from the first two years who like I worked with them you know what I mean like it's a funny part of the learning process with respect to that process that learning process right you think back to when you're 17 and Frank and really a PIV sort of a kind of an important time in your life because it allowed you to experiment and learn and try things and get better 10 this that's just 10 years ago now 10 years on crazy you have a lot of experience under your belt and presumably are you are you get better and better and better and will continue to get better and I wonder how you think that process happens I mean is it does it become you know sort of your ability to think more creatively and more radically and more I don't know just in ways that you weren't able to do even two years ago how does that happen is it a conscious process are you pushing yourself to to do things that make you uncomfortable that that to to work with sounds and ideas that um challenge you the short answer is yes I mean I think that I remember so clearly obviously it wasn't that long ago but I remember so clearly the feeling of making the first EP with Billy the the don't smile at me EP in 2017 I remember how underwater I felt making that I just remember being like H like I I'm I'm kind of coaching a friend through it right now I I work with this kid Ricky and he's making an artist album for the first time and like making something for the first time you're like scary well you're like scary you're like maybe it'll turn out I can't maybe I can't ever make one I've never made one maybe I can't so I remember that first EP just being like I can't this will never get done you know I was like I'd go work on it every day but it felt slow I was so hobbled by my own lack of knowledge you know and uh when you don't know how to do something you do it the hardest way that's usually my my feeling it's like take 3 hours to do something now that I could do in like 2 minutes so I remember that feeling of just being like how do I do this and I felt that way a little bit less on Billy's debut album in 2018 and then I have to admit on Billy's sophomore album during Co I was like I know exactly how to do this and I feel like I pushed myself way less hard because I was like you do a little bit of this and a little bit of that whatever yeah and I have respect for that work and I there are things on that record that I think are good and I'm proud of but I when I listen to it as a judge I think this was made by a person who wasn't pushing themsel the way that they were pushing thems earlier and so it's been a real quest of mine to try to take on projects that really require me to to to go out of my depth and to and to learn and to expand my knowledge this idea of being you know scared and nervous but but also sort of how you push yourself and your boundaries how you basically get better at what you do right which is an abstract idea we don't always know that we just it just happens you just do it and you get better but I wonder if there are things that you know when you go into the studio and we're going to talk about your own music in a moment but let me make this analogy I've interviewed 25,000 people in my career I'm almost 50 oh my god I've interviewed presidents and prime ministers I've interviewed you know Taylor Swift to Phineas right and it doesn't matter who I interview it doesn't matter how experienced I am I get nervous every time and not I'm not nervous about the person I'm talking to I'm nervous about fulfilling the desires and needs of my audience that I I I know that they expect that I am going to to put in my best effort and that I'm going to work really hard to make it worth their time to watch and listen and I wonder whether you feel that kind of pressure when you go into the studio at all I mean I should you know I think that that's the the mark of of being invested and engaged right so um yeah I really I really want to deliver um so I really relate to that feeling that you have um I think that uh again that's what that's what draws me to projects that I haven't had as much experience in is that kind of feeling of like I'm going to come at this with with not even not not even no ego but like negative ego like I'm going to come in and just be like how do I do this how do I learn so kind of hungry for it no preconceptions um that's a really appealing place to be in to me um and often times I find that that's when I'm going to do my best work you know if I have a sort of a like right and wrong I might be sort of caught up in that and if I have no idea what's right and what's wrong I'll just be sort of free and experimental and I think that that's when I'm my my bravest actually when you're creating sounds and you're and you're trying to help shape a song whether it's for your sister or for any of the other people you you've worked with is there a way to know whether it's good I mean it's kind a weird question right like I guess I guess maybe if if we knew that if there's a formula it would just would just tap in the coordinates and you'd have a hit but I don't know do you have a a way for for you to gauge whether cuz you will hear something and you'll say I love this but yeah but it's not always clear whether other people will 100% I mean I've I have decided to trust my taste you know um I'm also very I think I think one of the things that I'm actually the best at is compartmentalizing something I like from sort of like can it be better you know I have some friends who who are amazingly talented but they either sometimes they can't tell if something's great and I'm like no no no this is great man and sometimes they think it's great and they can't tell that it can be better and I feel like those specifically those two things are I'm pretty good at knowing when something is good and I'm pretty good at knowing if it can still be better um and you know better good I certainly don't mean commercially successful because that is like just a that's like the stock market that is like a totally different thing and it has a lot to do with kind of the world and the Zeitgeist and the appetite of the you know person and when people get itchy and they want something new so I don't pretend to sort of have a crystal ball on that but in terms of quality of product you know that's the thing I concern concern myself with how do you I I want to see if I'm sure there's a connection between the sort of the creative work and the creative output and the and the growth that comes from producing other people's work yeah and also making your own music writing your own songs singing them right and then producing it it's got to be both a totally separate and different experience but also a complimentary one I I really do feel like I learn I learn from each of them um and obviously you know you do have to kind of devote yourself to a project to really see it through and finish it but I I can point to many instances especially like even really early on in Billy's career where like I'd I'd be working on Billy's songs and then I'd have like one day with some other artist and the other artist would require something of me that Billy wasn't requiring you know the other artist would be like I want to make a song like this and they'd play me like some reference point that I'd never heard and I'd have to kind of like figure out what went into that without ripping it off obviously but like make something that is evocative and then I'd come in to Billy the next day and I'd be like I learned this like totally new ability yesterday like I have this new tool and I you know and oftentimes it was like a one to one it was like that immediately was implemented in something I made with Billy so uh you know the the most recent example tangible examples like I scored I did the the the score for this TV show that's about to come out called dis claimer with yeah it's going to be I I've seen the trailer the show is so good I'm really very you know in the long list of things I can't believe I got to be involved in this is this is just another one score cre the score crazy um and and talk about a thing that required something of me that I'd never done Alfonso and I have known and liked each other for years but we've never worked together really and he calls me he goes I want you to score this show and I was like okay crazy uh he calls me this is years ago now he's like I'm I'm going to do this show and I want you to score it and uh I go okay and he starts to send me like references stuff he likes and it's all classical it's all string quartets and cello pieces and like Vivaldi and I was like oh my God I was like are you sure it's me are you sure I should get this job and he was like yeah it's going to be great um and so I had to set about like learning how to compose for orchestra and specifically string quartet because the references he was pulling were often string quartet and there's a kind of an intimacy there like he was very clear that he didn't want the kind of cinematic feeling of a 70 piece Orchestra he was like I want the interplay of a cello and a violin and a viola like I want that kind of spareness so I start learning how to do this this is all about a year ago uh no a little long I forget that it's now September this is like last spring summer and at the same time I'm making Billy's album and so I'm I'm killing myself every day to do all this string composition that I've never done but I'm having a good time and it's fulfilling it's just hard um and Billy and I are making her third album and you know you kind of are always Reinventing the wheel when you're making a third album you want to go places you haven't been before for but not abandon things that you did well anyway and we we get this melody going on this song called the greatest it becomes this like Bridge melody in this song and we think it's a cool Melody and a lot of our references when we were talking about making this album a lot of our references are albums like Sergeant Pepper uh Viva Lita these albums that have these big overtures and these returning musical motifs and meanwhile I'm every other day I'm doing string composition and so I'm like let's I'm going to write a crazy string Overture that ends the first song and ends the last song and plays in the middle and that's a good example of like a thing I would not have known how to do if I weren't simultaneously scoring this TV show so you know I think again without kind of like bleeding into each other the skills that I learn are transferable in a way that's kind of a relief W um yeah so working on that on that on record on that record Hit me hard and soft mhm really there were tools that you sort of as you say I love that that idea of a tool it's like another tool in my toolbox that you're kind of discovering in this other thing that you're doing that then becomes transferable to this thing and vice versa I mean you know there are other pieces on the disclaimer soundtrack that are there are pieces with with vocals not Billy singing them but there are pieces with vocals there are pieces with tons of synths and bass and it's like those are all skills I know from working with Billy right it's like if I had only ever done string composition and done Alfonso's show and then he'd been like all right this piece should all be synths I would have been like oh no I don't know how to do this but instead I have years of doing that so you know it all kind of like it it rounds you out it makes you a better collaborator so tell me about um your your second studio album a little bit yeah for crying out loud um because by the time this this is released the album will be out um and I'm just terrific and it's I mean it's very you know it's it's hard to sort of classify it as it's not a pure pop record sure it's um there there's like or singer songwriter record there are elements of all those things on that record and it's interesting because you've talked about bands like you know um Muse and uh silvanesso and um and then more obscure bands uh or ones that you want to go see and I wonder where where your sound come I mean probably comes from elements of all those places but what do you um I mean again do do you kind of take that same approach to your own music of like I don't want this to be oh that's a Phineas record I want this to be oh I like that record I mean I think the short answer is yes I made this album again in you know my my long and ridiculous quest to always be learning something and doing something different this album was made uh with a handful of uh my friends who are producers and writers and often artists in their own right uh all at the same time all in one Studio we all kind of wrote everything um basically live and and the recordings are predominantly live recordings they you know okay all right here we go one two 3 four and we'd play the song down and then I'd take all the files and I'd go in and I'd do a ton of vocal Harmony and I'd add some synths but the base of everything especially like the single for crying out loud or the single cleats like that really is like 90% live everybody playing live to tape One recording yeah I mean that was a a aspiration of mine and again like we you know okay the the bridge the drummer likes his Bridge from this other take better we'll fly it in like we we weren't precious about it you know we we were not trying to win some award for making it hard for ourselves but I liked the energy of it um and uh one of my sort of worries going into the process was I don't know if this album's going to feel like it has an identity because there's so many of my homies working on it and we're just having fun and honestly like whether other people think it or not like when I listen to it I'm like oh this this totally sounds like one of my records like if you listen to my first album and then this album like it totally feels like an evolution it doesn't feel like the same record again but it really sound it's my it's my kind of like songwriting style I think and sensibilities um so that's really fulfilling but again it was a I think a big kind of epiphany was like the last album I made like alone in a room like a windowless dark room it happen a small tangent is when I was making my first album in 2021 my studio which I'm in right now my studio flooded uh a pipe burst in the ceiling and the whole studio was destroyed and had to be rebuilt for months it was very awful and I still had a deadline and so I was like well I have to go somewhere and so I I rented this room in North Hollywood that was like a very warm very windowless room um and uh I made that whole record there and it was really lonely it was like a drive alone to North Hollywood every day and I'd work on the album for 8 hours 9 hours and I'd come home and I'd listen to it and I'd be like I don't even know if I like this or I'd be like this is great and I can't share in the the sort of glow of this with anybody so when I went to make this record I was like the thing that's going to make this fun for me is if I am collaborative and also I just like know more and more talented people so like to to make it full circle the drummer who played on this album is a drummer from a band called bad sons that was like my favorite band when I was 17 and like what a what a luxury like that's so cool to to be able to call that guy who was the drummer on this album I love and be like hey do you want to come play drums on my album like that's just really satisfying to me uh same deal you know my two of my best friends Ricky and David who are artists and producers I was like hey come play all over this record that's going to be so fun and uh it really just sort of like bled into this you know three-dimensional feeling I remember those days really fondly um and also like we're going to play a lot of shows over the next 12 months and I get to play the shows with the people I made the record with who are also really close friends of mine so it was all just kind of like a a really sort of um satisfying experience and again you know I think what it did which I think is a real I try to do more and more and more in my life is like it takes away a feeling of like this better be successful because I don't have control over that right I have control over how it's made I have control over whether I think it's good I can work hard on it but the like is this going to be a big number one album like probably not you know my last one certainly wasn't um is it going to be well reviewed I have no idea but like I know that I loved making this record I know that I'm really proud of it I know that I want to play these songs live you know it's like it takes all these kind of like things and puts them back in my court of like this was a really fun process obviously you you perform and have performed many many times with your sister um in front of audiences and you've you've performed yourself but when when the spotlight is on you yeah and it's you in in the at the front of the stage right what's your experience like how do you I mean do you you must enjoy it at a certain level is it disorienting I mean how do you I mean now you you've done it enough but I I wonder you know is it something that you would want to make this sort of centerpiece of what you do it's way harder like just I'm always reminded of that if it's a skill set that I do enjoy and I find it very fulfilling and it's an itch that I that isn't scratched from you know uh I I've Loved performing with Billy but it's such a different thing you know I mean like that's really about like the musicianship for me I'm up there like playing all the instruments trying to crush the part you know but like I look out at the audience and and 99% of the eyes are on Billy it's her show right so it's kind when you're a stage and people are looking at you and you have this connection like I don't feel that on stage with her sometimes I have that connection with her like we feed off each other but I don't have that connection with her audience because they're looking at her and she's out there killing it so I'm just kind of trying to support her so yeah I mean I have I have loved to perform and sort of be the kind of um frontman you know I did it as a high schooler and I've I've play some gigs as a solo artist i' I've done like two tours of the US but never of the world yeah um and it's hard and it's more challenging for me and and uh and it's and it's exciting and SC I think you know like again not to keep harping on it but it's like it's the scarier option right I really am familiar with being on the road with Billy and how that feels and it's fun and satisfying but but this is the scarier more unknown thing it's interesting because obious viously you you take so much pride in all the work that you've done with your sister and and all that it's produced which you should and it's amazing that you're actually siblings and collaborators and very close friends but you mentioned that early early on you know you were sort of her chaperon because she was 13 and and that was important you had to kind of be there yeah to protect her in a sense and now of course she's an independent adult but but but has not had the same sort of experiences in life that you did because you didn't become famous quote unquote famous until you were 1920 years old um it's still hard it's still really hard to be so famous oh yeah right and and I wonder whether you you know not just being her collaborator producer and her brother but also a person in her life that that that sort of um is there to reassure her or to help her because you know any moment I mean that can really take a toll that kind of pressure yeah this is the this will be the first of her tours where I'm not at every show I want to be as at as many as I can and if I had a time machine I'd do all of them you know it's just kind of a unavoidable like you know I said to our booking agents like I want to do all these shows and you're like well you know Billy's on tour for for she's doing like over a hundred shows you can't make every one of those shows and then do all these shows you want to do and also you know she is an adult and and and I think she my read is that she's in a really good place and she's you know the people that are opening for her tour are close friends of hers and she's going to have close friends with her singing and I'll be at you know as many of them as I can be and I'll pop out and sing songs but I think you know if she were saying to me going into this even if she said to me today like hey I need you to be on this tour with me I need the support I would I would do it you know like that's that's how I feel about it I feel like I I would understand that and I I I would want to be there and do that that would be the most important thing to me because we've done this all together so it's really just kind of like trusting that she's in really good hands and that she's going to have a great time and that I'll that I'll pop in and it'll be really fun but again like if she said to me or if she does you know she does 6 months of this and says hey I I don't like this as much without you there uh come back and be there I'll I won't hesitate so you know it's a it's an ongoing learning experience and experiment and um you know I think she you know we started we did our first shows when she was 15 I think or 16 I think she was literally 15 when we did like her first show just crazy yeah I mean she's 22 and you're totally right she she is a different 22 than somebody who didn't grow up in the public eye at 22 but in some ways you know whatever might be sort of different like in some ways she's like more equipped for it because she's been doing it for so much longer she has her 10,000 hours so you know every time I play shows with there I really learn a lot from her about performing so I look forward to continuing to do that I also on a private and selfish note really am looking forward to watching her shows like I I've never not been looking at the back of her head when we're on stage um and I and I and I hear that her show is amazing I hear that she's really talented and she and she has amazing visuals and and production so I'm I'm really excited to uh to just be a a spectator and a fan and a supporter of my sister you know what about you I mean I I think of I'm almost 50 and I think of myself when I was 27 and I had you know I still have a of my future in front of me I I was 27 and I was a foreign correspondent and I was covering the Iraq War and doing all these crazy things and um you know that was that was the world I lived um but there were so many things that I dreamed of doing in my life and I mean you have accomplished so much at such a young age and yet you have so much time to live your life yes um I mean you've scored a the score scored this film uh The Quon film and series and you've produced for other people and you've made your own music and obviously written with your sister and produced her records where do you sort of see if you had a crystal bowl and you're like okay in 20 years from now is there a person or is there like a Brian Eno type person where you're like that's that's kind of the career I want to have or how do you think about your future I think that to have longevity in any field is satisfying and and aspirational and exciting I definitely hope to do that I I I love the work I'd love to keep doing it I don't have like a sometimes you see like a child stars like like I don't ever want to act again you have like Frankie munes retiring 19 whatever it is like I really love the the work I definitely won't feel like a failure if I keep doing work I'm proud of and it's never as big as some of the stuff I've made is you know what I mean like that again is like that feels like outside of my control and not why I did it in the first place so um I'd love to keep working I think the things that I look forward to the most are firsts like I I really I've always wanted to have kids I'm really looking forward to having kids um and being a parent who you know devotes a lot of uh time to being a parent I mean my parents did that and I have now several friends who are like in the industry and have you know uh perfectly busy careers and I still see them manage to be like really present parents and that's really uh exciting and motivating to me um you know on the short term like there's there's a sort of a handful of of things that I've always loved that hopefully I'll I'll get to partaken I've always wanted to make a musical um I've always wanted to like act in some interesting projects um as an adult so there's there's a lot of kind of personal you know ambition left but I think the things that I'm like when I see my whole life ahead of me like I see I see kind of like Horizons I haven't you know crossed yet I see like being being a a parent and um you know I'm I'm I'm pretty excited to get older uh like I know it's a little cliche to kind of like wish you were going to be 25 forever but I don't know I've I've really enjoyed the passage of time I hear you I never I never loved being my 20s or even in my 30s I love being in my 40s it's great when did you how old were you when you had your first kid uh 32 yeah good good yeah this that feels that feels really appropriate and uh it's amazing I mean uh it doesn't it it it overshadows not overshadows but it trumps any achievement of course that's Personal Achievement Universal thing I hear um what what about your 20s did you not enjoy I didn't it's not that I didn't enjoy them but I I worked really hard which is good I mean I grinded I wanted to be a reporter I wanted to cover the world I wanted to be overseas and and I did that I mean I was in airports and living in airports for seven years covering conflicts around the world um and I loved that but um I didn't I didn't get a chance to sort of stop I I don't regret it I wouldn't do it any differently yeah but I wasn't healthy I smoked cigarettes I drank alcohol you know things that today I look back and I think God how did I do that I mean now I'm like exercise twice a day and but um you know I wasn't H and because I did those things I wasn't happy also to be happy requires a lot of work you have to work really hard you've got to be disciplined and do a lot of things and yeah um when you're young I think and you're younger it's important to gr it's important I think it's important to really grind and to work hard but um there are real benefits to getting older and wiser and just living more more of your life and getting more perspective I think you and I seem to have similar attitudes about accomplishment you know I think like if I know that an accomplishment that I care about is on the other side of working really hard and maybe sacrificing sleep or something to get there like I will I will do it and I will find that challenging to do it but I won't I couldn't not do it and be as fulfilled right you know so especially the last I mean 10 years there have been months and maybe years on end where I've been like so stressed out and working so many hours a day but the result of it is a fulfilling experience and then you know when there is a an EB I feel kind of at peace with like how hard I know that I did work you know and I feel like candidly you know I I I am better and better and better at kind of compartmentalizing you know having a work life balance where I really devote myself X hours or X days and then I have days where I'm I luxuriate in kind of something very kind of uh plebeian of like having having a meal with my friends and going to a movie and it's very casual and I sometimes see friends who are not yet as far into their career as I am and you know I'm I'm I'm always very supportive of them working really hard especially if they're you know on the younger side uh where I'm like hey do you want to you know again maybe I'm I'm off cycle there's the album's done and I'm like hey should we go on a 2hour hike and then watch a movie and I have a friend that's like oh like I have so much work to do and I'm like no no no that's fine like do it you know like that's go do it like I know how it feels to to to have that that sort of um Drive of like oh my God I have to finish this tonight Y and uh and I I was literally doing that like you know two and a half months ago on my album I was like killing myself over it like I I really have a lot of respect for you know people working hard but I do agree with you that I think like the older I get the more I've accomplished the more I can actually kind of enjoy myself yeah um which is awesome and a great perspective um Phineas thanks so much thanks for having me treat to treat to talk to you thanks for watching my conversation with Phineas his new record for crying out loud is now out if you want to see more videos like this one please subscribe to this channel we post a new video every week and of course we are an audio podcast so if you want to listen to the show just search for the great creators wherever you listen to podcasts I'm Guyz and this has been the great creators from built- at Productions thanks so much for watching we'll see you right back here next week