Breaking the Mold: Billie Eilish Complex Cover

Billie Eilish is sitting at a picnic table on the edge of a gravel road in Nashville, Tennessee, contemplating her place in the universe.

The sun has dipped below the horizon, and her face is illuminated by the flame of a lighter that she just picked up off the ground. Flick. Flick. Repeatedly igniting the spark wheel, she stares at the glowing ball of light as she wrestles with her own outlook on life. (Yes, the whole scene is as spooky and dramatic as it sounds.)

Eilish admits that she used to feel somewhat apathetic, unsure if she could actually affect the world in a meaningful way. And if you go back to her early interviews, you’ll see that she used to resist the idea of becoming a role model. But today, at 22 years old, she’s thinking differently.

“I fucking hope that I'm a role model now!” she says with a laugh. Flick. Flick.

It’s the evening of November 7, just two days after the conclusion of a presidential election in which Eilish endorsed Kamala Harris. Upon learning of Donald Trump’s victory, she shared a message to her 120 million followers on Instagram (“It’s a war on women”) and told a sold-out Nashville crowd that “someone who hates women so deeply is about to be President of the United States of America.”

At an age when many people are still at a complete loss about what they want to do in life, Eilish is nearly a decade into her career, and she’s coming to terms with the power of her own voice. It’s why she’s doing things like co-founding climate conferences and leading the charge on sustainability efforts within the music industry. But when it comes to her true purpose in life? The reason she believes she was put on Earth? That’s always remained the same: making pop songs that cut to the brutal core of the human experience in a way that connects deeply with her fans.

This May, the LA native released her third studio album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, which is anchored by the most honest songwriting of her career. For years, she talked about “hating” the act of songwriting, and her brother Finneas would often steer the ship in the studio. But something changed this time around. While Finneas battled through his own lack of inspiration, Eilish found herself enjoying the process more than ever. So she threw herself at it, even trying her hand at production, and ended up with a collection of songs about love, lust, heartbreak, and self-discovery that she describes as the most “me” album she’s ever made. In February, it will be up for six Grammy Awards.

Since recording her breakout hit “Ocean Eyes” with Finneas and uploading it to SoundCloud in 2015, Eilish has represented a new kind of pop star. Instead of contorting herself to fit inside the tidy boxes of shiny, manufactured pop stars who came before her, she broke the mold. She dressed however the fuck she wanted to (usually in oversized streetwear), spoke unapologetically in interviews, and generally carried herself like the relatable, angsty teenager she was, even as the spotlight grew brighter.

“She is the most ‘anti,’ coolest girl ever,” Rihanna recently gushed in an interview with Access Hollywood, two weeks after naming Eilish as her “dream” collaborator. “In my mind she doesn’t listen to commercial music. I feel like she’s just creating her diary vocally. You can feel like she’s just zoned into who she is and what she’s experiencing and what she’s feeling.”

Eilish’s approach paid off and she was soon rewarded with platinum plaques and armfuls of Grammys. Before she knew it, she was one of the most recognizable people on Earth. But the success hasn’t been without its downsides.

She attempted to protect herself from the intensity of fame by laying low and staying home for years. And who could blame her? Album standout “The Diner” was written from the perspective of a celebrity-obsessed stalker, a dynamic that Eilish unfortunately knows all too well (the subject also comes up on previous songs like “NDA”). But she woke up one day and realized she had become too isolated, so she started pushing herself to go out and do “human stuff,” as she calls it.

Eilish brought two of her best friends on the road as openers, Nat and Alex Wolff, as well as two other close friends as backup singers, and they’ve all made a point of going out in the world between shows and living life as normally as possible. How else would she be able to stay grounded enough to write such raw, human songs? She’s fighting back.

“I am fighting it so hard,” Eilish says. Flick. Flick.

Today, instead of doing this interview locked away in the confines of a darkened studio, she wants to take a walk, so we venture down a gravel path on the east side of Nashville. Minutes into the stroll, we come across a small black dog without a collar in the middle of the street, and Eilish jogs next door to locate its owner. Crickets chirp. A train blows its horn. The dog wags its tail. For a moment, at least, everything feels very normal. Very human.

Our conversation, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, is below.

What have you been doing for fun lately?
I brought all of my friends with me on tour and I tried to make it impossible to not have fun. I was like, “I'm not going to have my brother on this tour and I'm not going to have my parents, so I need to do whatever I can to make it as fun as possible.” We've just been going to parks, going on bike rides, playing frisbee, playing pickleball. We're going to go to a court later and play some basketball. We've just been trying to do fun shit. Human stuff.

Do you have any recent obsessions?
I've just been thinking about Bojack Horseman constantly. It's all I think about. I just finished watching it a second time and I think it's the greatest show of all time. It is so genius. The writing is so smart and fucking dark and deep. I've seen it a few times in total and every time I finish it, I'm like, “OK, let's count down until I'm allowed to rewatch it again.”

I'm also back into my crochet world. I have all my yarns and my crochet needles with me. Literally, wait. [Billie puts her hand in her pocket and pulls out a fist full of crochet needles and vitamins.] My left sweatpants pockets has all my vitamins for the day and my crochet needles. So that's me. [Laughs.]

What have you been listening to on tour?
I've been playing a lot of Tom Odell. He has a song called “Black Friday” that's so beautiful and deeply devastating. We had a four-hour bus ride the other day and we listened to Tom Odell, Sufjan Stevens, Patrick Watson, and Mitski. That's the vibe that I've been in recently. An emo vibe.

Early in your career, you were always finding cool rising artists and you had a reputation for being really tapped in with new music. What about now?
I was actually just talking about this. I’m not up anymore. I never know any artists, I don't know anybody new, and I don't know any songs. I'm kind of skeptical about new stuff, and I used to be so excited to listen to stuff.

Yeah, there's a lot of amazing new music right now, but it can be hard to find sometimes.
There's a lot of good stuff! But it's hard to find, because I don't think it's mainstream at all. I think there's a lot of hidden shit that's really good.

Five years ago, you asked the question, "When we all fall asleep, where do we go?" Do you know the answer yet?
No. God, no. Does anyone? What do you think?

It's a complete mystery to me. It feels like sleep is close to death, but it's not. You just wake up every morning after losing consciousness…
It is close to death! The idea that we lay in a bed and are just gone for eight hours is so crazy. Also, I have an app that records me while I sleep. I talk constantly in my sleep, and so do my friends. When I have sleepovers, it's just like a full conversation, and that's really weird to me. It's so weird to listen to yourself talk like that.

What do you say in your sleep? Do you ever listen back and find song lyrics?
No, that would be really cool, but it's mostly nonsense. It's usually really stupid shit. I mean, sometimes I've had crushes and I'll listen back to the sleep recording and I'm saying their name in my sleep. Not even joking.

Do you think about questions like that a lot? Like, “What happens when we die? Why are we here? What does it all mean?”
I'm a girl. I've been thinking about that shit since I was like 5. It's an endless question. I remember being literally 4 years old and being like, “Why am I who I am?” And it'll never be answered. At a certain point, you have to just let it go.

While we’re asking big questions, what do you think your purpose is? Why are you here?
On Earth?

Yeah, it's a fucked up question. [Laughs.] I'm sorry.
It's funny, I've never seen the world like that. I've never been an “everything happens for a reason” girl. I’ve been a believer in “things are going to happen the way they're going to happen and there's nothing we can do about it.” And I used to be so skeptical, like, “I'm not here for any reason. I'm not helping anyone. Nobody's helping anyone. None of it means anything.” But I don't really believe that anymore.

Because at the same time, it's like, “Yeah, but we can change history, though. So there is something we can do about it if we just fight.” There could have easily been a world without me, but since I'm in the world, I am going to try to help people and be impactful and help change things that have been in place for so long and are so outdated. There's so much outdated shit going on. I mean, clearly more than half the country is still thinking that it's not outdated. But I think my purpose is to share my fucking art and people can connect to it.

HIT ME HARD AND SOFT dropped exactly six months ago. How do you feel about it now?
I love it so much. The response was better than I could have ever imagined. The songs are doing so well and performing them is even better than I thought it would be. I feel so proud of the artwork, the title, the order of the songs, the length of the album, and the music videos. Everything about it, I'm like, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, feels good.” Surprisingly, that's kind of rare. A lot of artists tend to be unhappy with the outcome of things. We're like, “Oh shit, that's not how I wanted it to be.” And I've had that so much in my life. But for this album, I'm like, “No, that's exactly what I wanted.”

Was it a fun album to make or a challenging album to make?
Horrible. It was super unpleasant to make. It was eight or nine months of no inspiration whatsoever, while Finneas and I were on a different frequency with each other. Oh my God, it was horrible. I learned a lot, though, and I had a good time with my brother. The fact that it was so difficult to make is good, honestly, because it shows that we can do it, even when we're going through it. Once we made “The Greatest,” it got way better.

What clicked when you made “The Greatest”?
I hadn't really been totally honest, and I wasn’t being honest with people around me. But the reason is, I wasn't really being honest with myself. My life was pretty unpleasant, but I didn't really know what else it could be, so I wasn't really aware of that. I wasn't able to verbalize that, but with “The Greatest,” it was the first time that I really was honest. It opened a door for the whole album that had been completely glued closed.

What did you learn while making this album?
The main thing I learned is that even when you feel like you're failing, you aren't, necessarily. I mean, you might be! [Laughs.] But also, it's possible that you're not.

Also, I've always been really critical about myself and my writing abilities. I've always been like, “Oh, I'm not a good writer.” And with this album, I really learned that I'm a lot better than I think. I learned to appreciate myself more.

For years, you've talked about how you haven't always loved the process of songwriting. But this time, you liked it more. What changed?
Part of it was growing up a little bit. Also, having been on tour for years and not writing anything, I was more eager to. Usually Finneas kind of had to drag me to get me to write. He'd be like, “Come on, we have to do it.” But he was in a different place in his life this time, and I felt like I needed to step up a little bit more. Also, to be quite honest, I was dating someone at the time who was really talented, and it was inspiring. The people that you're around are inspiring, especially in the music world, and that was honestly a big thing for me.

Do you have a favorite lyric on the project right now?
The bridge on “The Greatest” is really special to me. It's so simple, but it's so truthful. It's literally just, “I loved you, and I still do. Just wanted passion from you. Just wanted what I gave you. I waited and waited.” And that's it. I really like it because it's not finger-pointy. It's not like, “You are terrible.” It's not like, “I'm hurt and you broke my heart.” It just feels like being hurt, and being hurt by somebody that you love who isn't capable of loving you back in the same way. I had always wanted to word it in a way that felt like that and I finally did. It's fucking awesome.

You didn't put out any singles before the album dropped, but then “Birds of a Feather” and “Wildflower” blew up afterwards. So you basically let the fans pick the singles. Why did you take that approach?
When it comes to letting the fans pick the singles, I didn't even really think of it that way. I was just like, “No singles!” But that's really what's happened, and it's so much better. I would never have chosen “Wildflower” to be the single ever in a million years. I would've been like, “Oh, it's going to be ‘Lunch’ or ‘Birds of a Feather’ or ‘The Greatest.’” And even with “Birds of a Feather,” I was like, “Eh, I don't know. Probably not.” But it's worked out in my favor, which is great.

As a fan, it's always cool when you can listen to an album for the first time and every song is fresh.
That's my shit. That's what I wanted. An album had actually just come out from this artist, and I went to listen to it, and the first three songs were all singles I'd already heard. And you know what happened? I didn't listen to the rest, because I was like, “Meh, boring. Don't want to listen.” It's really interesting.

Skipping the singles feels wrong, too, because you want to hear how the artist put the whole album together…
Of course. But then I have to sit through the songs I already know. Annoying. It's fine, though. No hate. Now they're going to take that quote and fucking say that I said whatever. It's fine to do that. Of course. I just didn't want to do it this time.

You've talked about wanting to make an “album-ass album,” and listed Tyler, The Creator's Goblin as one of the inspirations. He's put out a lot of “album-ass albums,” including Chromakopia a few weeks ago.
Yeah, he's good at doing that.

What about Tyler has inspired you in that way?
Just everything being a whole. I really appreciate when people commit. The reason we might not want to commit is because it's embarrassing, right? It's like, “OK, go do a little dance.” And you're like, “That's so embarrassing. I'm going to half-ass it.” But then half-assing it is even more embarrassing. Whereas if you put your all into it, you're really doing something. I always appreciate an artist who commits to it, because then I'm like, “OK, you might not even like the music, but you have to admit they're committing to the bit.” That's awesome.

You're very honest on this album, but I also know there are drawbacks to putting so much of yourself out there. You recently made it clear that you're not going to talk about certain personal things in public anymore. As a songwriter, how do you manage being honest, while also protecting yourself
When I'm writing, I never think, “Oh, this is too honest. I can't say that.” And I feel really grateful about that. There's something about music that’s magical in that way, where you really cannot overshare with your art. The whole point of art is to overshare.

When I speak, that's when I'm like, “Oh, I'm not going any further than this.” But in music, I will go and go and go and go. I do not care how deep it is. I've written songs that are so unbelievably honest and brutal, and people are like, “Yay!” But if I say something in an interview, it's just a completely different thing.

What’s your relationship like with social media these days? I noticed you're not really on Twitter...
Yeah, I'm off that shit. And I went off of Instagram and TikTok a couple of months ago, which was awesome. But then I went on tour, and the issue is, I really love to interact with the fans when I'm on tour. I love seeing all the videos and all the angles. I love seeing how people are feeling and thinking about the show. If I think something looks different, I want to change it. So I go on the internet to see the videos that I want to see, but then I get sucked in. Then I get all fucked up, and I’m stuck. So I've been back on it, but I am trying to get off. It's my cigarettes. It's really a problem.

There are positives, though. I’ve seen you do Q&As with your fans on Instagram, and I’m sure it’s cool when you can have direct communication like that…
It is really cool. Some of it's awesome and I love it and I cherish it. But again, people make that kind of thing really hard. It's sad to me. Some people ruin it for the rest of them.

Let's talk about your style eras. When you started out, you were wearing baggy clothes and streetwear. Then you switched things up for Happier Than Ever. And now you're returning to more of the original look. Why is that?
I think life is always about going back to who you originally were. The older I get, the more I'm doing things I did when I was a kid, and being who I was when I was a kid.

I've always loved fashion so much and always had a real fascination with it. In middle school, all I would talk about is clothes, and I would always notice clothing and style. I still kind of think about fashion first when I meet somebody.

What's really interesting is that when I was a little girl, I loved big dresses. All I wore was fairy dresses and skirts. I never wore pants or shorts when I was a little kid. But when I got to be about 11, I got obsessed with this brand called Brandy Melville. And they only sold clothes in one size. I was chubbier and I was obsessed with these clothes, but I'd buy a shirt and it wouldn't fit me. That's when my body problems started. I was around the age of 10 or 11. I got boobs at like 9, and I was just developing really early. I wasn't slim. Also, I was in ballet, and that's this whole world of body problems.

I was wearing all these baggy clothes, and it was my style, but at the same time, it was how I could feel comfortable in my body and not feel tied to how my body looks. I didn't want my body to be part of my outfit. I wanted my outfit to be my outfit, and my body happens to be inside it.

Then [my career] got to be big, and when I was around 16, I was put in such a box of, like, “Billie Eilish wears baggy clothes only. And she's not a woman. And she doesn't look like a girl. And she's not desirable.” So when I made Happier Than Ever, I was kind of like, “OK, people have decided that I'm this one thing. And I am that thing. But I'm also all these other things.”

So of course, classic me, I had to go with the completely extreme version of it. I couldn't just, like, wear a skirt once. I had to completely reverse everything and be this girly girl for a second and have these pink nails, blonde hair, skirts, dresses, button-ups, bras, and lingerie. I really just did it to prove a point. I was just like, “Fuck you guys. I can do whatever I want. And then I can go back to what I was doing before, and you guys can eat it.” So even though it was a little extreme how I did it all, I feel really grateful for it.

I thought it was cool as fuck. As an artist, you should be able to play with the extremes.
I know! But what's great is, once I did that, it was like, “Now I'm free and I can do anything that I want. And that box is gone.” Whether or not other people felt like this, I feel like I freed myself from the box.

And now you're returning to your original style.
Yeah, now I'm like, “That wasn't real.” [Laughs.] But then every now and then I want to wear a dress, and that's fucking fine. And it should be fine the other way around.

One of the early memes about you was, “Billie Eilish dresses like a SoundCloud rapper.” Which is funny, because you're not a SoundCloud rapper, but you are from that era, and you did come up on SoundCloud.
I'm a SoundCloud artist, for sure.

You made songs in your bedroom and uploaded straight to SoundCloud, without the interference of gatekeepers, so it was raw and direct in the same way as the SoundCloud rap movement. Do you see those parallels, too?
Totally. That was my generation—those couple of years of SoundCloud being the thing. That's how I found everything, and that's how I became who I am. It's totally right.

It's hard to be a woman in a lot of ways, and one of them is that as an artist, you're expected to have a certain stage presence, wear a leotard, have a bunch of makeup, get your hair done, wear high heels, and have background singers and backup dancers. Those are all things that I have seen my whole life, and I've never seen anything else, it feels like, with women. And men get to just be running around onstage shirtless with the tracks playing behind them, and the whole crowd goes fucking wild. I looked up to that. That's what I wanted to be. I didn't want all that other stuff, even though I thought it was amazing. I was like, “I don't see myself in those female artists,” and I saw myself in all of these rappers and all these male artists that were just on their own up there, controlling this crowd.

I would just completely wallow in despair, because I was like, “I'll never get to do that. I'll never be a man. I'll never get to have that kind of stage presence.” And I fucking worked for eight years to get to a place where that's what I do. I figured out a way to perform in the exact way that I wanted to, and be the artist that I wanted to. Honest to God, every day of my life, I cannot believe that it worked. For real.

You helped create a new mold for what a pop star could be, which was more raw and authentic than some of the glossy stars who came before you. Now we're seeing the results of that. Have you seen some of your influence?
Yeah, I see it, and it's amazing. It just makes me feel so proud and happy that I helped in any way. It was really hard for me to do that. It took a lot to gain respect in that way and be taken seriously. When I look at artists now and see their fashion choices and the way that they perform and the music that people are making, I see it. I feel grateful that I got to help make the steps to that a lot easier and shorter. And I thank all the women that came before me, like Avril Lavigne and Rihanna and women that made it easier for me to be the female artist that I am.

How cool was it to see Rihanna name you as a dream collab?
I literally thought it was AI, first of all. [Laughs.] I've never met Rihanna. She's literally my idol. She's the greatest of all time. She's my complete dream collab. I don't even answer that question when people are like, “Who would you like to collab with?” But I always think Rihanna. I'm not going to say that, though! Why would I say that?! It's not real. I would think, like, “She probably doesn't even like me.” I've never heard from her and I've never had any interaction with her, so why would I have ever even thought about it?

Then she said, “If only I could work with Billie.” I was like, “Well, bitch, I've been sitting here this whole time!” What the fuck is she even talking about? [Laughs.] Honestly. What do you mean, “If only”?! It's, like, as if I've been saying, “No.” Rihanna! Riri!? I'll literally do anything you want. That's insane.

Well, I hope it leads to something.
Same.

You don't collaborate with other artists often, but you just tried something new and did “Guess” with Charli XCX. Why did you want to do that?
I mean, Brat was fucking awesome. Charli's awesome, and she's finally getting the attention that she deserves.

Finneas went to see her at her show in LA when I was out of town or something. He saw her backstage with somebody else, and then he came back and told me, “They said if you want to jump on a song, that would be so awesome.” I hadn't even thought of it, but I knew she was doing that, and it just came naturally. We got on the phone and talked about which song. “Guess” was my favorite song from the extended version, and oh my God, I was so excited. We made it in under a week, including the video, and then it came out like three days later. It was awesome.

Normally, you're just in the studio with Finneas. Were you nervous about jumping into someone else's world and recording with them?
Well, it was still just me and Finneas in the studio. [Laughs.] Finneas and I just sat in the studio and wrote that. It was my dream. My dream collab, aside from whatever Rihanna wants, is not having to have any contact with anybody. Even if it's somebody I'm super close to. Even people that I love deeply as artists, if we wanted to work together, I'd be like, “Cool, you go home. I'll make something alone. You make something alone. Then we'll send it and then work on it separately.”

You’re currently on the road, and the big narrative around this tour is that Finneas isn't on every date, because of his own tour. Now that you're midway through it, how has that been?
It's actually been great. It's awesome. I mean, it's a really different show than before. And he comes out sometimes. He came out for the New York shows, and he was there for the Newark show. It's been really a good balance. And when he does come out, it's so much more of a moment. It's just really special.

What have been the most fun songs to play on tour?
“Chihiro” and “Lunch,” which open the show, are such a vibe. Those are really, really fun. There's a song called “Over Now,” which is the ending of “L'Amour de Ma Vie,” but I have an extended version, and that is really fun to do. I also love “Wildflower.” Honestly, the whole thing is awesome.

You’ve been prioritizing sustainability efforts on the tour. This should be the most obvious answer in the world, but why is that an important issue to you?
Yeah, the fact that it's not on other people's agendas is very strange to me. I mean, touring is a really wasteful thing to do. Aside from the non-wasteful part, which is what it gives to people across the world, this industry is ridiculously wasteful. I'm trying my best to not punish everyone by being like, “I'm not part of this.” You know, I still want to give them what they deserve, but I want to do it in the most thoughtful, smart, conscious way that I can.

Early in your career, as a teenager, you used to resist being called a “role model” in interviews. But now it seems like you're thinking about your platform and your influence more?
I fucking hope that I'm a role model now. Now I'm like, “Let me be a role model so you guys can fucking do some good for the world!” [Laughs.] That's part of why I want to do all the stuff that I do. I know the impact that I have on people, and I really hope that instead of wearing the same hat that I wear, maybe you'll make the same changes that I've made. That's what I want to do. I want to help change the fucking way that the world has been. Everyone's like, “Oh yeah, well, that's just how things are.” But I'm like, “Well, it doesn't have to be that way.”