I guess the main inspiration for the title
of this album was that,
you know, I feel like
I'm not necessarily, like, naturally an optimist,
but I think optimism is something that you can work at and
get better at. And, you know, I think,
I think it's always worth trying to be optimistic,
even if bad things are happening because the alternative is
to just despair and feel like nothing's going to work out
and everything is going to go wrong, and that's not much fun.
So, even if it doesn't work out,
it's better to have, at the time, been like, "Oh, what if it,
"what if it does?" Or at least try?
I feel like if I weren't an optimist,
I wouldn't try as hard. You know what I mean?
I would just be like, "Oh, who cares?
"Nothing's going to work."
And if you're optimistic, you try harder
and then there's a better chance it'll actually work out
Hey MTV News, this is Finneas and
these are the top five things you may or may not know about me.
I feel like you guys are pretty good at this stuff,
so I'm gonna assume you know some of these,
but maybe you'll learn something.
OK, the first thing you might not know about me is that
before I wanted to be a musician for a living,
I really wanted to be an animator.
I wanted to work at like Pixar or Dreamworks.
I grew up loving animating.
There was an application called Pivot
that was like a Microsoft application
I used to use where you'd, like, do stop motion animation.
I took a course in Flash, like the Adobe Flash program,
but that was, like, a huge passion. I always loved animating.
And I still, like, watch, like, Pixar movies and,
other than just, like, being engrossed in the movie,
I'm just, like, so fascinated by the animation itself.
So, it's number one. I'm not good at animating.
I went and got good at music making,
but I did not ever get any good at animating anything.
So, I gave up before I got good.
The next thing you may not know about me is I'm left-handed,
I bet you know that, and I play guitar right-handed.
And that's just because that was -
We had a right-handed guitar and I couldn't afford to go
buy a left-handed guitar to learn on. So I learned on
a right-handed guitar.
And I've always wondered, like, maybe if I'd
be a better guitarist if I played left-handed,
but we will never know.
Third. My favorite TV show
growing up was a show called 'Community,'
starring Joel McHale and Donald Glover,
and a bunch of other amazing actors.
Alison Brie was on it. Gillian Jacobs.
Anyway, it's an awesome show.
Billie's favorite show growing up was 'The Office,'
but mine was 'Community.'
Fourth thing you may not know about me,
I think if I weren't making music,
if I got fired from making music,
I would probably just want to go be
an interior designer or architect.
That's kind of, like, the thing that excites me the most
outside of music is, like, you know,
getting a chair reupholstered and figuring out what the
perfect color to paint the guest bedroom is, or stuff like
that. It's so fun to me and exciting.
It feels like you can work on it forever.
Like, a space is never quite done,
which is so thrilling.
Lastly, my favorite place in the world is New Zealand.
I think if I could live anywhere,
I'd probably live in New Zealand.
I can't wait to be back there.
I actually think that working with other artists,
making other people's music is makes it easier to make my
own stuff because I'm sort of, like,
more focused on not doing what
I'm doing with those other people.
Like, when I first was writing songs,
I wasn't co-writing with anyone.
It was just, like, me and I had a band in high school and
whatever. And I'd write, you know,
such different styles of music for my band
'cause I've always kind of loved all music.
So, the feedback I used to get as a solo artist was like,
"These are pretty eclectic."
Like, one song sounds super different to the other songs
sound super different, and that's still true to some degree,
but it's like, now that I'm working on Billie's project,
when I'm working on my own stuff,
I don't want to sound like Billie.
And I'm working on Selena Gomez stuff,
I don't want Selena to sound like Billie
and I don't want to sound like Selena and I don't want
Selena to sound like Camila [Cabello].
So it's actually, like, it helps it sort of, like,
stay and it's like, it's easier to compartmentalize.
So, it's been really helpful.
I guess the only real difference between the two projects is
that this one maybe is, like, a little bit wider.
Like, the sort of from A to B on this album
is this sort of, like, windier journey,
with like the interlude in the middle,
it's like a piano instrumental piece. And songs like "Hurt
Locker" and "Around My Neck," there's more variety, I guess.
And I knew that I was making an album,
so I knew that it was this kind of long play.
When I was making that EP,
several of those songs were sort of, like, made without
knowing that they would ever be on the EP.
The song "I Lost a Friend" and
the song "Let's Fall in Love for the Night,"
like those were just sort of songs I had made.
And then I was like, "I'll put them on there."
And with this album, it was, there was none of -
It was always like, "I'm making this album,
"these are the songs that will go on this album."
So hopefully there's,sort of more of a narrative, I suppose.
is like my hope on this record,
but I'm really proud of 'Blood Harmony.' I loved that
and I didn't want to repeat that either.
I wanted to like, be like, "Yeah, that's this thing
"and here's this other new thing, and I'm proud of both."
You know, I'll play both of the show.
My hope is that people take away from this album
some song that they feel they identify with.
To me, that's like the music that I'm the most connected and
attached to as a listener is the music where I hear a song
and I think, "Oh, that's exactly how I feel."
And I don't know which song that'll be for which person,
but I hope for every person,
there's some song on this album that they think, "Oh my god,
"I totally feel that way about this."
And that to me is like always my goal for myself,
you know, always my fantasy for other people.