LUCKOF HEEILISH
Billie, 18, is the youngest a 007 track singer to perform having and is at the been nominated top of her game, for six Grammys
and performing. And they homeschooled their youngsters to feed their creativity.
Maggie said: “Homeschooling allowed us to let them do the things they really love to do and not have a giant academic schedule on top of it.”
Being allowed to do the things they enjoy paid off for the young siblings.
Last year, Billie’s net worth was estimated at more than £4.6million.
Finneas originally made a name for himself by following his parents into acting. In 2011, he played the role of a student in the film Bad Teacher, alongside Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake and Jason Segal.
He had a recurring guest role in Modern Family and played Alistair in the final series of Glee.
But, like his sister, music was his first love.
Billie – whose full name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell – can’t remember a time when she and her brother didn’t love to sing, write and record their own tracks.
She told NME: “When people ask, ‘When did you start singing?’, I think that’s a dumb question. I was always singing and making up melodies. That was normal for our family. I’d meet families who didn’t do that and I’d think, ‘What the hell?’”
Their talent as a sibling singing/ songwriting duo first became public in 2015 after Billie, then just 13, uploaded herself singing a ballad Finneas had written, Ocean Eyes, to a music-sharing platform.
She only uploaded the track so her dance teacher could listen to it and help her put together the routine she wanted for a video she was making to go with the song.
But the track went viral and led to her being signed to record label Interscope, which has a stable of big-name artists including Lady Gaga and Lana Del Rey.
Billie said: “My brother came to me with Ocean Eyes. He told me he thought it would sound good in my voice. He taught me the song, we sang it along to his guitar and I loved it. It was stuck in my head for weeks.
“We put it on SoundCloud with a free download link next to it so my dance teacher could access it. We had no intentions for it. But overnight, a ton of people started hearing it and sharing it.”
A year later, the record label re-released the track.
Finneas continues to write with Billie and produced her hits.
Her first album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, debuted at No1 in a string of countries including the US, the UK, Australia, Belgium, Sweden and Norway.
The double platinum-selling album has received more than 15billion combined global streams since its release in last March.
While young music fans already knew her well, being chosen to sing the Bond theme tune has brought her to a new worldwide audience as she follows the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Adele, Duran Duran, Madonna, Shirley Bassey and Tina Turner.
Three Scots have sung Bond themes – Lulu, Shirley Manson and Sheena Easton, who was 22 when she sang 1981’s For Your Eyes Only.
Billie and Finneas teamed up to write the song for the 25th Bond film.
She said: “We’ve tried to write a Bond song our whole lives.
“Every song that has been on the opening credits of these movies has always been fantastic. Bond is so dope. It’s the coolest movie franchise in the world, so it was a crazy call and a crazy past couple of months.” No Time To Die, to be released in April, is set to be Daniel Craig’s final appearance as 007. Phoebe WallerBridge has co-written the film, which is directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. While Billie doesn’t appear in the movie, she will star in her own documentary for Apple TV+, which will tell of her rise to stardom. She said: “I’ve seen no part of it and I’m terrified. They’ve been filming since July 2018. Who has that much footage of themselves they’ve never seen?”