Billie Eilish's first hit was a song her brother wrote for a dance class
In 2015 Billie Eilish's dance teacher asked for a song to choreograph. Her older brother Finneas handed over Ocean Eyes, written for his own band, and the siblings posted it on SoundCloud so the teacher could download it. Several hundred thousand people listened within two weeks, and a record-breaking career was underway.
Eilish was born in Los Angeles on December 18, 2001, to the actors and musicians Maggie Baird and Patrick O'Connell. Her parents took the name Eilish from a documentary about the Irish conjoined twins Katie and Eilish Holton; it was meant to be her first name, with Pirate in the middle. She and Finneas were homeschooled by their mother, who taught them the basics of songwriting. Billie picked up the ukulele at six, sang in the Los Angeles Children's Chorus at eight, and at 11 wrote her first real song, about a zombie apocalypse, borrowing lines from The Walking Dead.
Ocean Eyes came out on November 18, 2015, when she was 13. Apple Music soon signed her to Platoon, a company that grooms emerging artists before major labels arrive, and in August 2016 Justin Lubliner brought her to Darkroom and Interscope, building a persona and aesthetic rather than chasing one big single. Spotify placed her on its flagship Today's Top Hits playlist. Her debut EP, Don't Smile at Me, sold well in 2017 across the United States, Britain and Australia.
A full-length debut arrived in 2019 and opened at the top of the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic. One of its tracks, Bad Guy, made her the first 21st-century-born artist to lead the Hot 100. Happier Than Ever followed in 2021, and Hit Me Hard and Soft in 2024, with Birds of a Feather topping the Billboard Global 200.
The awards pile is tall: ten Grammys, twenty Guinness World Records and two Oscars, for the Bond theme No Time to Die and for What Was I Made For? from Barbie. She is the only woman to sweep the four general Grammy categories in one night. Musically, her signature layered vocal harmonies grow out of the old studio trick of double tracking.
Source: Billie Eilish
