Grammy and Oscar-winning musician Finneas says LA fires 'tragic and shocking'
For Grammy and Oscar-winning musician Finneas O'Connell, having to watch wildfires tear his hometown of Los Angeles apart this week has been "staggering and shocking".
O'Connell, known mononymously as Finneas, has just wrapped up a solo tour of Australia and has had to witness the devastation from afar.
"It's been terrible," he told ABC News Breakfast.
"We're all headed back to LA in two days and I still don't think I'm probably prepared for whatever I'm going to see. So many houses of people I love burned down in the last four days."
O'Connell says he's looking forward to getting back to LA to help "in whatever way I can".
"There's whole communities that I love — Altadena is a place I go all the time, and there's whole streets of restaurants and bicycle repair shops and cafes that have all burned down. It's really tragic and terrible."
O'Connell was born in Los Angeles in 1997, four years before his sister and frequent collaborator, global pop sensation Billie Eilish.
The pair first gained prominence with the release of Eilish's debut EP Don't Smile at Me in 2017 and went on to achieve international fame with Eilish's debut studio album When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? in 2019. The latter won multiple Grammy Awards and cemented Finneas's status as one of the industry's most sought-after music producers.
Finneas and Eilish have also achieved major success in film, winning two Academy Awards for the Best Original Song in 2022 for No Time to Die, the theme song from the James Bond film of the same name, and again in 2024 for What Was I Made For? from the Barbie soundtrack.
But for O'Connell, success has never been measured by winning some of his industry's biggest awards.
"Those things were barely on the wish list," he says.
"To me, the great wish was to get to make music and not have to work at a job I hated, whether that would make me a lot of money or not. I just wanted to make music for a living.
"Something like an accolade, I'll take it, but I'm not greedy for more. I just feel very lucky."
One of O'Connell's biggest successes to date is the hit single Bad Guy, co-written by and for his sister, which won Record and Song of the Year at the 2020 Grammy Awards.
He famously found inspiration for the track when listening to the sound of a pedestrian traffic light in Sydney. But O'Connell says his most recent trip to Australia has yet to provide the same inspiration.
"I haven't heard something so far that I'm like, 'Oh, I've got to go use that,' but I do record sound all the time."
Though known for writing and producing music for other artists, Finneas is an established performer in his own right — having just played solo shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to promote his second album, For Cryin' Out Loud!.
O'Connell "loves" performing in Australia and says the album's title track has been well received by audiences here.
"I feel like you measure the resonance of a song with the audience with how many people put their phones up to film you. So it's been a treat to see how much people are enjoying that song," he says.
Going forward, O'Connell says he hopes to continue doing what he loves most.
"Getting to tour and play cities I've been to and loved, places I've never been — I'm excited to explore, just keeping it going."