In the latest episode of her Apple Music series “me & dad radio,” Billie Eilish discussed some of the artists who’ve inspired her music over the years, and which artist brought her to tears when he covered one of her songs.
“They were the second concert I ever saw was The 1975. I’ve seen them multiple times in concert. I love Matty Healy,” Eilish says as she gushed about their song “If I Believe You.” “I got to meet him last year, which was amazing. He’s … ugh, God, I love them. And this song is just beautiful, and I feel like there’s almost no other songs that are about what this song is about.”
The intimate, home-brewed series is full of all kinds of revelations, including Eilish describing how Tyler, the Creator has inspired “part of everything about me.” The teen singer says she has memorized every one of the rapper’s songs from top to bottom, dubbing herself a “forever” fan of the Odd Future collective figurehead, then admitting to being embarrassed that she never heard “Earfquake” until Tyler performed it at the Grammys earlier this year.
The artist also raves about singer James Blake — whom she called a “god” — recalling the time she saw him in December at a solo piano show during which he covered one of her songs and blew her mind. “He did a tour where he just only played piano and nothing else, and sang. And it was amazing. It was really breathtaking,” she says. “If any other artists had done that, I would have been bored out of my mind, and because it was James Blake, it was so perfect.” Oh, about him playing “Party,” she just basically “cried the whole time.”
The episode also finds Billie talking about how she’s been inspired by Lana Del Rey and Nicki Minaj, with a very funny story about how she discovered Marina and the Diamonds’ “Primadonna Girl” a makeup tutorial she watched while working on a Halloween costume. “I was like, ‘This is such a weird song. Her voice sounds so interesting,'” she says of hearing the out-of-place track in the how-to clip.
“And I looked it up and it was, of course, then I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is my favorite artist ever.’ And she was my favorite artist for years and years and years, and all her albums I just … I know every lyric to this entire album and to like her next three albums or whatever — all of her albums from then — I know all of them.”
Eilish also has high praise for Minaj’s ability to do all kinds of different voices, and Del Rey’s invention of characters, which has inspired the way she and brother, Finneas, create their own fictional personas in songs.
Listen to the full playlist from the show here, and hear the interview excerpts below.
