Finneas O’Connell, the songwriter and producer who’s probably still best known for being Billie Eilish’s brother and collaborator, has named his five favourite guitarists, and he’s made some interesting choices.
Talking to Consequence, he picked out five very melodic players, three of whom have instantly recognisable styles.
First of all there’s Nile Rodgers, who Finneas describes as “a super important” guitarist. “This is demonstrating my age, or lack of age, but I was really introduced to Nile Rodgers by way of Daft Punk when the Random Access Memories album came out, and then retroactively learned that he was a genius musician and a genius producer also. But what a guitarist.”
Then there’s George Harrison: “He provided such unbelievable, beautiful guitar work, especially in a band with Paul and John, who could be the other two great guitar players on this list."
They're not, though, as Finneas also includes Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante: “He has written such deeply musical, memorable parts on the guitar," he says.
He also names two female players. Annie Clark aka St Vincent is “writing the hookiest, most ferocious parts,” he says, and then there's Leslie Feist, a singer-songwriter who has never really received many props for her guitar work.
“She’s really a guitar hero of mine,” says Finneas. “She’s such an emotive player, I kind of can’t believe how complicated the parts she’s playing are all while she’s singing. She’s so cool and I’ve always been really impressed by her.”
Maybe he can relate. Like her, Finneas is a somewhat underrated guitarist, though there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary, of his clean, understated style on both his sister’s and his own albums.
Whatever, he’s certainly humble about it: “I don’t think of myself, nor does anyone else think of me, as a particularly extraordinary guitar player,” he told Consequence.
