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00:00Thoughts on Mini Finny, do you have a favorite action figure?
00:03Unconsensual, this was made and then presented to me and now it is there and I don't know what to do with it.
00:10Do you have a favorite action figure?
00:12Yeah, growing up I was like very enamored with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
00:17I had a really great little Donatello.
00:19I think Donatello was the one that had the two swords.
00:22Maybe they weren't even swords, maybe they were just sticks.
00:24I don't know what kind of level of violence and gore the Ninja Turtles were.
00:29I wasn't partaking in, but yeah, Donatello was cool and Shredder was cool.
00:34Hi, I'm Finneas and Esquire has asked me to explain some things.
00:39So let's dive in, shall we?
00:48Explain why you were in the Oval Office.
00:50How did it feel? We were on tour in 2022.
00:54We were playing a show in Washington DC.
00:56I was playing in my sister Billy's band.
00:59We got an invitation to meet Jill Biden at the White House
01:02and the day before our meeting with Jill, Jill had to fly somewhere else to do something
01:06and the White House team, they were like Jill's busy.
01:09We were like no worries and they were like would meeting Joe be okay?
01:13Which is so funny to phrase it like that
01:15and we were like, okay and we went and hung with Joe.
01:19It was pretty epic.
01:21One of the memories that I have was he was kind of showing us around
01:25and he took us inside and outside.
01:27It was February and DC was nice and cold and wintry
01:30and so there was a door that was shut, you know,
01:32and had like done that thing that happens in the change of seasons
01:35where the wood is like expanding and shuts
01:37and so me and the Prez did a like push on three situation
01:42where we pushed a door open really hard at the White House.
01:46Did you ever figure out why Questlove flipped you off on your Tonight Show appearance?
01:51Yeah, the way that they have it set up much like this room
01:54is like there's a camera operator right behind you
01:57and if I had known the camera operator for years
02:00and had never met you, I might do that to the camera operator
02:04and it might look like I'm doing that to you.
02:06I think that was what ended up happening
02:08was he was having a little moment of camaraderie with a person he knew super well
02:11and it looked to me like he pointed right at me and flipped me off,
02:15but we're cool now and by cool now,
02:17I mean that he flips me off every time I see him now
02:20because that's the new bit.
02:22If you could only take three albums to a deserted island,
02:26what would they be?
02:27Three albums probably that I could tie together to make a raft, I guess.
02:31So they'd have to be like big double album box set.
02:34Like I have like a cake box set.
02:36Maybe I'd take that.
02:37Maybe I'd take like a Queen compendium
02:40and maybe like a Led Zeppelin box set just because they're girthy
02:43and they might be weight-bearing.
02:45At what point do you know that a song you're writing is meant for yourself
02:49versus meant for Billie?
02:50It used to be that I'd sit around and write songs
02:53for no kind of designated person or place
02:57and that has kind of changed over time.
02:59If I'm writing a song for me,
03:00I'm usually writing it with the intention of putting it out under my own name
03:03and the other thing that's changed is that Billie co-writes everything now.
03:07She's always co-written most of the music that we've made together,
03:10but there were occasional songs like Ocean Eyes, When the Party's Over
03:13that I wrote and then sort of brought to her,
03:16but now we write everything together.
03:18So that's the easiest way.
03:20How do you approach writing a song for a soundtrack?
03:23It is different every time.
03:24For the song No Time to Die for James Bond,
03:27we were given the pages of the script up to where the song would come in
03:31and wrote the song from what we had learned from that
03:34and then for Barbie,
03:36Bretta invited us to see most of the film.
03:39They were still editing it.
03:40So we saw a lot of the beginning of the film
03:41and then many scenes throughout,
03:42including the scene that the song is actually in
03:45where Ruth tells Barbie to feel for the first time.
03:48So different but both really enjoyable ways to write a song.
03:51What do you remember from working on Glee?
03:54I'd say one of the predominant memories of working on Glee
03:57was just that I was so damn young.
03:59I was so much younger than everybody
04:01that I never was able to like go to any after parties
04:03or go to bars with anybody.
04:05Like I was 17 and had no fake ID
04:07and I would just go home because I couldn't go anywhere,
04:10but everybody was really nice to me.
04:11It wasn't their fault that they employed a child.
04:14What was it like to perform at Warped Tour with your high school band?
04:18Wow, crazy photo.
04:20So we won a Battle of the Bands when I was like 16 or 17
04:24and because we won a Battle of the Bands,
04:26we were allowed to play one 20-minute time slot
04:29on the Vans Warped Tour at the Pomona Fairgrounds in California
04:33and we had no roadies or anything.
04:35So we spent like 14 minutes of the 20 minutes
04:38setting up our stuff on the stage
04:40and then we played one song
04:42and they were like, all right, get off the stage.
04:44What's different about releasing music on vinyl versus digital?
04:48Well, the difference between releasing music on vinyl versus digital
04:51is that you can hold it
04:53and you can see the artwork bigger than just like this big.
04:56I feel like artwork on, you know,
04:59Spotify and Apple Music and Tidal, etc.
05:02They just will not let you zoom in on that sh**.
05:05It's crazy.
05:06They just want it to be as tiny as possible.
05:08And I think there's also a different psychological element to it,
05:12which is like you put the album on and you're letting it play
05:15and then you're flipping it over and you're playing side B
05:17and I think that that's a great way to listen to music.
05:19I find that sometimes I get really ADHD with my streaming.
05:23Play a song in the middle of it.
05:24I think, ooh, I want to hear this other song.
05:26On to the next thing.
05:27Explain these pics including the ears and chainmail.
05:30Our friend Charlotte D'Alessio
05:32wanted to celebrate her birthday this past year at the Renaissance Fair
05:36and you can't go to the Renaissance Fair dressed normal.
05:39You got to dress theme appropriate.
05:41I think you're very looked down upon if you dress normal.
05:44Is it true that you originally wrote Ocean Eyes for yourself?
05:47I mean the short answer is yes.
05:48I wrote Ocean Eyes for myself.
05:49I really just wrote songs for the sake of writing songs.
05:52It wasn't really like a for or not for myself kind of a thing,
05:56but I wrote it and then my band that I had in high school played it.
05:59We just had it so bad playing that song.
06:01And so I was like, gosh,
06:02I would love if somebody else would like to sing this song.
06:06Let me see if my sister would like to sing that song
06:08and she obliged and changed both of our lives.
06:11How was writing for Crying Out Loud different than for Optimist?
06:14I wrote all of Optimist pretty much downstairs in my like basement studio alone
06:20and for writing the album for Crying Out Loud,
06:23I roped a bunch of my friends into it
06:25and we all got in a room and jammed like the days of yore
06:30and made a bunch of stuff that I'm really really proud of.
06:34What's the secret to a successful professional creative relationship
06:37with anyone let alone a sibling? Empathy.
06:40I think empathy is the secret to a successful creative relationship.
06:44Gotta see where they're coming from
06:46and navigate a disagreement with a lot of empathy
06:49and try to provide empathy to your suggestions and your ideas.
06:54I love collaborating.
06:55I mean, especially I've collaborated the most of anyone in my life with my sister
06:59and I think she's brilliant.
07:01And so the inspiration that I get from working with her is such a luxury.
07:05So I'm very happy to collaborate with her.
07:07How does it feel watching Billie on tour without you?
07:09It's emotional.
07:10I mean, I wish I was there every night to see her rock out in person.
07:14I thought maybe I would feel some sense of like,
07:16God, I wish I was there participating
07:19and it's obviously super fun to play shows with her,
07:22but I really mainly just miss watching her perform every night.
07:27Thanks for watching.