How Billie Eilish wrote her James Bond theme No Time To Die

Billie reveals she suffered from writer's block as soon as she landed the Bond theme gig.
billie-eilish-no-time-to-die.jpg

Billie Eilish is currently heading for her first Number 1 single with James Bond theme, No Time To Die – but how does the writing process go for such a highly distinguished – and iconic – opportunity?

18 year old Billie is the youngest artist ever to record a Bond theme and is set to perform it for the first time at this year's BRIT Awards.

In a TV interview about the new song with BBC Breakfast’s Louise Minchin, Billie and Finneas (her brother and musical collaborator) discussed the process behind writing a Bond song.

At the beginning of last year, Billie says, she made everyone on her team aware that she wants to be involved "if any Bond things come up…whatever we have to do we will do". When the opportunity did arise, the pair jumped into action to book a recording studio however this left them “intensely uninspired” and chock full of writers block.

Following their “awful” day in the studio and they ended up writing and recording the song in a tour bus in Texas, after Finneas came up with an inital chord progression; in just three days the song was written and recorded.

Prior to this, the siblings had a meeting with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, who sent them the script for the opening scene in order to give them a bit of inspiration, something Billie described as “so cool” and “really, really helpful.”

MORE: BRIT Awards 2020: 12 quirky facts about this year's ceremony

Finneas claimed it was useful to go back to listen to previous Bond themes to ensure they were on the right track without copying or recreating something that’s been done before, adding that “there are few things in your career that are as desirable as doing a Bond song. We did not take the opportunity lightly and worked as hard as we could to prove ourselves”.

Billie also revealed that 007 himself Daniel Craig plays a large part in vetting the submissions and, yes, they have already seen the film (albeit without the final version of the track which was still being orchestrated at the time.)

Elsewhere in the interview, Billie explains why doesn’t read comments any more, and how she feels about impersonators and pre-show rituals. See the full interview below:

See Billie Eilish’s full UK charts history

Related artists

Join the conversation by joining the Official Charts community and dropping comment.

Already registered?

Log in

No account?

Register

avatar

Brian Quinn

0

The James Bond movies are really old hat now and so removed from the truth.