‘Disclaimer’: How Finneas and a String Quartet Brought Classical Music to Modern Audiences (and Inspired Billie Eilish’s Latest Album)

At the 2020 Grammys, Finneas won his first-ever honors — six to be exact — for his work on his baby sister Billie Eilish’s debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, making him the most awarded artist of the night. Attacca Quartet also won their first Grammy at that show, for best chamber performance on their album Orange, though the two acts didn’t know each other.

Years later, they joined forces to create the music for Apple TV+’s Disclaimer, Alfonso Cuarón’s acclaimed thriller starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. The musicians worked so well together, they collaborated on Eilish’s latest album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. 

Together at the Grammy Museum — where the Los Angeles-born Finneas and Eilish attended youth programs throughout their childhood — the Oscar-winning composer and the string quartet (Amy Schroeder, Andrew Yee, Nathan Schram, Domenic Salerni) discuss working together on the TV series and how Eilish’s album was partly inspired by it.

When did you all first meet?

Finneas: When I was working on this show, the reference music Alfonso was sending me was the music that he’d been listening to while he was writing it. He’s a real classical music buff, and so it was a lot of Bach. There was also some Vivaldi. I don’t have a classical background, so that was a fun experience, and I started trying to figure out my way through writing music for quartets. 

[Composer] David Campbell was like, “There’s really only a couple of quartets in the world that are playing this repertoire of classical music at the highest level, and I’d like to use the Attacca Quartet,” which I was unfamiliar with. But Alfonso is such a classical music buff that he was like, “Oh, yes, the Attacca Quartet,” and he was very gassed on that. Once we were recording them, I was so blown away by how much they transformed the music, and I’d been writing some string parts for the Billie album, and I was like, “Oh, my God, if they’ll do the Billie album, I’ll be so lucky.” 

Andrew Yee: You’re welcome.

Finneas: Seriously, what a night-and-day experience, the MIDI versions of the strings in Disclaimer, the MIDI versions of the strings for Billie’s album, versus hearing these amazing musical humans play them, it’s really amazing. [MIDI is technology that enables electronic instruments and computers to communicate with one another.] 

Nathan Schram: Our biggest fear is not living up to the MIDI, so that’s really good.

Attacca Quartet, what did that feel like to get the call to work on Disclaimer?

Schram: The funny thing is, it was a text message from David Campbell, who arranged a Christmas single for us the previous year. Actually, he doesn’t know this, but we didn’t really want to work with him at first. We had a friend that we wanted to use, and the label was like, “No, you should use this guy.” We’re like, “All right, fine.” And then he was like, “Hey, I love you guys. Do you want to do this project with Cate Blanchett, Finneas, Sacha Baron Cohen and Alfonso Cuarón?” We’ve never been so happy to have done a Christmas single in our life.

What’s it like when you’re adding music to a scene that’s already strong? How do you advance the scene and be subtle at the same time? 

Finneas: There are many rounds, many cues where I’d turn in something, a first draft, and Alfonso would express what he liked about it, what he wanted more of, and it was a back-and-forth. In that sense, it’s very similar to all creative relationships I’ve had with anybody: Billie tells me what she likes and what she wants more of. 

The scope of the show was vast, and there were a lot of pieces of music to make, and sometimes I’d turn in a piece and Alfonso would be like, “Great, we’re good there,” and I was like, “Are you sure? Do you want me to do it again?” Other times, the first draft of something I would send in might have had something that he liked, but then his notes inspired me to do something else. I always knew that his waves and ocean would be really loud because that’s his bag, so I was not in the dark about that.

Schram: Were there ever any scenes that you felt like he would ask for music and you felt like it didn’t need music, or vice versa, where you saw a scene that needed music but he hadn’t asked for it?

Finneas: I scored a couple scenes that were kind of Hail Mary like. I wish I remembered specific examples, but yeah, definitely sometimes there were scenes where he’d have some temp music, just so he was editing to something, and I’d leave the temp. It would be so great silent that I’d be like, “Ooh, well whatever I make really has to be better than silence, which is pretty good here,” so it would be challenging occasionally. Good question. 

Finneas, you’ve worked on pop music and big film songs (Barbie, No Time to Die) — what was it like composing music for TV? 

Finneas: It’s so different. Making an album is just thinking about how you feel and then writing those songs, it’s like column A; then column B is making something that’s a part of some other universe. I would categorize making the Barbie song with Billie in that camp. I’d categorize the James Bond song, and composing, in that camp: You read a script or watch a scene in a movie and get inspired and make something that can coexist.

If we had written some other song for that scene in the Barbie movie, that wouldn’t have been right. It might have had some value as a song, but it would have been like, “Ah, this doesn’t work here,” so I think that’s No. 1 in terms of scoring something. I make something that I’m proud of, but if it doesn’t fit that piece, then I pocket it and save it for later. It’s really about the task at hand, and the luxury is that it’s really inspiring. Every new scene is a new thing to inspire you and to evoke an emotion, and I really lean on it.

Billie has talked about how you both were experiencing writer’s block, and creating “What Was I Made For?” for Barbie changed things for you.

Finneas: Yes. That’s true. And also to the point of working on Disclaimer, it ended up being 88 pieces of music, divided by seven episodes, and several cues per episode. In terms of writer’s block, you just don’t have time; you got to get to work and make that next thing. Maybe you don’t feel like a genius…. I almost never feel like a genius, but you have to make something because there’s another scene to do. So I think that quality within quantity is a really important thing.

I remember hearing something on KCRW or NPR about this experiment, where they had ceramicists, potters, and they told half of the room to spend an hour making the most symmetrical pot that they could make. And they told the other 20 people to make as many pots as they could in an hour. And all of the most symmetrical pots were in that pile. It was all in the pile of people that were making things over and over, and that made me rethink the way that I was working.

What was it like creating Billie’s latest album, for both you, Finneas, and Attacca Quartet?

Finneas: In what we felt was a positive sense, we wanted to reinvent the wheel. When we made that first album, it did so much better than we ever thought a first album could do. And then we had the pandemic right after that, and we had all this time to sit around and work, and we had a great time. The second album was our salvation during the pandemic; we had something to do every day. I don’t know that we were as critical or careful while we made that album. I think we thought we were pretty awesome. There’s stuff I’m proud of on that album, but when I listen to it, it feels a little unrefined.

The real twin flame of this is that I was doing the TV show for the whole year that I was making Billie’s album, and so I had this in the back of my mind, always working on the strings. I would work on Disclaimer right before Billie would come over every day, then she’d leave, and I’d work on it again. And so I really credit Disclaimer for being the reason that there is a string overture in that album. It is something we have always loved. The albums that we referenced while we were making this album were Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road — they have these motifs that return, and so it was something we’d wanted to do. But I credit the show for giving me the learned experience of how to do it. 

Yee: For us, it was such an amazing experience. We’re super honored. We got to listen to the music before anybody else did in the studio, had it in our cars, just playing to Billie’s beautiful voice and the beautiful music. We couldn’t believe it in the moment and we wanted to do our very best. It was humbling. 

I remember when the beat drops in “The Greatest,” I think I ruined the take because I yelled, “Fuck. It’s so good.” And I came back, and I was like, “The album’s going to be called The Greatest, right?”

Finneas: It was in the running.

This story appeared in the Dec. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.