Billie Eilish recalled the making of her new James Bond theme on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, calling it ‘a crazy surreal experience.’
The 18-year-old singer would later sing ‘No Time To Die’ live for the first time on the show, a moody performance shot in black-and-white at the bottom of two sweeping staircases.
She and her brother, the musician Finneas, 23, were celebrating Global James Bond Day with an appearance on Fallon, who also saw a visit from Bond himself, Daniel Craig, 52.
Surreal experience: Billie Eilish recalled the making of her new James Bond theme on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, calling it ‘a crazy surreal experience’
Billie said she and Finneas had fantasized about writing a Bond song for years, but never thought it would actually happen.
‘It was a complete fantasy, like ”How cool would it be to do this?”,’ she said, noting that when she was asked last summer, ‘it was very insane to us. It was a couple of months of disbelief.’
She and Finneas initially struggled to write the song, Billie remembered, admitting ‘It’s a lot of pressure. It’s a f***ing Bond song!’ Finneas noodled out a melody on the piano, and they tried to figure out what to write and how to incorporate the movie’s title into it.
Bond composer Hans Zimmer insisted they fly out to London to see a rough cut of the movie before finishing the song, then worked with them on it for a week, adding an orchestra to it.
Live debut: The 18-year-old singer would later sing ‘No Time To Die’ live for the first time on the show
Moody performance: Billie and her brother Finneas shared a moody performance shot in black-and-white at the bottom of two sweeping staircases
‘All day, we would lean and say, ”Could we try…?” and they would say, ”Do this,” and change it in real time,’ Finneas marveled. ‘Like all 70 people. Everyone was so good.’
‘He loved it,’ Billie said, describing Hans as ‘a real doll.’ ‘He really connected to it, which was crazy for us.’
The five-time Grammy winner also revealed why it had been so important for her to perform at the Democratic National Convention in August, and to speak to voters, too.
Bond day: The teenager and her brother, the musician Finneas, 23, were celebrating Global James Bond Day with an appearance on Fallon, who also saw a visit from Bond himself, Daniel Craig, 52
‘You don’t need me to tell you that our country is a mess,’ she’d said at the time. ‘Donald Trump is destroying our country and everything we care about.’
‘To be honest, I just think it was my responsibility,’ Billie told Jimmy. ‘I really couldn’t want to be involved in politics less; I’d rather be doing literally anything else than talking about this…. I think that that should show you how much this actually means right now.’
‘I was somebody who used to just completely shut up—”I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to hear about it, I don’t want anybody’s opinions, I don’t want to give my own opinions. I don’t want to deal with it, I don’t want to think about it”,’ she remembered. ‘There just comes a certain point where you can’t ignore it and you can’t be silent. Especially having the platform that I have, I don’t want to waste that. So I think it’s really important that we all talk and speak up, even if we’d rather die.’
Talking politics: The five-time Grammy winner also revealed why it had been so important for her to perform at the Democratic National Convention in August, and to speak to voters, too
Jimmy had sent Finneas four silly sound recordings and asked him to show viewers how he worked the snippets into songs.
‘Jimmy Bond,’ the host crooned in one sample, also intoning ‘No time to die,’ ‘Vote’ and ‘Shaken’ in the others, all of which Finneas worked into a club mix.
‘I wish we’d had that when we first started writing the song, ’cause that would have been great,’ the musician joked.
No Time To Die was scheduled to be released in April 2020, but it has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic until April 2021.
Original song: Jimmy had sent Finneas four silly sound recordings and asked him to show viewers how he worked the snippets into songs