Sitting in one of the studios found in Los Angeles’ Gold-Diggers recording facility, FINNEAS tells Consequence that he doesn’t own “a particularly large number of guitars. And I keep even less in the studio, which is really a testament to the kind of player I am. I have like one or two proper acoustics, one or two proper electrics, and then I have this guitar, which gets a lot of play.”
The guitar that is currently getting “a lot of play” is the FINNEAS Signature Acoustasonic Telecaster , a collaboration between the Grammy and Oscar-winning musician and Fender.
FINNEAS says his relationship with Fender goes back to at least 2019, before he and his sister/creative partner Billie Eilish “were even playing particularly big venues.” That’s when he first started playing an Acoustasonic: “I played it sort of across that whole year of touring. Played it at Coachella with Billie. Played it on SNL . And even then they were willing to give us these cool custom finishes on the Acoustasonic, which I really enjoyed.”
Therefore, when the opportunity came to create his own custom guitar with Fender, “the Acoustasonic felt like a really obvious choice” for FINNEAS. “I don’t think of myself, nor does anyone else think of me, as a particularly extraordinary guitar player,” he admits. “I’m a songwriter and a producer. So in terms of doing anything that I would feel qualified to represent, [the Acoustasonic] is an instrument that I’ve toured with extensively — and I wanted to make a version that had some added features for recording.”
The features included on both the standard and limited edition models are extensive, such as a combined, magnetic Acoustasonic Shawbucker magnetic pickup and Fishman undersaddle transducer; an onboard chorus effect; and a variety of voices ranging from electric to acoustic. (The limited edition includes 10 voices, while the standard includes six.)
“This, to me, is a unique instrument in its versatility,” FINNEAS says. “I think that it’s an amazing stage guitar, amazing to play live. It plays great. It sounds great. It has all these different permutations. We added a chorus function to the acoustic and we added a phaser function to the electric — that’s a cool little magic trick to pull out without having to step on a pedal or have the front-of-house guy do it or run a bunch of software.”
Plus, he continues, “as a studio instrument, those things are so helpful because you don’t have to have anything. I did a little demo today that was just the guitar, no effects at all, where I did all this multi-tracking. I did two tracks on acoustic on the acoustic setting, and I did an electric pickup. And then I did chorus mode, phaser mode. It was just like all of these tools in the toolbox through this one guitar, which was why I felt excited about it.”
FINNEAS says that during the design process, he made a point to bring the guitar into some sessions with “trusted” collaborators. “It was pretty exciting to go into a session with some other producers, ask for a direct line, no processing, no effects, and dial in settings that always got somebody to turn around in their chair. That was really a satisfying experience.”
While the guitar is only being announced now, FINNEAS notes, “I started playing this guitar probably last fall. We’d wrapped up Billie’s record at the time, but I’ve been writing my whole record and it’s all over that record, and I’ve taken it into sessions. I’ve probably shouldn’t name the other artists, but it’s been in the toolbox.”
This Acoustasonic comes in two different finishes: the limited edition’s white satin and the standard edition’s cappuccino fade . “‘Don’t judge a book by its color’ is like the most famous phrase in the world. But they do all have covers, and I think people who design book covers probably hope you like them,” FINNEAS jokes. “A color wave of a guitar isn’t necessarily enough of a reason, point blank, to buy an instrument. You have to think it sounds good or you have to think it plays well. But if I’m doing a custom version of an Acoustasonic, hell yeah, I care about how it looks.”
He explains that the white satin finish is particularly fun when “you’re in a studio and you have mood lighting and suddenly the room’s all pink or aquamarine, a white guitar or a semi-white guitar is going to reflect that.”
Courtesy of Fender
FINNEAS says he personally owns signature models of other musicians, but they’re often “artists I don’t care about at all.” It’s a matter of “functionality of the instrument” over the name attached to it, and he hopes for the same with his own design.
“My fantasy in designing this was that you’d see it on the rack of guitars and you’d, A, like the way it looks, and B, play it and go, ‘Oh my God. It has these things that no other Acoustasonic has. That’s amazing.’ I’d love for you to not even care that it’s mine,” he says. “Obviously, if you are a fan of mine, if you are a fan of my production, you can play the thing that is going on a bunch of my recordings. But the fantasy is that it doesn’t matter at all.”
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