Finneas O’Connell and María Zardoya on the Importance of Making ‘Tons and Tons of Stuff’

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os Angeles is not only an entertainment epicenter, but a place where different voices and styles converge, creating a unique symphony of creativity. It’s here where figures like Maria Zardoya, of The Marias, and Finneas, both Los Angeles residents and living examples of how this city can propel careers to new heights, appear. Maria, with her fusion of Latin rhythms and indie pop, and Finneas, known for his versatility as a producer and artist, have recently released albums that have felt like milestones in their careers: The Marías recently released Submarine, an album loaded with emotions and personal challenges, while Finneas released his solo album, For Cryin’ Out Loud, in 2021.

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In an in-depth conversation, María and Finneas look back at the creative journeys that brought them here. The two artists talk about how starting out on small stages can be both a challenge and a blessing and how those beginnings influenced their relationship with their fans. They also talk about the gratitude they feel for being able to develop and share their art with the world. 

Finneas: I assume that when you first started, you played like we did, in the tiniest rooms, like wherever they’d have you. Did you enjoy playing in super small rooms? And now that you are playing in much, much, much larger rooms, do you have a preference? Do you have a thing that you appreciate about one over the other? What’s your feeling about it?

María: I love the small venues. Like the first venue where Josh and I met, I was playing at the Kibitz Room, which is this really tiny place right next to Canter’s Deli. There were probably five people in the audience. So, I’m kind of used to playing really, really small venues and I like it. They’re intimate. Even to this day, we are playing bigger venues, but I’m always asking our team “Can we do small venues?” because I like to crowdsurf, I like to just get into the audience and be able to touch them, hold their hand, hug them if I want to hug them, or just jump off stage if I want to.

Finneas: You did the levels.

María: What about you? Do you like small venues?

Finneas: I think the show for the room is the most important thing to me. Sometimes, I’ll see an artist play what feels like a kind of an intimate show in a huge space and it might feel really beautiful for the first 200 people, but the people way at the back, I feel like, are kind of lost or hearing the chatter at the bar. So, I think tailoring the show that you’re putting on to the space is the thing I became obsessed with.

If you’re playing a really small show, what are the things you can only do at this small show? You know, really communicating with the people in the room directly and having that super intimate, energetic experience. And then when you’re playing a huge venue, you get to play being kind of theatrical.

María: And you prefer?

Finneas: I think selfishly I like to talk between songs, so I probably prefer a small venue. In a bigger venue, it’s much harder to have everybody quiet and listening to you. And I like a kind of conversational vibe. Maybe the most sort of moved I’ve ever been as an audience member has also been in a small show, so that probably has a little bit to do with it.

María: What was the last small show that you saw that you were really moved by?

Finneas: The last really small show I saw that I was really moved by was Feist. She played a show in 2022 that was like in a round. It was 50 chairs in a circle, and then she was in the center, and it was just so intimate and crazy. They had mounted Atmos speakers all over the ceiling. For a while, it was just her and then the speakers started to play. It was really immersive and cool. But it was, again, it was like an experience that wouldn’t translate if there were a thousand people in the room, which is really special. That being said, I was at your Hollywood Forever show, which was thousands of people, and I thought you guys were putting on such a fantastic show, specifically for that venue size, with a beautiful stage production that sounds enormous but, you know, none of that would even fit in a tiny venue.

María: Thank you.

Finneas: What goes into building a live show for you? Obviously, the album, in this case, was written and recorded and you know that you’re putting it out, you’re launching a tour. Are you conscious of the tour when you’re making the album? Are you thinking about how songs are going to translate or not at all?

María: Not at all. When we’re writing we’re just so focused on just being there in that moment and writing a song and getting through it. Some songs are so difficult to get through so we’re just like, “OK, how do we get through this?” But I think after the song is written, Josh and I will look at each other and be like…

Finneas: “Oh, this is going to kill Lash.” 

María: And he’s our musical director, too, and producer as I’m sure you are, too. And so it’s like, you hear those ideas probably when you’re in the production and after you’re done with the song, you’re like, “Okay, I know exactly how this is going to translate live.” That happens to us for sure.

Finneas: Your album, Submarine, which I’ve been listening to so much this year, I was really excited to hear it live, and then it sounded so great live, and sometimes there’s a disparity there because I think sometimes when you’re a super fan of an album, live it sounds cool, but you’re kind of obsessed with the album quality, and I just thought it translated so well. There were areas where you changed stuff and it evolved the parts that you added, so cool. I’m such a fan.

María: How has working with Billie affected your solo project and the style of your upcoming album?

Finneas: I think I’ve learned a lot from her in terms of the growth she’s experienced and the risks she’s willing to take as a singer and a songwriter. And I think it’s always been very important to me to make sure that the music that I’m making doesn’t feel like an imitation of what I make with Billie at all. Obviously, she’s a big part of why her music sounds like that, but I also just very consciously take a left turn to make sure that they’re separate because I want them to have their own identity.

María: Yeah. I think that that’s true for the listeners.

Finneas: Awesome.

María: Yeah, even though you’re the producer for both projects, they both are very independent of one another and have a completely different world in a really, really cool way.

Finneas: Yeah, definitely, you know, you could be the biggest Billie fan and not really like my music, and you could be a fan of my music and not, you know, be as big a fan of Billie’s. I sort of purposefully have painted it that way.

María: That’s great.

Finneas: You write songs in English, which I love and you write songs in Spanish, which I love as well. This is a question from a person who only speaks one language: Do you think in Spanish when you write in Spanish? Do you think in English when you write in English? Do you ever think in the other language and write in the other language?

María: Oh, when I write in Spanish, I’m thinking in Spanish — in English, I’m thinking in English. But they’re so intertwined and I grew up speaking both languages pretty fluidly with my friends and family. Like, for example, with my mom, I’ll speak to her in English, but she’ll respond in Spanish. And with my dad, it’s just Spanish, but with my friends, it’s both. So sometimes I’ll be thinking in English, but then there’ll be a word that’s in Spanish, and I’m like, “How do you say this in English?” And kind of vice versa. So, yeah. I dream in English.

Finneas: Interesting. Have you always?

María: Yes.

Finneas: Oh, interesting. Do you ever use your phone in your dreams?

María: I do.

María: This is a good question that I went through with my therapist: How has fame affected your sense of self and identity? Because I feel like it was most of your adulthood.

Finneas: Yeah, well, I’m so much less famous than my sister and so I see a very famous person, and I live a life of a semi-famous person, you know what I mean? So, it all feels kind of relative, you know? Once or twice a day, if I’m out in public, somebody will come up to me and want a photo or something like that, and that’s fine. And she has the level of fame where it’s kind of a problem for her to go most places. People kind of swarm her, and that’s kind of a challenge.

How has it affected me? I mean, I feel so grateful. I don’t know how you feel about this. I’ve wanted to be a musician since I was like 12, so badly, so the fact that I get to be a musician is so thrilling and I would have accepted so many less glamorous versions of it. I would have totally accepted working in a recording studio or something, so I just feel really lucky. And all the kind of trappings and challenges of fame, there are days where it’s frustrating and days where people freak out and are weird, and it sucks. But I will take it because I feel so grateful to have the job. What about you?

María: Is that what keeps you grounded, your gratefulness?

Finneas: Yeah, I think the perspective that this is a sweet life. This is very dope that I get to do this and I would totally not trade it. I love getting to make music. I love getting to perform these shows. I wouldn’t want to give that away to being a celebrity or whatever.

María: Do you hold grudges?

Finneas: Yeah, but I try not to. I mean, I do in a kind of a small, childish way, you know, and I notice it. I notice it without meaning to. I’ll be like, “Is the reason I don’t like that person because of that thing that happened years ago that made me feel small? Let me try to let that go.” So, I try to work through it. I don’t think holding grudges makes you happy, so I try not to. Sometimes it can teach you, sometimes you can learn. Sometimes people should hold one more grudge. They’re like, “Oh no, everything’s cool.” And I’m like, “That person is mean to you, man.”

María: That’s true, but I feel that just hurts you.

Finneas: True, true.

María: Because, you know, you can wake up in the morning and be like, “I don’t like this person or I don’t like what they did,” but they have no idea. And they don’t care. I don’t hold ’em grudges.

Finneas: Smart.

María: Yeah, my dad let things go very, very easily. And I just kind of like learned from him to just laugh about it the next day and be good.

Finneas: My granddad said to me a couple of times before he died: “You wouldn’t worry so much about what people think about you if you realized how little they think about you.” It’s pretty great.

María: That’s good. Yeah, that’s so true.

Finneas: People are pretty self-involved. Do you want to do some rapid-fire? Let’s do it.

María: Do you have any rituals or habits or practices that get you into the right mindset when you’re in the studio or before you’re about to perform?

Finneas: Yeah, I’m a candle guy when I’m in the studio. I light a candle that I like the scent of. Before a live show, I do a five-minute vocal warm-up that’s like a YouTube video of a Swedish guide, and then I do a vocal warm-up, and that’s kind of about it. I don’t do like a pre-show huddle or anything. I kind of high-five everybody as we walk out.

María: You should try it!

Finneas: A huddle? All right, I’ll try it. I trust you.

María: Or, like something with the whole band to get you guys energetically locked in.

Finneas: Yeah, we do some high-fives, but I’ll try, maybe we’ll do like a nose-to-nose kind of thing.

María: We do this thing before shows that I also recommend, like this pound, but looking at each other in the eyes.

Finneas: Intimate.

María: Yeah, with the whole team and everyone.

Finneas: Sounds good.

María: You should try it.

María: What does it look like for your future? What are milestones that you want to achieve? Goals? What’s in the pipeline?

Finneas: I’m going to do a lot of touring on this album cycle which I’m really looking forward to. I really love performing and I’ve never gotten to play anywhere outside the U.S. as a solo performer. There are venues that I’ve gotten to play with Billie all over the world that are special and beautiful. I’m very drawn to any outdoors like Red Rocks is such a beautiful venue. Whether it’s with Billie or on my own, if I get to play a venue like Red Rocks again, I would love to do that. And yeah, I think sort of generally, to me, it’s all kind of long-term. I want to keep doing it and keep working and stay kind of, you know, inspired for as long as I can, because to me longevity is the important part.

María: Do you have any plans of performing in Latin America for your solo?

Finneas: We haven’t announced any yet, but we just did the South America Lollapalooza run. We played Mexico City last March and April. We got to play a stadium in Mexico City, it was with Billie.

María: Mexico City is the best.

Finneas: The best crowd ever. It’s one of my favorite live memories. The night we were supposed to play, there was a huge storm and there was water filling up the venue, and they wouldn’t let us do our show because it was too dangerous to turn on all the screens. They had the sound system on but not the screens and the venue were like half full because people had been turned away because it was flooding. And so, we rescheduled the show for the next night, but there were already people in the venue. And so, Billie and I went out with just a guitar and a microphone. And we played like an acoustic concert for everybody in the venue. And then they all got to come back again the next night for free and see the show again.

María: That’s such a good idea.

Finneas: Doing the first night where everybody was soaked was so fun. Mexico kind of has my heart forever for that, that was really beautiful.

María: What are some of your other favorite memories of the Latin American tour?

Finneas: Bogota was really beautiful. I loved Bogota. I loved Buenos Aires, it’s very beautiful.

María: Have you gone to Puerto Rico?

Finneas: No, we haven’t toured Puerto Rico yet. I want to though. It’s supposed to be like heaven on earth. Can’t wait. What are some upcoming projects or collaborations that you’re particularly excited about?

María: There are a couple in the pipeline that we’re working on. A hint: the next couple will be in Spanish.

Finneas: Exciting.

María: With some Latin artists that I love. A lot of our collaborations recently have been with some of my favorite Latin artists, Bad Bunny and Tainy and Miko, and I just want to continue down that road.

Finneas: Love it, can’t wait to hear ’em.

María: What advice would you give emerging artists trying to break it in the industry?

Finneas: Make so much stuff. I think there’s a real emphasis on marketing yourself like crazy right now, and that does seem to be a big part of it, but I would say that you can make one million TikToks, one million videos, and if the song isn’t great… And by contrast, if somebody plays me a song I’ve never heard and I love it, I’m going to listen to it a million times. So, it’s still got to be about the art that you make and just make tons and tons of stuff and get opinions on it, share it with your friends, and see what sticks.