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.”