Billie Eilish is one of the biggest stars in the world right now, and the teenage phenom is also the subject of the latest cover story from Rolling Stone. The expansive profile goes over a lot of aspects of Eilish’s life and career, like the attention she has received from her music peers, including those much older than her. In the piece, it is revealed that Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke once met Eilish and paid her a significant compliment.
Eilish’s tour manager Brian Marquis shared the tale, and the story reads:
“So many Gen X icons have kids who are just the right age to be Billie Eilish fans, and they’ve come backstage to say hi and be hero dads for a night: Dave Grohl, Billie Joe Armstrong, Thom Yorke. Marquis says Grohl and Armstrong were the sweetest guys ever, but Yorke was a little tough. ‘He was just as you’d expect — curmudgeonly, perturbed.’ According to Marquis, Yorke went up to Eilish and mumbled, almost grumpily, ‘You’re the only one doing anything f*cking interesting nowadays.’
Eilish’s response: ‘…thank you?’
(Said Finneas later, ‘That’s the coolest thing anyone’s ever said to you.’)”
It seems that Eilish doesn’t get particularly starstruck, though: Eilish’s father Patrick O’Connell described a backstage meeting with Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder and his 14-year-old daughter, saying, “Billie was nice to him and nice to his daughter, and then she got out of there as fast as she could.”
.@billieeilish appears on our latest cover. We catch the 17-year-old superstar at home and on the road as she opens up about adjusting to fame, writing songs with her brother Finneas, her mental-health struggles and more https://t.co/HTziHJl5Tz pic.twitter.com/AEv3EXSui3
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) July 31, 2019
Read the full feature here.