Billie Eilish reflects on being ‘very young and very depressed’ in early stages of career

Grammy winner spoke about how her attitude to touring has changed over the years

Billie Eilish has reflected on being “very young and very depressed” in the first few years of her career.

The Grammy award-winner opened up about how her feelings towards touring have changed during a recent appearance on the Telekom Electronic Beats podcast.

“The first few years of my career I was very young and very depressed and didn’t even know if I wanted anything that I had,” said the singer.

She told host Lindi Delight: “I was kind of in this zone of like: I don’t want to be here. Stupid little kid.”

The 20-year-old went on to explain that certain changes in her life helped to improve her experiences of touring.

“I’ve made changes and then we got a less brutal touring schedule and we got more people [so] we didn’t have to do it all ourselves anymore,” she said, adding that the extra help has made touring “really, really enjoyable”.

“I also made a lot of rules for myself,” she added, giving examples such as: “I don’t ever want to be gone longer than four weeks unless it’s talked about and we decide on it. I always want to come home.”

She compared her attitude towards touring to what “people say about relationships: you can’t miss each other if you’re together all the time”.

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“You’ve got to have space and go do things without each other and then be like, I want to see you instead of just suffocating each other,” said Eilish. “So that’s kind of what tour is like. It’s like you don’t want to suffocate yourself because you love it so much.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, the musician spoke about her relationship with her fans and returning to the stage.

“As soon as I stepped back on the stage, I felt myself again,” she said, adding: “This what makes me feel the happiest and it’s been so so good.”

Eilish’s appearance on the podcast comes ahead of her exclusive acoustic live show at the Telekom Forum in Bonn, Germany on 1 June.