Back in 2020, during the early days of lockdown, Billie Eilish found herself stuck at home in Los Angeles. It was hardly a unique set of circumstances at the time—unless, that is, you were Billie Eilish. Following a whirlwind few years of traveling the world and generally riding the rocket of ascendant superstardom—and coming just a few months after winning an Oscar and a record-breaking sweep of Grammys—Eilish was forced to take stock of her rapid rise to fame. And on day one of the shelter-in-place order, she decided on something to keep herself occupied: becoming a dog foster carer.
“I reached out to a rescue organization called Angel City Pit Bulls, the same place my brother adopted his dog from,” Eilish explains. “They had a new litter of 10 rescue puppies, and I reached out to them and said that I would be home for two weeks because of this coronavirus before going back on tour, and that I could foster a couple of puppies.”
A few days later, two Pit Bull pups named Gem and Miss Maudie arrived at the doorstep of Eilish’s family home. Oh, and it probably goes without saying, but her break from touring ended up taking a little longer than two weeks. “I fostered them over the summer, and then of course COVID started to grow, and meanwhile, I fell in love with the puppies,” Eilish explains. “There was this little gray one named Gem, and I just thought he was really special and goofy and I knew that I wanted him to be mine—so I adopted him and named him Shark.” (Miss Maudie also ended up finding a new home with a family friend.)
Over the years since, Shark—named, presumably, for his spiky gnashers—has become an integral member of the Eilish-O’Connell clan, spending his days snacking on Eilish’s leftovers, accompanying her to the hair salon, and playing in the yard with Peaches, the female pitbull that belongs to Eilish’s brother Finneas O’Connell and his partner Claudia Sulewski. “He was kind of a little lug, and he had this goofy little mouth with this overbite,” Eilish says of what made her fall in love with Shark during those early months of the pandemic. “I just loved his color and I loved his personality. He’s got these human eyes for sure, and I could picture my life with him.”
And if you don’t recognize Shark’s handsome profile from Eilish’s Instagram, you may be familiar with his bark: as a regular visitor to Eilish and O’Connell’s studio, it would be remiss of them not to allow Shark to contribute to their music-making every so often. Hence why you’ll hear him grunting and sighing if you listen closely to “The Greatest” from Eilish’s latest album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, or more prominently, the sounds of Shark growling while play-fighting with Peaches as a production quirk on “I Didn’t Change My Number,” from Eilish’s sophomore album Happier Than Ever. “I’m pretty sure it was just a day in COVID that Finneas and I were hanging out and the dogs were running around the yard playing and I recorded them because they sounded insane,” Eilish explains. “They’re very vocal and I thought this sounded really cool. I knew I wanted to use it for something, so we made it the beginning of that song.”
That’s not to say Shark’s contributions to Eilish and O’Connell’s songwriting are always quite so melodic. “He likes to snore really loud and fart during our sessions,” Eilish admits, laughing. But because Shark was fostered at just five weeks old, “he doesn’t know anything other than my life,” she explains—meaning he’s an impressively chill companion while she and O’Connell are recording, either snoozing at their feet while sitting at the computer putting the finishing touches to a new track, or staring up at Eilish as she records her vocal takes.