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When Billie Eilish first rose to fame, it was entirely possible that just like a lot of one-hit wonders in the past, she could have quickly faded away. Thankfully for Eilish and her millions of devoted fans, however, she has proven to have an incredible amount of staying power as an artist.
Since so many musical artists fade back into obscurity after first enjoying success, it makes sense that many musicians are afraid of taking risks. For that reason, it is very common for musicians to release a slew of songs that all seem interchangeable.
Unlike her peers who are afraid to take risks, it has always seemed like Eilish is true to herself no matter what direction that takes her music or public image. One perfect example of that is the fact that Eilish sampled The Office for one of her songs.
Putting aside the fact that most musicians wouldn’t be brave enough to base a song around a sample from a sitcom, fans have other questions about Eilish’s song “My Strange Addiction”. Most notably, many fans are curious if Eilish had to pay big money to sample The Office in that song.
How Did Billie Eilish Sample The Office In “My Strange Addiction”?
From the time that music began, there has been a long history of artists influencing one another. As a result, nobody bats an eye when one artist noticeably releases a song that sounds like another performer from the past.
However, sometimes artists go too far when they allow themselves to rip off music that was released by others in the past. As a result, there are so many examples of artists being sued for copyright infringement that it would be impossible to list them all here.
Unsurprisingly, there are many examples of artists being taken to court after they took a sample without permission. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that fans were curious to know what hoops Billie Eilish had to jump through to be able to sample The Office.
When Eilish released her album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”, she included a track titled “My Strange Addiction”.
As Eilish fans will already know, “My Strange Addiction” features a sample from music that appeared in an episode of The Office’s seventh season titled “Threat Level Midnight”. On top of the music sample that appeared throughout the track, audio of lines several The Office actors uttered in that episode can also be heard in the song.
When Eilish made an appearance on Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey’s excellent Office Ladies podcast, she revealed how she wound up sampling The Office on that song.
“Finneas, my brother, had written this song called ‘My Strange Addiction’ Just the words. And like the whole song. And he was like, Billie, I wrote the song and like, do you think it’s cool? And he played it for me, and he had this beat to it that was, like, so goofy. And I was like, Dude, this reminds me of the song that they dance to, The Scarn.”
As Eilish later explained during the podcast appearance, they weren’t serious when they first decided to sample The Office.
“And this song is kind of goofy, and it reminds me of that scene. And also then we were just watching the scene, and it’s like the way that, like, Andy’s voice sounds and the way that Steve is just it’s just the whole all the dialogue is so good. And we were like, Dude, what? And we jokingly, truly, truly, truly jokingly, like, ripped the audio and just put it in the song.”
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According to Eilish, once they finished producing the song with the sample from The Office, they went to the label and requested that they ask for permission to keep the track as is. Despite assuming the request would be rejected, the studio got permission.
“But we were like, this is so funny and we sent it to the label and we were like, Dude, like, just can you just ask somebody? We know it’s going to be a no, but just ask somebody. There’s no way they’re going to give us the rights to this at all. No way. And it was like, yeah, absolutely they’re not. But we’ll ask. Truly. And here we are.”
At another point in the podcast episode, Eilish explained that her label had to do more than get permission from the network that aired The Office, NBC. As it turns out, the label also had to get the blessing of Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Ed Helms, B.J. Novak, Mindy Kaling, Amy Ryan, and Brian Baumgartner.
Since Eilish revealed so much about getting permission to sample The Office for “My Strange Addiction”, it seems remarkable she didn’t mention NBC charging her a lot of money. On top of that, Eilish has never said anything about paying a huge sampling fee.
As of the time of this writing, there is no way to know for sure if Eilish paid a lot of money to sample The Office. However, given that Eilish is far more forthright than most artists, it seems extremely likely that if her studio had to pay a fortune to sample The Office, she would have mentioned that by now.
Based on everything that is known about the situation, it seems safe to assume that if Eilish’s studio paid to sample The Office, they weren’t charged very much.
What Do The Stars Of The Office Think Of Billie Eilish’s “My Strange Addiction”?
After “My Strange Addiction” was released, Rolling Stone published an article about the song and its links to The Office in 2019. For that piece, Rolling Stone’s writer spoke to several people involved in the production of the episode of The Office that Eilish sampled including its writer and star B.J. Novak.
While talking to Rolling Stone about Eilish sampling The Office, Novak revealed he instantly agreed to let Billie use his voice and then said he was very happy with how things turned out. “I was fine with it regardless, but I was like ‘Wow, bonus: This is a banger.’”
The Office‘s song producer Eve Nelson spoke to Rolling Stone about how excited she was that music she wrote was sampled by Eilish.
“She is, to me, one of the finest young artists of today. She takes risks. She’s herself. She marches to her own drummer. I love what she did with that. I thought it was brilliant. I could hear that she got slightly inspired by the beat. I respect and admire her so much. I’m honored that I have anything to do with inspiring Billie Eilish.”
During a separate 2019 interview, Steve Carell spoke about “My Strange Addiction”. According to Carell, having his voice appear in Eilish’s song was a big deal for his kids.
“There was some definite credibility I gained with my children. I was not familiar with her music and I asked my daughter Annie, ‘Billie Eilish, would this be cool?'”
In response to Carell’s question, his kids “instantly” told him he had to say yes.
“So yeah, I got a lot of cred, especially with my daughter.”
