Finn Keane Talks Retiring EasyFun Name After Legal Issues, His New Compilation Album and Working With Ariana Grande on Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ Remix: ‘It’s Unreal’

Finn Keane is holding a funeral for himself — or for his pseudonym, anyway.

On Halloween during his label PC Music’s Pop Crypt event in London, Keane bid farewell to the EasyFun moniker he’s been releasing electronic music under for over a decade by playing a back-to-back DJ set with himself. He’ll now be going by his birth name, which has already gained recognition through his work as a producer and songwriter, most recently on Charli XCX‘s mega-hit album “Brat.”

Over tea a few days before the event, Keane tells Variety that though he’d been “toying with the idea” of ditching EasyFun for a while, the change was also spurred on by a legal battle with EasyGroup, the owner of airline EasyJet. Late last year, an official claim was filed accusing Keane of trademark infringement and brand appropriation. The company alleged Keane had copied their logo, using the same orange color and font, and took particular issue with the artwork for his 2015 EP “Deep Trouble,” which depicted an “EasyFun” plane in the ocean that EasyGroup said looked like the aftermath of a crash.

“It all felt very fun and light and no harm was intended. That was kind of the spirit of it, playing with branding and pop culture and regurgitating it in a funny way,” Keane says of the “Deep Trouble” artwork, adding with a laugh: “In hindsight, maybe I didn’t need this heat. But whatever.”

With PC Music moving to archival-only releases earlier this year and his own musical style changing, Keane decided that keeping EasyFun alive wasn’t worth the hassle and an agreement was reached. In a statement, EasyGroup confirmed to Variety that the matter had been resolved, writing: “EasyGroup had real concerns that Finn Keane’s use could tarnish the reputation they had built up in the Easy family of brands … Finn Keane has now agreed to cease using the ‘EasyFun’ name so the case has ended.”

And so Finn Keane was born.

Ushering in this new era is the aptly named “Finn Keane Album,” out on Friday, a vinyl compilation of his work as EasyFun alongside remixes that showcase how he has evolved as an artist and producer. This includes well-loved EasyFun track “Laplander,” which Keane released as a single on Oct. 17.

“My music’s been moving in a different direction, and I was wanting to take in what I’ve learned as a writer-producer since 2015 and sort of incorporate that into the song,” he says. “I think the first version is incredibly shiny and high definition and there’s a kind of sugariness to it, and the new version I wanted to have a bit more of intensity to it.”

Keane’s sound evolution includes Thy Slaughter, his pop-rock fusion project with PC Music founder A. G. Cook that has new music on the way, as well as his expanding portfolio as a producer and songwriter in the pop world.

“I’ve definitely been moving more toward guitar music and combining grunge, like Pixies and Nirvana, with the sound palette, the drums and the synths, that I’ve been developing over the last 10 years,” he says. “I’m really interested in things that feel very rough and simple and minimal and quite broken, but there’s a kind of cleanness to the sounds and a clarity.”

This ethos can certainly be heard in “Brat,” where Keane is credited on six tracks: “360,” “Sympathy Is a Knife,” “Von Dutch,” “So I,” “I Think About It All the Time” and “365.” Keane, who has been working with Charli since 2017, says the album becoming a cultural phenomenon has been “unbelievably gratifying.”

“Who could predict it?” Keane says. “Label A&Rs will tell you they know what a hit sounds like, but no one does — no one knows anything. And that’s what makes it so exciting.”

And Charli kept “Brat” summer going with the release of a true remix album on Oct. 14, where instead of just having a guest add a verse to a track, all 15 songs (and 2 bonus ones) have been completely reimagined.

“It’s like a whole new record,” Keane agrees. “It’s going back to that initial moment of inspiration and being like, ‘Wait a minute, what if it took this other form?’ For example, with ‘Sympathy Is a Knife,’ the original version has this bassline and then it has this modulation in the chorus where this weird note comes in. [On the remix], it was like, ‘What if we go into the chords it was actually meant to go to?'”

But getting Ariana Grande to guest on the remix was beyond Keane’s wildest dreams. “It’s unreal,” Keane says, still looking in disbelief. “In classic Charli fashion, she was like, ‘Oh, by the way, Ariana Grande might want to be on “Sympathy.”‘ I’m like, ‘OK cool, let me just go and have a mental breakdown.'”

Keane is sure to have many more pinch-me moments in the coming months as his work on “Brat” has put him in high demand. Though he’s still based in London, Keane just returned from spending six weeks working in L.A. and is heading back for more right after the Pop Crypt show. So, who’s on his artist bucket list now?

“I love Olivia Rodrigo,” he says. “‘Good 4 U’ is genuinely one of my favorite pure pop songs of the last few years.”

But Keane is most excited that, in a post-“Brat” world, authentic artistry seems to have come back in a big way. Perhaps that’s another reason why he decided to revert to making music under his real name.

“I wanted to change my name and release the vinyl just to kind of take a breath, look at that body of work and start a new chapter,” he says, “because it feels like that’s where I’m going anyway.”