Music

With A Forthcoming Debut Album & A Major TV Role, Suki Waterhouse Is Ready To Reintroduce Herself

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Dana Trippe

Suki Waterhouse is easy to talk to but hard to get to talk about herself. Charismatic and thoughtful, with a world of references to draw from, she is extremely private about her own life experiences, more comfortable analysing the world than welcoming its probing lens.

Best known as a model and It girl, who is now navigating a successful acting career (she’s currently filming Daisy Jones & The Six in Los Angeles), the 30-year-old Londoner experimented with putting songs out over the years, but only recently found the confidence to release a full LP: her album I Can’t Let Go, coming in April. “There was a lot of worry about, ‘Would it be accepted? Am I allowed to do this?’ Because I’ve had other things that I’ve been more known for,” she explains.

But why not? Her other work has informed her music anyway. “I think the sound that I have in music is drawn from film.” And although she wouldn’t call herself a model anymore – “I stopped doing that a while ago. I’m too fucking old now” – her fashion experience can’t hurt while shooting music videos, such as the one for her lead single “Melrose Meltdown”.

A key step in making I Can’t Let Go: tapping the right producer. “I needed to find that person that could create the unique sound I was trying to express,” she says. At the time, she had Hiss Golden Messenger’s “Cat’s Eye Blue” on repeat, and got in touch with its producer, Brad Cook. “I did this mad thing where I had never met him before, got on a plane to North Carolina and went and hung out with him for two weeks.” 

The resulting smoky, cinematic, guitar-rock got her signed to Sub Pop, the indie record label that first signed Nirvana and is now home to Beach House and Sleater-Kinney. As she prepares to embark on her first US tour, she catches up with Vogue, below.

You’re touring the US soon; have you ever road tripped out there?

I’ve been to some quite strange places, but I haven’t been able to road trip. I just got my licence, so I’m not quite doing the freeway yet. I smashed my car into my boyfriend’s [Robert Pattinson’s] car the other day in the driveway so it needs to go to the auto body shop! I’m getting there. I got my licence in London and then started driving in LA, so it’s different.

Why did you decide to get into music?

I’ve actually been writing music for as long as I can remember. I remember being, like, 13 and writing love songs. It’s funny, the tracks that I’m writing are weirdly similar to ones I did looking out my window at 13. It’s been something quite private, I guess, until now. I started putting out music in 2016. I kind of tested myself, like, how is it if you put out one song? Okay, do you have the guts to put out another next year? So, doing an album is something I’ve been piecing together bit by bit for probably the last four or five years, and am just now getting the courage to release.

When you were writing this album, were you reflecting on lots of different past relationships? Or was it a document of one in particular?

All the songs have been about something or someone from a particular point in my life – and then a feeling that I couldn’t shake. I read a lot of the poet Ariana Reines and that kind of self-confessional diary reportage I’ve always been really obsessed with – people like Sharon Olds and Chris Kraus and those kinds of writers.

What inspirations did you have in mind for the “Melrose Meltdown” video?

Well, the director Sofia Malamute and I were obsessed with To Die For by Gus Van Sant, and how it explores American ideals. Coming to LA and having these Californian experiences, it’s always going to be so extraordinary and alien and kind of intoxicating to me. There’s an amazing quote from Nicole Kidman’s character Suzanne in the movie: “You’re not anybody in America unless you’re on TV.” I’m so fascinated by our voyeuristic impulses. It’s probably why I love watching Desperate Housewives and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills so much. So, To Die For and [Vincent Gallo’s] Buffalo 66 inspired the fashion choices, and then the Godard film Pierrot le Fou influenced the colour scheme.

And what about musical influences?

Do you know Camera Obscura and The Concretes? And Lucinda Williams, Julie London. I love Fiona Apple. I’m a big fan of Sharon Van Etten. Those kinds of women, Lucinda Williams in particular. I listened to “Fruits of My Labour” a lot around that time.

You can definitely hear the Californian influence in the sound. What has your experience of LA been like?

I mean, it’s changed and morphed now. I came here when I was like, 21, and I’m 30 now so there’s been a huge time lapse in between. I mean, fuck, I feel like LA has kind of been decaying since the ’90s. And there’s little scraps of pretending that it’s still a vibrant place, but it’s in total decay. [Laughs.] But it’s somewhere where everyone gets to be somewhat anonymous; everyone can come here with broken hearts and broken dreams and reinvent themselves over and over again. I love that about it, but it’s also disorientating. It makes me feel so English in every way.

How are you feeling about touring? Musicians speak about the lonely road, but it sounds quite romantic, going from city to city and performing.

I’m looking at the vans that I’m going to be in, and I’m like “Oh my God!” but I think I’m pretty easy with that stuff. I’ve got a lovely band, and we’re all women, which is so fucking great. It’s so easy to be with all of them because we just chat girl stuff, there’s no boys around, and I think that’s kind of going to be the dream. And I also get to see America in a way that I really haven’t before, stuck on the West Coast.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity throughout.