Suki Waterhouse is featured on the newest cover of the magazine Behind the Blinds. Alongside a gorgeous photoshoot by Shane McCauley, Suki gave an interview that you find right below. As for the photos, they’ve all been added to the gallery!

BEHIND THE BLINDS — The London born model-actor-singer Suki Waterhouse has released her debut album, ‘I Can’t Let Go’, a project that’s been some time in the making, which is only a testament to its brilliant beauty. It’s a body of work indebted to all the emotional layers buried inside her, brewing into a soulfully delivered lo-fi alt-pop journey of melodically painfuland playful storytelling, with a stylish self-indulgence that we can all relate to, as a generation living inside our heads. Here we catch up with her on Zoom for a chat while she’s boiling eggs for breakfast, even though it’s 5pm in London, she’s still on LA time. “I’m like morning, it’s 5pm [she laughs], I just haven’t been able to get myself time-adjusted yet.”

So let’s talk music Suki, you’re full steam ahead with that now, tell me everything?

Music has always been a constant to me, but it was something I developed more in private, and I’ve been releasing the odd record myself since 2016 which has been really fulfilling, but what changed in the last year or two was getting to the point where I really wanted to release a full record. I’ve also learnt more about what’s involved in that process, and the more courage I had the more I decided the time was right to do this. I surprised myself that it ended up happening, but internally I’ve been yearning to do this for ages.

Were you nervous to share your personal songwriting with the world?

When you’re writing songs you’re still very much inside of the experience, but you’re searching for a new perception of that experience — like being really frustrated with yourself for still feeling really strongly about a person, and you’ve tired out all your friends talking about it, but you’re frustrated with that feeling still knocking around — so you put it into a song. I was nervous, but excited, because when the record came out it’s almost like you understand yourself more, and can get further away from being totally wrapped up inside of where you were, and then that perception of it widens when you share it with everyone. I feel like being able to release this record has tied up a whole era for me.

Did you find it difficult at times to reflect back on certain experiences, or was it quite cathartic re-living and expressing them in this way?

For a long time, I’ve had my own blues and depressions and feelings of shame, and I was inside of quite intense periods in my life for the last 10 years. So those times are definitely reflected in the record, but by putting everything together in this way, made me have more feelings of empathy towards myself, which is a good thing!

The record has that ‘listening in your bedroom alone’ kind of vibe. What relatable and atmosphere-weaving music has inspired you and your own sound over the years?

I love that bedroom sound, like someone is talking to you, it’s more conversational and I love singers like Ani DiFranco and Lucinda Williams, they’re both amazing storytellers in that kind of way. I also love ‘Crush Songs’ by Karen O because they’re like whispers of songs she wrote in her bedroom about missing someone really immensely and having a giant crush, and I can listen to songs like that every day. With this record I had time to write the music, there was never any pressure on me other than in myself, so I got to sit with the songs for a long time and a lot of the lyrics were something I remembered I had heard someone say at a party, or something I recall that seismically shifted the way I felt about something, or a feeling that’s come around — it was all about the ruminating on desires and relationships and that all unfolding into my own storytelling.

Are there any songs on the album you’re particularly proud of?

I love the song ‘Blessed’, it’s more like an interlude than a real song, and I do have a more written version of it, but it’s musically stunning and I wanted it to be something you could listen to in the darkness of your bedroom, and kind of go into your own personal orbit.

What about the track ‘Moves’, I’m really intrigued by why someone would say you looked like Glam rocker Suzi Quatro. Were you dressed in a leather jump suit with a big bass guitar at the time?

No!! That was actually something I wrote down years ago that Jack White said to me after a White Stripes concert, and I was quite young at the time, walking backstage when he said it. So I went home and googled her and then became quite fascinated with her and the music, and really went down a Suzi Quatro hole just from what he said to me!

Speaking of music legends, you worked with producer Brad Cook on the album, what was that experience like?

He’s played in Sharon Van Etten’s band and she’s one of my favourite people, and also works with Hiss Golden Messenger and when I heard their track ‘Cat’s Eye Blue’, I couldn’t stop listening to it, so even though we had never met pre-working on my album, I felt kind of connected to him. Then after we spoke on the phone, it was like a crazy blind date getting on a flight to meet him in North Carolina where we recorded it, and at first we rented this church but then got kicked out and ended up in a bridesmaids room in a wedding hall, and it was the most magical time!

I had no plans with how this record on how it would be released and if any label would be behind it, I just thought initially it would be self-release like my other stuff. So everything really just came from this desire to complete a fullrecord, and do that with Brad.

Are you excited to perform the songs live? Does another side of you come alive on stage?

I started doing shows a few months before the record came out and that was really like being thrown into the deep end, and my boyfriend took me to the Bottlerock Festival [in the US], and he was like ‘what on earth are you thinking, this is terrifying?!’

I do feel really at home on stage though, it’s a chance to be myself with all the things I’ve written about and thought about, they all rise to the top and come out and then morph into something different with an audience, it’s an energy that comes through. I’m totally addicted to performing live now!

You’re touring with Father John Misty on his North American tour this year, what about Glastonbury next year?

I would love to do Glastonbury! I’m so exited to be supporting Father John Misty this year though, being able to play consecutive nights and the different energy from the audience on each night, and the adrenalin of the performance, then getting on the bus, waking up somewhere new and doing it all again — I’ve never experienced anything like this before and I’m really excited about going around the States too.

Are you hoping for longevity in terms of making music that people want to find glimmers of themselves within — will there be another album?

I wrote this record out of necessity, a desperation in myself to write the songs and I have to find that again. I can feel it creeping around inside of me, but after something’s been released, I need to have the space to see who and where I am now, and what’s around me, to find out if I can write more songs about something else, and be able to do that all the time. I think for me it has to be quite particular, I have to feel that “something”, whatever it is, that has to be said.