The singer-songwriter, whose latest single, “Back in Love,” is out today, answers the Harper’s Bazaar Questionnaire
Suki Waterhouse is gearing up to release the follow-up to 2024’s Memoir of a Sparklemuffin. Her new single, “Back in Love,” a super joyful track made for late summer nights dancing around with friends, dropped today with an equally festive music video that finds the singer-songwriter in a bedazzled flapper-esque gown and glamorous feathered white jacket that references the song’s groovy retro sounds.
Harper’s Bazaar’s newest questionnaire series, “First, Now, Next,” dives into the past, present, and future of some of our favorite creatives, spotlighting the moments and influences that have influenced them. We caught up with Waterhouse over the phone on a recent morning to go over her answers for our questionnaire, and the good vibes of her music were evident in her sunny disposition. Read on to learn more about the ways she’s becoming like her parents, now that she’s a mother herself, and her list of dream collaborators.What’s the first song or record that cracked something open in you?I have this memory of being on the top floor of this rental house with my best friend Molly when we were 10. We’d known each other since we were four, and her parents were going through a big divorce. to that Pink song “Family Portrait,” and I remember cranking it up on my CD player, and we both got on my bed and just hit pillows and jumped up and down, screaming that song. It was the most cathartic moment.Have you had a failure that ended up changing your career?Nos are part of everyday things, but I think if I'm thinking about a failure that changed my life—and this is so base of me to still be hooked on something that happened in school—but I really think it was this girl making out with my boyfriend in front of me, and then she became friends with all his friends. It completely changed everything, because then I had no friends and no boyfriend, and I spent the last two years of school in the library. And I think it really changed the course of my entire life because I just disengaged from the whole system of school and I was just like, “Fuck this place and fuck these people.” It was energizing in a lot of ways, because it gave me a lot of time to think about what I could find outside of the school walls.What was the first song you wrote after giving birth to your daughter? Did you find your creative process had changed in any way?I found the song that I made probably two months after having her. My friends came over and I was like, “Oh, let's make some music!” and it’s basically me just on the microphone repeating this one line, “She’s gone,” over this drony music, super reverbed out, for like two minutes. It was the only thing I could think of. I guess it was basically me just being like, “The old me has disappeared.” It’s very trippy, postpartum. It’s a really, really crazy .How did you define success at 16? How would you define it now?At 16, I think having a glimmer of anything going on that would get my parents off my back probably seemed successful. Any way that I could get out of the house and have a little bit of money in my pocket so I didn’t have to ask them. I don’t know if I quite achieved that then.Since having a kid, my definition of success has changed drastically. I think success now is being able to make traditions as a family and also work really hard, but then also maybe have moments in between to be able to sit back and enjoy it more. Success is planning my time, being able to switch off and plan an Easter-egg hunt while also putting out a single and doing all the things that I need to do for that. To really feel fulfilled in all the places.What are you saying no to now? What are you saying yes to?I’m saying no to sitting down in front of the TV just to try to decide what to put on, losing hours of my life not knowing what we're going to watch. Now I love going on Letterboxd, planning what the movie’s going to be, and having that in mind—no flipping, no flicking through.I’m saying yes to going on swings in the park. I forgot how elating that is. I’m saying yes to making new friends and checking in on people. Board games, I’m massively saying yes to. Uno, the clap game … just a really simple of whose clap is louder.What’s something your mom or dad did that drove you crazy but that you do now too?My God, so many things. I feel like my dad would always be so overenthusiastic about good tomatoes, and we’d have to go over the freshness and the plumpness.I think I probably am really overly enthusiastic about the smaller things. I’m definitely picking up so much from my mom, psychoanalyzing everyone, interrupting, projecting my insecurities onto everybody in my family as a whole, family gossiping, telling everyone secrets, asking if anyone wants a cup of tea every five minutes…If you could wear only one outfit for the rest of your life and had to pull it out of your closet right now, what would you reach for?I would reach for a pair of Acne jeans. I know it's really lame, but I’d probably get my On Clouds just because it’s for the rest of my life and I’ve got to be comfortable. And then I would probably have a vintage T-shirt from Wild West Vintage that I go to when I’m in L.A., and then a Vivienne Westwood jacket that I’ve had for ages.What was the last thing you splurged on? What is one thing you still refuse to spend a lot of money on?An amazing vintage 2006 Gucci jacket. I was in New York at the time, so it made sense, but now I’'m back in L.A.… so when winter rolls back around, I’ll get it back out. But it was a splurge that was purely out of just feeling bad; I’m really bad at walking out of a shop and not buying anything because I want to please everyone, and that’s a toxic trait.I think it’s crazy to buy bottled water, so I just bring it with me.What was the most unexpected thing you discovered while recording your latest album?It was my birthday and my producer Jules’s birthday during the period when we were doing “Back in Love,” and I bought some balloons. We’re always quite experimental with where the sounds can come from. their dog made it onto the record. We distorted his bark. But this time, we ended up getting the balloons out and making noises with the helium, so that made it into the record.I had a birthday party in New York, and King Princess came. I ended up going over to her place, and we worked on this song “18” that I couldn’t figure out the production to. Now I feel like I’ve made a great new friend, and I just love working with her so much. So that was a really nice unexpected thing.Who would you love to collaborate with next and why?I would love to do more with King Princess. I’m also obsessed with Kelsey Lu. Her song “Running to Pain” just came out, and I’m absolutely blown away. I was lucky to meet her a couple of months ago in New York, and she’s just such a craftswoman.If you could single-handedly dictate the next big trend in culture, what would it be?I’d like to see more harmless gossip.If you stopped making music today, what would you do in your next act?I’d find someone, like an artist, that I’m just obsessed with and I’d become their on-hand photographer.What do you hope people take away from your music?That’s a hard question because it is so out of my hands, but this record is so true to me. “Back in Love” is about me putting my identity back together again. And it’s also that feeling when you watch your partner change a light bulb or bring you breakfast, when you suddenly feel like your heart melts. The feeling of this song is very high frequency. It’s really joyful.
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