The emerging queen of country rock is Suki Waterhouse, a graceful and mannerly Englishwoman with perfectly tousled blonde hair. Waterhouse’s background, as one can probably deduce from the aforestated description, is anything but downscale. Raised in London, she was first a model, then an actress; in time she graduated to “It Brit” (that’s how Vogue characterized her in 2017). Waterhouse’s progression — from It Brit to grungy country-rock heroine — has been, shall we say, nonlinear, and not infrequently hasslesome.
“I was very nervous about potentially being laughed out of the room,” Waterhouse says. “There’s all this stereotyping and backlash, especially in England. They can be quite harsh on their homegrown talent.”
One of Waterhouse’s earliest singles, “Brutally,” was written “from the depths of a world-ending heartbreak.” The world repaid Waterhouse’s candor with 8 million individual streams. Even this, however, failed to impress the invidious keepers of independent rock music. Says Waterhouse, “The consensus was really — it was actually quite difficult. It was quite difficult to get a label to sign someone who’s not primarily a musician. They’re not particularly interested in a model, or an actress, or something like that.”
Waterhouse, who turned 31 at the top of the year, is forever in transition. She’s forever learning as she goes. Take, for example, the West Coast leg of her North American tour, which is still ongoing. At every stop there were adjustments to be made, logistics obstacles to be surmounted. Waterhouse prefers it this way.
“It’s great adjusting to these different-sized rooms each night,” she says. “I just did the Constellation Room in Santa Ana, and the subs were, like, blaring; my drummer was pretty much levitating off the stage (laughs). But there’s something about those smaller spaces, being a tight-knit unit with your band, bumping into guitars and so on. There’s something to be said for capturing intimacy.”
In a sense, Waterhouse shares a common history with her long-term boyfriend, the actor Robert Pattinson. The former “Twilight” divo has since matured into a lion of the big screen, enthralling Cannes jurors as he once did tweenyboppers. Waterhouse, like Pattinson, has worked hard to overcome the biases of a skeptical public. Only instead of heist dramas or superhero epics, Waterhouse makes honkytonk love songs.
Released via Sub Pop in early May, “I Can’t Let Go” is Waterhouse’s full-length debut. The album is remarkable not least for its lack of affectation. Rare is the Brit who can pull off bluesy country-rock twang, but Waterhouse’s voice is strong, buttery and, crucially, believable. She also has a near-clinical recall of the liaisons that have shaped her romantic life. Having said all that, “I Can’t Let Go” wouldn’t be nearly so powerful without the guidance of avuncular producer Brad Cook.
Cook and Waterhouse recorded “I Can’t Let Go” in a hovel-like space in North Carolina. Their digs may have been modest, but Waterhouse had endured worse. Back when she was just an unproven starlet shopping her demo to wary labels, she would sometimes record in the kitchen, amid the racket of cookware.
Waterhouse describes Cook as legacy-conscious and nobly indifferent to record sales, although his clients — The War on Drugs, Bon Iver — not only move units but frequently overperform. And thanks to a zany video-sharing platform, Waterhouse’s star is rising faster than it might otherwise. Not long after “I Can’t Let Go” was released, the non-album track “Good Looking” became a fixture on TikTok. “Good Looking” is years old; it’s a little goopy and puerile, compared with Waterhouse’s more adultlike recent work. Waterhouse though is a good sport. Having learned long ago to roll with the punches, she wasn’t terribly displeased with her newfangled TikTok celebrity.
“That was one of my first releases,” Waterhouse says of “Good Looking.” “We were debating whether or not to delete it because it’s a bit jumbly and it doesn’t make, like, cohesive sense (laughs). It’s also in swing time — incredibly distorted. It never would have struck me as a song that would be big (on TikTok), but that’s the amazing thing about the chaos of the internet.”
To hear more of the younger, more “jumbly” Waterhouse, listeners should stream “Milk Teeth,” her odds-and-ends EP from last fall. Some of the material thereon dates back to 2016, when Waterhouse started making music right under the noses of her oblivious fashion industry peers. Also included is “Neon Signs,” an unusually rhythmic synth-rocker that captures Waterhouse as she sounds today. First she perfected the honky-tonk sound, now this? What can’t Waterhouse do? You could say she’s a model of versatility.
Suki Waterhouse with Blondshell, 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Metro, 3730 N. Clark St.; tickets $27-$130 (sold out) at metrochicago.com
M.T. Richards is freelance writer.