Marika Hackman: the musician-cum-model is a laid-back touring veteran who keeps her style low-key

She’s mates with Cara and has never been to a festival, but you won’t be able to escape Ms Hackman at this year’s bashes, she tells Phoebe Luckhurst
Rising star: Marika Hackman describes her music as “abstract grungy psychedelic folk”

Marika Hackman is “not much of a party animal” and she’s definitely not a model-turned-musician. “It was always musician. And not ever really a model,” the 20-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist says firmly when we meet at the Fingers Crossed café, a stone’s throw from Hackney Downs.

Admittedly the confusion has grounds: she’s a former Burberry eyewear model and looks like a pared-down, ethereal complement to Cara Delevingne — a close friend from Bedales with whom she started her first band aged 14. The two are still close — Cara was spotted planting proud kisses on her friend at the Mulberry LFW dinner in February, where Hackman performed — and Hackman confirms that the ebullient supermodel has “kept her head” in the midst of the whirlwind.

But there really is more to Hackman than the kind of classic beauty Burberry covets dearly and friends in high fashion places. She’s a serious, talented and thoughtful musician who started writing things when she was “about six or seven, just really obviously bad things”, taught herself guitar when she was 14 and missed last summer’s UK festival scene because she was touring with Laura Marling. A tour with Johnny Flynn — another Bedales contemporary — followed later that year.

She describes her sound, slightly mystifyingly, as “abstract grungy psychedelic folk”. This year she’ll be taking it to the festival circuit, her biggest gigs being Glastonbury next week (she’s playing the laid-back Avalon stage on the Saturday afternoon) and slots at Latitude and Green Man — the unassuming cult choice of festival insiders. “I’ve never actually been to a proper festival,” Hackman admits, “so it’s really nice that now I get to go. I’m excited about it.”

She’s also got spots at boutique Hampshire festival Blissfields, End of the Road and The Great Escape. At Latitude she’s looking forward to seeing “Haim — I like them — and First Aid Kit. Lykke Li as well, awesome. Oh and Goat — that really crazy band? — I want to see Goat as well. I remember seeing all the photos from Glastonbury last year. Don’t they wear crazy masks? That sounds like it would be a really fun show to see.”

She’s already a road-hardened veteran (when we meet she’s just got back from her first headline tour), although is droll about the purportedly rock ’n’ roll on-the-road lifestyle. “It’s like, wake up in a Travelodge on the side of a motorway, get in a car and then drive for a few hours, and then get the gear, soundcheck, get something to eat and then play a show, and then get back on the road to another Travelodge.” She warms up with a glass of red wine, which she maintains is good for the vocal cords.

Hackman rejects most of fame’s mad and modern trappings. She prefers Instagram to Twitter — “I don’t judge anyone who does find it fun but it’s a necessary evil” — because it allows her another creative outlet that isn’t “pouring my heart out, which some people sort of do”. She enjoys doing videos because they’re creative and doesn’t mind interviews, but she definitely doesn’t enjoy shoots.

“I’m incredibly awkward in front of a camera and I’m not particularly interested in fashion.” She says that working with Burberry (as well as modelling she created a video with the brand) was an “interesting educational experience”.

Laid-back touring veteran, low-key style and not too fussed about looking camera-ready? Sounds like Hackman’s more than ready for the festival season.

Marika performs at Latitude, Suffolk, July 17-20 (latitudefestival.com)

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