Delilah

North London girl, Delilah, is telling Rollacoaster how her debut album is shaping up to be more personal than the 21-year-old could ever have expected. “This album goes back through the last ten years of my life. There is a lot of vulnerability and personal, intimate moments in this record. It was definitely a challenge to blend songs from adolescence, singing about how much you hate life, with songs from adulthood, singing about love and lust. The only way I could do that was to strip it all back to what is most real and human – vulnerability.”
Titled From The Roots Up, the album’s name itself suggests it will be as honest as Delilah claims. But what is this? Delilah isn’t even her actual name? “It’s Paloma,” she reveals. She was born in Paris as Paloma Stoecker in 1990 but she relocated to London and grew up here. “I kept Paloma for a few years after signing [she has been signed to Atlantic Records for three years] but I would just get demos of my music with Paloma Faith’s name on it and vice versa. Paloma is already quite an unusual name for two British pop stars and it could have gotten confusing so I changed.” Overlooking the fact that Delilah was effectively presented with the opportunity to sabotage Paloma Faith’s career before it had begun – and didn’t even think to do so – we’re told that her stage name is reflective of her personality and music and still remains true to her family, which has pleased her mother. “I told my mum ‘I need a new name’ and she was like ‘No! I spent ages choosing that name for you!’ But Delilah was the name of my great grandmother from the Cuban side of the family. I thought it was quite apt as we look alike and it’s quite a temptress name and is quite enchanting.”
Enchanting is certainly one way to describe the captivating vocals of the young musician who entered the charts at the end of last summer with her atmospheric first single “Go” and released an EP at the beginning of this year. Her debut album is yet to come and she says it will be ready in time for the summer. But it’s not just through her own music that audiences may have heard her hypnotising vocals; drum and bass duo Chase & Status drafted her in to sing on their track, “Time”, and then took her on tour. “It’s funny, I did practically live with them for two years on a tour bus so I think we became too close to work together,” she says, denying the boys will feature on her own album. Keen to keep the focus on herself, Delilah is also looking forward to headlining her own tour this spring. “It’s going to be so good because there will be no rush to make time for a headline act. And although I’ve collaborated and toured with a lot of people over the last few years it’s been a deliberate decision for my first album that it should really be all about me.”

[Originally published in Rollacoaster magazine, Issue 4, Febrauary 2012. Photography by Ben McDade.]