Her last name may be Qualley, but it isn’t her familial ties that define her. While she holds her loved ones in high regard and notes that “the more time that I can spend with my family and friends, the better”, Rainey Qualley is a polymath and undeniable talent in her own right. The daughter of Andie MacDowell (Groundhog Day, St. Elmo’s Fire) and the sister of Margaret Qualley (The Substance, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood), she operates under the moniker Rainsford for her musical endeavours, and released her highly anticipated debut record, Before Blue, just last week.
Before Blue details the heartbreak and sorrow that shrouded her life before she met her soon-to-be husband, and welcomed her daughter Bluebell into the world. The most important takeaway is that she isn’t “a sad girl anymore”, but confident and above all, in love. Boasting soundscapes that transcend precise genre classification and have subtleties of folk and alternative rock veined throughout, Rainsford’s debut outing professes her flair for songwriting. It cements her as not just an actress but also an adroit musician too.
On a quiet Wednesday morning, rife with coffee, cats, and unexpected but welcome visitors, we shared a Zoom call with Rainsford to discuss balancing multiple projects, the transition to motherhood, and the pressures of growing up in the public eye.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Rainsford, as a surname, has roots in Lancashire, UK – we’d love to know more about the moniker.
Rainsford: Rainsford is my full first name. I wanted to have a little bit of separation between acting and music. I was named after my great-grandmother – I think it was originally a surname in our family as well.
THE INDIEPENDENT: We want to be able to say we know you well – what salt are you choosing?
Rainsford: Oh, I’m such a salt freak, I oversalt everything. I’ll just eat salt out of the palm of my hand. I really like the flaky Maldon kinds.
THE INDIEPENDENT: You’re an actress, singer, and songwriter – do you find it hard balancing all of your plates, or do the roles come hand-in-hand?
Rainsford: I think it’s nice to have multiple creative outlets because for movies you might only shoot a couple a year, but I can always be working on music – you have so much more control as a music artist. I write it and I get to be in charge of every aspect, but with acting, you’re just one small piece of the puzzle. With music it’s MY puzzle – I like being able to juggle both things.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Is there a difference between Rainey the actor and Rainsford the musician? Or do they both wear the same shoes?
Rainsford: I think I bring myself to both acting and music, or I try to. I have more freedom as a music artist; I can create literally anything I want to. But as an actor, it’s, like, “this is the script, this is the role”, and you bring yourself to the character, but it’s already written, you know?
THE INDIEPENDENT: You had your acting debut in Mighty Fine, and your most recent role was in this year’s The Daylong Brothers. How do you choose your roles? Or are you happy to be involved in any creative project?
Rainsford: I’m at the point as an actor where sometimes I get offers, which basically means I don’t have to audition – but for me, that’s still pretty rare. It’s wonderful when I get an offer for a good project, but a lot of the time the offers are for sh*tty horror films that I don’t want to do. If it’s a role I’m auditioning for, it’ll be higher tier, better quality, so if I get booked, “yay, I get to do a good one!”.
I don’t have my pick of doing any project I want to; my goal is to work with other actors I admire, on a project I can get excited about.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Are there any actors in the field you’d particularly love to work with?
Rainsford: It’s hard for me to pick one specific actor I’d like to work with, so I’ll say my sister.
THE INDIEPENDENT: As a musician, your sound is hard to pin down – in the best way possible – it weaves through folk, melodic pop, Americana, and emotive ballads. Are there any artists you’d attribute as being influences on the sound you’ve adopted?
Rainsford: I draw inspiration from so many different artists and like different moods or different days, all to aspire to emulate certain aspects of songs or artists – but I think it’s ever evolving for this particular album.
I drew a lot of inspiration from Cocteau Twins, Prince, Dolly Parton, and even Otis Redding. The fun part about being a musician is constantly being inspired and being able to create new stuff, depending on how you grow or whatever you’re into that day.
THE INDIEPENDENT: That’s so lovely that you’ve mentioned Otis Redding, my cat is named after him!
Rainsford: *pans the camera* This is Wizard, and Jesus (who are very adorably grooming each other), and Wizard’s sister and littermate, Myrtle, is downstairs somewhere!
THE INDIEPENDENT: You’ve just released your debut album – congrats! The title Before Blue is a nod to your daughter, Bluebell. Was this always the intention?
Rainsford: My sister helped me name the album. I had written all these songs over the past couple of years, and they felt so visceral and important when I was writing them – most of them before meeting Tony and having my baby.
By the time I was putting them out, I was like, “I don’t care about the breakups”. I still loved the songs and wanted to release them, but that wasn’t my world anymore. We decided to call it Before Blue, because it was my world before Bluebell, besides the last song (‘Baby Girl’), which is what I wrote when I was pregnant.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Narratively, the album explores recovering from heartache and turbulent relationships – and coming out the other side and being completely happy with your now-partner and child. How did you find this stark contrast in terms of writing?
Rainsford: The oldest on the album is ‘Cowboy Rodeo’, which I wrote with my friend Nick around four years ago. Most of the songs were written over the span of two or three years, so it just came from wherever I was in the moment. I’ve been so particular about the songs that I want to release ‘cause I change my mind about stuff that I write. I’ll think it’s great when I’m writing it, and then I’ll listen back a week later and I hate it – it’s taken me a while to get a collection of songs that I feel really proud of and really excited about, and I do really love all these songs. It was a long span of time that I was writing an album, so it just sort of progressed naturally.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Following on, what does the album mean to you personally?
Rainsford: It encapsulates a really specific period of time for me, and beyond that, I genuinely really like all these songs – I’m excited for people to hear them. I hope people like them and give the album a try.
When I’m listening back to the songs and deciding what’s going to be on the record, I listen back and try to separate myself from it and say, “Okay, if this came on on Spotify, would I skip it?”. It just feels good to get the record out finally, because it’s been so long in the making.
THE INDIEPENDENT: As part of the creative process, you reacquainted yourself with your roots in North Carolina. How was that for you, experiencing that nostalgia, especially now that you’re a mother yourself?
Rainsford: It just seems like such a blur because we had a baby, and then there were the fires in LA, and then we moved, and I’d shot a movie in Idaho, and he [fiancé Tony Wilson] travels for work too. We’ve just been all over the place, and we really haven’t had a chance to settle into the new place yet – it’s been too chaotic. It’s beautiful here, though, and it feels good to be distant from people and everything. Especially because everything in the world feels so scary for a lot of people, and with a new baby, I’m afraid the world’s falling apart, but at least there aren’t crazy people outside our door.
THE INDIEPENDENT: You released your debut track, ‘Too Close’, in 2016 and then the extended play Emotional Support Animal two years later. From then to now, how has the way you approach writing and the creative process changed?
Rainsford: I still pretty much write songs the same way. I feel more confident to speak up in sessions; it’s usually me and a producer in the room, and we’ll talk and play some songs, and I’ll tell them what I’m going through and have a little therapy session, and then we’ll get to writing. So that’s pretty much standard, except for now, I have certain producers that I know and love and that I know I can go to, and I don’t have to start from scratch. So it’s developed in the way that I have particular relationships that I can depend on – I’m just more confident and more unafraid, and I feel like I have something to offer.
THE INDIEPENDENT: You utilised your brother-in-law Jack Antonoff’s studio for this record, and you’ve previously included your sister Margaret Qualley in the music video for ‘Love Me Like You Hate Me’, with this, and the homage to Bluebell in the album title – would you say it’s at your music’s core to include your loved ones in the process?
Rainsford: The more that I can surround myself with the people that I love, whether it’s family or close friends or whatever – it feels good to just create stuff with them and try to have more joy by doing that.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Are there any difficulties with working so closely with family and friends?
Rainsford: I can see how that could be problematic, but the more time that I can spend with my family and friends, the better. So, if I get to work with them as well, that’s all the better for me.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Being a part of such a talented family, your mother, Andie MacDowell, and sister Margaret Qualley – do you feel any pressure at all, whether that be familial or the wider audience, to be creative and successful?
Rainsford: I don’t know if I necessarily felt like pressure to be creative, but I think going into the same field as your parents, regardless of what your career is, I think people are always gonna make that comparison.
There are more eyes and more people have an opinion about you, but I have learned to try not to pay attention to that stuff. I can’t imagine being a kid now with social media, with the comments and Instagram. I try to stay focussed on the opinions from people who are important to me.
THE INDIEPENDENT: On that topic, how will you approach social media with Bluebell?
Rainsford: Hopefully, by the time she’s a teenager, it’ll all be a thing of the past.
We just bought a landline, and we’re trying to bring it back old-school. We don’t have a TV, we just use a projector! I think for my own sanity, and then for the sake of Bluebell’s, we’re just trying to live “no screen time”. They say for babies’ brains not to have screen time before three years old, so we’re trying to stick to that – it’s a challenge for me too, because I don’t want her to see me on my phone all the time, even now she’s started reaching for it, and I hide it under the pillow.
THE INDIEPENDENT: You’ve also collaborated with some incredible musicians, including Anna Of The North. Are there any other artists you’d like to work with?
Rainsford: I really love Mk.gee – that would be awesome. Angel Olsen lives in Nashville, too, so that would be cool!
THE INDIEPENDENT: We’ve already established you’re a certified polymath. If you could write the soundtrack for any movie, which would you pick and why?
Rainsford: I would love to do a fantasy, mystical, magical, fairy kind of movie. I don’t know why the first thing that popped into my head was this movie that I used to love when I was a kid, called Escape to Witch Mountain – it’s a movie about a mother and sister. I haven’t seen it in so long, but something like that, that’s kind of eerie and weird.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Similarly, if you could adapt any of your songs into a full-length feature, which would you turn from lyrics to script?
Rainsford: It depends on what kind of movie I want, but this album has so many mostly sad lyrics – I was most heartbroken for most of them. I was going to say ‘Salt’ because it’s so specific, and I’m describing very specific scenes in my mind from the lyrics, so that could lend itself visually. But, I think I’d pick ‘Baby Girl’ because it’s happy and ends with my baby.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Are there any plans for an upcoming tour to support the release of Before Blue?
Rainsford: I’m messaging my manager every day, like, “So are we setting up shows? What’s the deal?”. I’d like to, but we’re still figuring it out.
THE INDIEPENDENT: What does the rest of 2025 look like for you?
Rainsford: We’ve been travelling and shooting, and we are finally back home for a couple of weeks, and then I’m getting married at the end of the month (congratulations!) in Twin Peaks outside of LA. Then we’re going on a honeymoon, right from the wedding, and my sister and her husband (Jack Antonoff) are coming with us to help with the baby, like a co-honeymoon.
Then I’ll be continuing to audition, and I’ll probably try to get back in the studio and start writing new stuff, and Tony (“he’s a photographer”) has some projects he’s working on too, so I’ll probably be travelling with him. My life with jobs and everything just changes so quickly, so it’s hard to say anything, but that’s the outline.
THE INDIEPENDENT: How would you sum up Rainsford’s sound in three words?
Rainsford: I used to say “sad girl pop”, but I’m not a sad girl anymore, so “alternative indie pop”.
Before Blue was released on September 26th 2025, via Sparta Distribution, and is available on all major streaming platforms.
Words by Lana Williams
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