Holly Humberstone bares her soul
The songwriter spent years working on her candid and gorgeously crafted debut. Along the way, she’s been honest about the emotional challenges she’s had to face
Words by Sophie Williams
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Words by Sophie Williams
Holly Humberstone surveys her surroundings – a gleaming, five-star hotel bar in the heart of London’s Leicester Square – and seems almost bewildered by the chandeliers and marble sculptures around her. “This is not my usual vibe,” the Lincolnshire-raised musician half-whispers to NME, covering her mouth to stifle a laugh. As we settle onto sofa chairs next to a grand piano, we watch tables of businessmen swill down oysters with flutes of champagne. The bouquets of flowers dotted around the room are so giant, extravagant and perfect they almost don’t look real. You could say: Toto, we’re not in Grantham anymore.
Dressed in black platform boots and a striped zip-up jacket with a baby blue crochet two-piece underneath, Humberstone has spent her afternoon promoting her stellar debut ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ (due October 13). After sitting through a few hours of Zoom calls and various other press duties, the 23-year-old is a little flustered, apologising whenever she pauses halfway through an answer. Yet she’s warm and open in conversation, too, exclaiming multiple times throughout our hour-long chat that this album has been “an unbelievably long time coming.”
Humberstone has spent years creating music of a dark and intricate beauty, melding the emotive storytelling of her favourite songwriters – Lorde, Phoebe Bridgers – with icy, layered synth breaks and drum machines. It takes a certain, deeply introspective type of character to make songs like hers: over the course of two EPs and a full-length album, she has written about selfhood, depression and all-consuming relationships with a searing, sometimes startling honesty that separates her from her peers. “But the truth is, I have my best nights without you,” she sang on 2020’s ‘Vanilla’, a deliciously blunt adieu to a deadbeat ex.
She exists in a sweet spot between cult favourite and a mainstream-baiting star. In 2022, Humberstone bagged the BRIT Rising Star award – recent winners include Sam Fender and Jorja Smith – following her second EP ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’. By December, she had headlined London’s legendary O2 Academy Brixton, six months on from her Glastonbury debut and support slots for Girl In Red and Olivia Rodrigo on their respective US jaunts. Touring with the latter felt like an apt booking; Humberstone’s fans see her as a transatlantic twin to Rodrigo, someone who is intensely relatable and constantly in touch with their audience.
Yet speaking today, Humberstone says that while she was on the road across the States last spring, she lived a “disorientating, emotional, almost fake existence” as she began writing the brooding and pensive songs of ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’. She continues: “Playing shows can be very overstimulating, and it’s hard to find little pockets of free time to recharge. I started writing about how hard I was finding it to hold down romantic relationships while touring, and would constantly be upset at the thought of neglecting my friendships.”
Humberstone explains that, after she left the stage each night, she would return to her tour bus or a hotel room and “doomscroll through social media for hours on end” on her phone “in complete silence.” She grew up in Grantham with three sisters, and during this period of live shows, she missed multiple birthdays alongside the graduation of her sibling Emma, who has since moved to Tokyo. On stage, she wears a ring that spells out ‘SISTER’ on her right hand.
“It was also hard looking at pictures online and watching my older relatives get unwell,” Humberstone adds, lightly smudging some black eyeliner as she rubs her eyes. “I barely had the mental energy to call my mum. I would be dissociating while watching TikTok instead.” She catches herself. “Sorry, I’m going off on a tangent here…”
“I’m closer to figuring out who I am now”
No, go on. “Basically, it was strange seeing everything change while I was touring. When I have this all-consuming job, which I love, it’s hard to feel in control and make sure shit around me is not falling apart,” she adds. Humberstone describes how her parents have had to move out of her childhood home – which inspired her 2021 ballad ‘Haunted House’ – to instead reside in north Wales. It’s a “huge life change”, she says, one that has only magnified her need to stay in touch with her personal life as she further accelerates towards stardom.
Album highlight ‘Elvis Impersonators’ speaks to these anxieties. An ode to Humberstone’s relationship with the aforementioned Emma, the track depicts the intensity of navigating a panic attack. “I need you next to me, I’m spiralling,” she repeats over a spectral arrangement. “The fear of change is something I struggle with,” Humberstone says. “And nostalgia is something I feel really strongly all the time. I write about my sisters and my upbringing because they represent my core. These songs helped me to make sense of how it felt to be away from home.”
Humberstone’s return to London in summer 2022 marked a new cycle. The dust had settled. Upon her return to the capital, she headed straight to her local pub to catch up with friends, before indulging in tourist activities: from taking photos outside of Big Ben to visiting the London Dungeon with her eldest sister Eleri, whom she lives with. For a songwriter who had released a track called ‘London Is Lonely’ only a year prior, Humberstone’s relationship with her adopted home had improved drastically.
She is taking stock of a new support system, too; Humberstone says that she’s closer than ever with her artist friends, which include former NME cover star d4vd – who features on recent single ‘Superbloodmoon’ – and Irish rockers Inhaler. At Humberstone’s NME photoshoot, which took place backstage at Reading Festival in August, members of the latter stood and cheered her on from their dressing room. “Wow, you’re killing it. Fair fucking play,” said bassist Robert Keating at one point.
“It’s important for me to remember that everybody is a real person and not just an internet personality. Seeing other artists do so well is inspiring,” Humberstone explains. “When I got off the road, despite it all, I realised I’d gained more confidence. I think moving away helped me to appreciate my environment more. I’m closer to figuring out who I am now.”
“I write about my sisters and my upbringing because they represent my core”
This rush of epiphanies translates into Humberstone’s willingness to take sonic risks on ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’. ‘Flatlining’ amplifies her typically subdued sound with a UKG-lite beat, while she undercuts a festival-ready chorus on ‘Cocoon’ with a restless percussive section and a biting refrain. “You said you’d give me both your kidneys if I cried for help / Like, Jesus Christ, calm down,” she exclaims in the pre-chorus.
The songs are stark and candid in their lyrical approach, but are embellished with double-tracked vocals and light, pulsing production flourishes from Humberstone’s longtime collaborator, Rob Milton [Easy Life, The 1975]. Having broken through via radio play on BBC Music Introducing Lincolnshire as a teenager, she met Milton in her first studio sessions and would go on to perform album closer ‘Room Service’ on stage with him for the first time at London’s Omeara in August 2021. “I feel like I can be vulnerable with Rob more than I can with anybody else,” she notes.
She says this openness is something that has developed over time; Humberstone’s first few years in the industry wore her down. Without much financial reward, and feeling increasingly disillusioned by having to work with an older, largely male team, Humberstone initially struggled to communicate her ideas in the studio before she crossed paths with Milton. “It takes a special connection to get my deepest thoughts out of me,” she says. “It was strange, as I had a pretty sheltered upbringing by living in the countryside. I was having to almost ‘speed date’ writers and producers each and every week.”
For Humberstone, having attended an all girls school and “not really knowing any men beyond my dad and cousins” meant that this move into an industry felt “jarring.” She continues: “To have to write songs with people I had nothing in common with? That was terrifying. I felt really, really young and there was a lot of hype around my early releases, which meant that I wasn’t really sure where to go next for a long time.”
Women and non-binary people claimed less than five per cent of producer and engineer credits across the top 50 streamed songs of 2022, according to a report from Fix The Mix. It’s a fact that Humberstone is only all too aware of: “Things have started to change, but I used to assume it was a rarity to come across a woman in these spaces.” She’s on a roll now, the most direct and animated she has been this afternoon. “It felt like a treat, even. I was so ambitious – and still am – but I had to ensure that I wasn’t letting external pressures impact the music I was making.”
Humberstone adds that she still experiences some self-doubt, but hopes that these feelings will soon be outweighed by her excitement for the future. “For a long time I was struggling with the panic I felt to deliver. But I really, truly think I have stayed authentic to who I am and what I want with this album,” she concludes.
She pauses and momentarily hovers over a bag next to her seat, which has another set of clothes inside. “It’s funny that I wore this in such a fancy space,” Humberstone says, picking at her crochet top. “I need to change before I get on the Overground home!”
Holly Humberstone’s ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ is released October 13
Listen to Holly Humberstone’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify and here on Apple Music
Words: Sophie Williams
Photography: Andy Ford
Styling: Amy Holden-Brown
Makeup: Emma Regan
Label: Polydor/Interscope
Location: Reading Festival 2023