Holly Humberstone on Sisterhood, Home, and Growing Up
BY GITIKA SANJAY (SHE/THEY)For Holly Humberstone, writing is a guiding force. “[It] really helped me come back to myself,” the England-born singer-songwriter said during a press conference with 1824. Just this past October, Humberstone released her debut studio album Paint My Bedroom Black, a thirteen-track LP featuring her hit single “Room Service.” Despite her young age, Humberstone has already released 2 EPs to critical acclaim, and found a fan-favourite hit in her 2022 release “Scarlett.”
Now, she’s taking time post-tour to reflect and regroup. Many of the songs on the album were written in America, Humberstone commented, when she was always running from “hotel room to hotel room.” The constant movement and volatility of tour life largely shaped the energy of Paint My Bedroom Black. Her first two EPs, Falling Asleep at the Wheel and The Walls Are Way Too Thin, are both “heavily located based”, according to Humberstone: the first focuses on her “childhood home and growing up and all of those experiences”, and the second on her move to London. Paint My Bedroom Black is notably different: it doesn’t have a “place or identity,” written at a time where Humberstone felt that “nothing was familiar.”
“As much as it’s such an experience and it’s so cool, a lot of it seems like, I don’t know, a fake existence I was living,” Humberstone said about touring. She described the experience as “weird emotional rollercoaster - some of the best times and the some of the lowest points.” She shared one particular story from the album’s creation - in Los Angeles, during a weekend off. “I had been sent out there to do a big writing week with all these crazy incredible producers…but I just wasn’t in the mood. I was exhausted, and I wanted to go home…I reached out to this guy called Ethan Gruska who I had always wanted to work with - I DM’ed him, and was like - hey, I’ve got a free weekend, can I please come and write with you?” The experience was “incredible,” Humberstone went on to say. “I had the most fun two days writing in his little studio - and we wrote Into Your Room that day.”
Humberstone also reflected on the relationships which shaped her album - namely, her friends and family. “I write a lot about my sisters, my friends - sisterhood in general,” she said. In fact, the album’s closing track, Room Service, is specifically about Humberstone’s friends: “I feel like not enough people write about platonic relationships and sisterhoods and friendships,” she spoke on the piece. “That song is just about missing my friends during lockdown.”
Sisterhood for Humberstone, however, isn’t just about her friends. “I’ve toured with so many incredible females” - Humberstone has previously toured with hit singers Olivia Rodrigo and girl in red. “Being around people like that is obviously so inspiring.” The music industry has not always been kind to female artists - a fact that Humberstone is acutely aware of. “In life, we are pitted against each other, and made to feel like there is only room for one of us to succeed.” She recalls feeling that pressure when entering the music industry: it “took me quite a long time for me to just be like, hey, this is sick - I get to be part of this movement and group of females who are just killing it.”
Her growth is clear in the new album - and it’s a growth that the singer-songwriter is proud of. Humberstone’s early aesthetic leaned heavily towards grunge and heartbreak, but now, she feels more at peace. She’s a “brighter person,” and though, as she shared, it took her a “while to open up and share more,” Humberstone is now unafraid to share that side of herself. She strives to be “candid” about her growth in her writing, a goal that is clear in the variety and maturity of Paint Your Bedroom Black.