The Playlist: Holly Humberstone On Supportive Women In The Music Industry

If you’ve been scrolling through TikTok, searching for new music on Spotify or even bopping along to the radio, Holly Humberstone has probably come up once or twice.

Holly has just released her second album, Cruel World, a project she worked on while moving out of her childhood home. That huge change in her life came at the perfect time, she had spent the last few years on the road, touring her own music as well as supporting the likes of Girl in Red, Olivia Rodrigo and even Taylor Swift.

She describes her time on The Eras Tour (the highest-grossing tour in history) as “affirming”. But now she’s ready to take her space as headliner with her new album already making waves with its beautiful, fantastical visuals and haunting lyrics, Holly is set for super stardom.

We caught up with her as her album lands on shelves…

Talk to us about your new album!

It’s called Cruel World. I feel like it’s been a bit of a rite of passage album for me. I started writing it towards the end of 2024. I think since I started my career in this industry and since we’ve come out of lockdown, I feel like I’ve just been constantly so busy and on tour, which has been so fun and so amazing. But I do feel like this past year and a half has been a really, really needed opportunity to take some space to just exist as a person and find out who I am again, outside of being an artist. I feel like that’s where the stories come from. I’ve learned so much about myself during the writing process of the album. I feel like I’ve done more growing up in the past year and a half than in the past 10. The album is about redefining home and trying to figure out how to adult. I’m really, really proud of it.

Bring us through that writing process…

I guess writing has always been my way of making sense of the world around me. Nothing’s really changed. Through the writing process, and just some things that I’ve been experiencing in my personal life, one of the main through lines in the album is realising that love is just this really painful thing at its core. I feel like it’s a similar kind of emotion to nostalgia. It’s so strong and so powerful, because you can’t really separate the good from the bad. They exist together in the same sort of confusing emotion. I’ve had so much fun doing the creative with my big sister. Lots of the album, sonically, visually, and lyrically, have been inspired by the process of clearing out my childhood home, which is also another thing that I’ve been doing this past year and a half. I grew up in this crazy house in the Midlands.

Talk to us a bit about that big change in your life!

My parents retired, so I was going back and forth from London to the Midlands, just to go through everything that I’ve ever owned. I feel like going through that process was just an amazing time to reflect and reconnect to who I am at my core, and who I was as a young girl, before I kind of got swept up in this mad, chaotic industry. I think for that reason, I just feel really emotionally connected to this album in a way that I haven’t before. I’ve loved every project that I’ve released, but I think that this one feels extra special. It feels like how my childhood self would have envisioned my career to look and sound. And just more like me, than anything that I’ve released before. So I’m really, really excited to get to share it.

You mentioned your parents, did they always support your passion for music?

Looking back on my childhood, I have so, so much to be grateful for. My parents were the most nurturing, supportive. They just provided the most supportive space for me and my sisters to just be creative, which obviously, not everybody is afforded that much. So I’m really, really grateful to them for that. They didn’t have a clue about the music industry. We grew up in the middle of Lincolnshire, in a tiny village. They were so amazing. They both worked for the NHS, but they have this huge shared love of music, the arts and poetry. It just meant that we were around it all the time. My dad used to read to us all the time. And my mum really was passionate about music. And she loves playing the piano when she has time, and playing the cello. We listened to so much amazing music growing up. I feel like my parents were real music nerds. And they used to collect the NME tapes. We’d discover so much music as a family through those tapes. They were at work for a lot of my childhood. I just remember the majority of the time it being my sisters and I left to mess up this house, and just be creative, and do art, and make clothes, and make music, and just make a mess. I have everything to owe to my parents for just providing that space. I started off so s**t. I was not a good songwriter. It’s not something that you’re just born with. You have to be passionate about it and work on it. I’ve rediscovered all the notebooks that I used to write in as a kid. And they’re so funny. But I just remember them being the biggest cheerleaders and being so supportive.

You mentioned having all your tapes and CDs, who were you listening to when you were growing up?

Oh my gosh, the spectrum of artists and bands that we were exposed to as kids is crazy. I feel like everybody goes through that phase of thinking that their parents’ music taste is super lame in their late teens. And then you kind of get a bit older and you’re like, hang on. The music that you listen to as a kid shapes you into who you become. My dad was, like, huge into Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, but also loved the dad bands. He loved Led Zepp and Pink Floyd and things like that. And then Regina Spector. I mean, my parents loved Damien Rice, who’s Irish. My mum loved Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, Radiohead. We were listening to music all the time. I really gravitated towards Kylie Minogue and the pop girlies.

Do you have an album that you think defines you?

I think one that just collectively felt like it belonged to my sisters and I was Music by Madonna. We had so many CDs, but also it was before the days of streaming services, so what we had was what we had. I remember I’d just go into my parents’ room and, like, sift through all the CDs, they had this just stack on the floor in the most disorganised way. I’d just pick out the ones that had the prettiest covers, and I’d take them into my room. One of them was Madonna in this little cowboy outfit, and my sisters and I just used to blast that album so much. And I feel like when I listen to it now, I can almost smell our house and the dolls that we would play with. Music is so strange in that way that it can just kind of transport you back to the past. I’m gonna say Music by Madonna is one of those that is very core to mine and my sister’s relationship.

Do you remember what your first concert that you went to was?

I do! I remember I was 13, and we got the train to Nottingham. I went with my two older sisters, and we went to see Tame Impala, and it was terrifying. I was a late bloomer anyway, but at 13, I was practically prepubescent, just tiny little scrawny girl, and being in this venue just full of stinky 20-year-old boys, like, stoner boys. I just remember it being f**king terrifying. I felt so out of my depth. But it was a transformative experience as well, like, going to gigs is still so exciting and still one of my favourite things to do, I think, like, yeah, live music is just the best, yeah, just the best way to connect with people and feel like a human, you know, in a big room full of people who all kind of feel the same as you. Not that I could relate to any of these 20-year-old stinky boys when I was 13, but it was definitely an interesting, like, fun first gig experience.

On the other side of things, what is it like for you to hear people sing your songs back to you when you’re on stage?

It’s crazy! I’m incredibly lucky to be getting to do this as the job. I feel like it’s all I ever saw myself doing as a kid. I had to make that work, I had to do it. I’ve always been compelled to be a pop star, dance around on stage and sing little songs. It’s the most amazing feeling ever. Again, I feel so lucky to get to do it. Since I’ve been touring I’ve developed the most amazing kind of relationship with my band. I can see why people might hate being on tour if you don’t have people around you that make you feel supported and comfortable. You have to spend all day, every day with them. For me, we’re just having the most fun on stage. Everything on my phone some days just feels like bulls**t, and I hate being online most of the time. So the only way that I feel like I get that real connection with real people is being at a gig. Looking at stats just makes me feel weird, and it doesn’t really scratch any type of itch. But being on stage and seeing people who feel the same as I do about something is incredible. A gig is a shared emotional experience. I feel like I’m such a animal, I want to be around people, and people are kind of what inspire me to write songs, and just to be happy and exist in my life. Getting to play gigs feels like such a privilege. I don’t think the novelty of getting to tour or play shows will ever really wear off.

You’ve opened for the likes of Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo. What is that like?

I can’t really believe how lucky I’ve gotten to play some of these shows supporting the most iconic artists. That tour with Olivia was a double back-to-back tour around the States with Girl in Red first, and then I went on to the Olivia tour. I was there for three months. That was my first proper tint of time on a bus, proper touring, and getting to see so much of the world. Getting to play shows in random places that I’d never heard of, that’s even just crazy to me, that I get to travel for work and go to somewhere outside of the UK. That’s wild! I’ve grown up listening to Taylor’s music, it could only be described as just very surreal and really, really affirming to hear. To have that kind of backing and that support, it restores my faith in women in the industry, because people are lifting each other up and we’ve got each other’s backs. To have that kind of recognition from Taylor it makes me feel really excited. That was a cool day, I feel like I peaked in August 2024,!

Holly’s album, Cruel World, is out now