Holly Humberstone

British singer/songwriter Holly Humberstone is known for her dusky indie pop. She first garnered attention with the song “Deep End,” included on her 2020 debut EP, Falling Asleep at the Wheel. Humberstone signed with Interscope the following year and released her sophomore EP, The Walls Are Way Too Thin. She continued releasing stand-alone singles in 2022, including “London Is Lonely” and “Sleep Tight.” Her first long-player, Paint My Bedroom Black, appeared in 2023.
Hailing from Grantham, England, Humberstone grew up the youngest of four sisters. While her parents worked as doctors, they also encouraged art at home, with her mother playing cello and her father collecting books of poetry. In her teens, she played violin in the Lincolnshire Youth Symphony Orchestra and eventually gravitated toward pop music. Drawing inspiration from artists like Damien Rice, Lorde, Bon Iver, and others, she began writing her own songs, experimenting with recording on her father’s computer. Around age 16, Humberstone entered several of her songs into an online BBC music portal, where one of them, “Hit and Run,” garnered radio play. After high school, she studied performing arts at a college in Liverpool before returning home after a year to focus on her music.
Humberstone eventually befriended songwriter/producer and former Dog Is Dead singer Rob Milton, and together they began collaborating and developing her sound. In January 2020, she released her debut song, “Deep End.” It caught on online, and in February she joined Lewis Capaldi on tour. A cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” also arrived that July. In August 2020, she released her debut EP, the Milton-produced Falling Asleep at the Wheel, which included the title track single. In 2021, Humberstone inked a deal with Interscope and issued the singles “Haunted House” and “Please Don’t Leave Just Yet,” both of which appeared on the EP The Walls Are Way Too Thin later that year. She returned in 2022 with a pair of original singles, “London Is Lonely” and “Sleep Tight,” along with a cover of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U.” Later that year, she released the compilation album Can You Afford to Lose Me?, which included a new single of the same name. Early 2023 saw the arrival of the singles “Antichrist” and “Room Service” ahead of the release of her first full-length effort, Paint My Bedroom Black. ~ Matt Collar