Dianna
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- Oct 13, 2023
Holly Humberstone joins Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 to discuss her new song “Paint My Bedroom Black” — the title track from her new album due out this Friday. She tells Apple Music about writing the song while on tour, how life on the road and her love/hate relationship with touring inspired the new album, being unable to evaluate the state of her career, staying true to herself and more.
Holly Humberstone Tells Apple Music About The Origin of New Song “Paint My Bedroom Black”…
Touring is such a strange thing. I feel like it's an emotional rollercoaster for me. Every day you kind of wake up in a new city that's kind of strange and unfamiliar and you have all this stuff to do and people to meet and shows, and then it's just like an overload of the senses and then you get into your hotel room and shut the door and it's silent. And yeah, we had two days... I guess last year was my first proper experience of being away from home for a long period of time. And yeah, we wrote it in between some support tours that I was doing out there. I loved most of all of that, but there was some tricky times and I think getting into the studio just for two days was my chance to just kind of reflect and just touch base with myself and get back to doing what I love the most and kind of shut the world out, which is what Paint My Bedroom Black's about really.
Holly Humberstone on Feeling Guilty While on Tour and How It Inspired Her New Album….
I had a lot of guilt. I feel like I wrote a lot about it in the album, but I had a lot of guilt and I wrote a lot of songs about not wanting to be left behind and feeling like I was neglecting people back home. A lot of most nights I didn't really have the emotional sort of energy to even call my mom. I'd sort of not even touched base with her for weeks. So I don't know. I find that I write a lot about places and my first two EPs have been about... My first one was about my childhood home, and then the second one was about moving to London. And then I haven't really had that for the last sort of year and a half, two years. Obviously love touring and so grateful to be doing it and I wouldn't change it, but it's kind of made me realize that my home is kind of my people and my friends and stuff and people around me.
Holly Humberstone on Her Love / Hate Relationship with Touring…
It's not every night you can't get up there and just completely sing your heart out and love every second. And my music is so personal and especially because a lot of the songs are about the people that I love and that I can't really spend much time with anymore. It is sometimes a little bit hard and you kind of just have to dissociate up there, but most of the time I genuinely love performing and I genuinely love seeing people sing it back to me because I think it makes it worthwhile. But yeah, it can be really, really hard to just kind of switch on. You really do just have to become a different sort of person up there.
Holly Humberstone on Not Having Any Perspective on the State of Her Career…
It's so hard to know. I honestly, Zane, have no idea. I have no perspective on my career from the inside. I don't know how I'm doing. I don't know how I'm perceived. It's really, really hard to try and view myself from the outside, but all I know is that I want to do it for as long as I can because I love it. And my favorite thing in the world is to write. And I think that it's so cool to get to share that. And obviously, if you're a creative and you love your job and you care about what you do, you're going to struggle so much with self-doubt, right? I think everybody does. And everybody's their own sort of harshest critic, right? But that's just because I love it so much. And yeah, I don't know, I have no perspective on any of my career… all I know is that I love doing it and I just really want it to carry on and I'll do anything to make that happen.
Holly Humberstone on Her New Album and Staying True To Herself…
I think that I am really proud of the fact that I have stayed true to myself and the music that I want to make and not be influenced by outside pressures. I felt like the natural next step for me, I think a lot of people were expecting it be some kind of like... For me to write more songs like “Scarlett" or “Walls". And I didn't really feel like that at the time, and I didn't. And I had an interview last week and it was so weird because the guy was like, "I did a article on you two years ago and I predicted you to be the next huge, huge pop thing." And he was like, "I guess you don't want that though after listening to the album." And I was like, well, I think it was meant as a compliment because he was like, "It's dark." So I think it was meant as a compliment. I think one thing that I have realized whilst writing this album and going through all of the motions and emotionally with everything that comes with writing an album is just that it's not a competition. It's not a race. I'm not in competition with myself. I can just make my music and just write truthfully from the heart and I really want to not look back on it as a negative time and just be proud of what I did. It's just cool that I even get to make an album. I still think that's the coolest thing ever and I never thought that I'd get to, so I want to look back and, yeah, and remember it as a cool time.
Holly Humberstone Tells Apple Music About The Origin of New Song “Paint My Bedroom Black”…
Touring is such a strange thing. I feel like it's an emotional rollercoaster for me. Every day you kind of wake up in a new city that's kind of strange and unfamiliar and you have all this stuff to do and people to meet and shows, and then it's just like an overload of the senses and then you get into your hotel room and shut the door and it's silent. And yeah, we had two days... I guess last year was my first proper experience of being away from home for a long period of time. And yeah, we wrote it in between some support tours that I was doing out there. I loved most of all of that, but there was some tricky times and I think getting into the studio just for two days was my chance to just kind of reflect and just touch base with myself and get back to doing what I love the most and kind of shut the world out, which is what Paint My Bedroom Black's about really.
Holly Humberstone on Feeling Guilty While on Tour and How It Inspired Her New Album….
I had a lot of guilt. I feel like I wrote a lot about it in the album, but I had a lot of guilt and I wrote a lot of songs about not wanting to be left behind and feeling like I was neglecting people back home. A lot of most nights I didn't really have the emotional sort of energy to even call my mom. I'd sort of not even touched base with her for weeks. So I don't know. I find that I write a lot about places and my first two EPs have been about... My first one was about my childhood home, and then the second one was about moving to London. And then I haven't really had that for the last sort of year and a half, two years. Obviously love touring and so grateful to be doing it and I wouldn't change it, but it's kind of made me realize that my home is kind of my people and my friends and stuff and people around me.
Holly Humberstone on Her Love / Hate Relationship with Touring…
It's not every night you can't get up there and just completely sing your heart out and love every second. And my music is so personal and especially because a lot of the songs are about the people that I love and that I can't really spend much time with anymore. It is sometimes a little bit hard and you kind of just have to dissociate up there, but most of the time I genuinely love performing and I genuinely love seeing people sing it back to me because I think it makes it worthwhile. But yeah, it can be really, really hard to just kind of switch on. You really do just have to become a different sort of person up there.
Holly Humberstone on Not Having Any Perspective on the State of Her Career…
It's so hard to know. I honestly, Zane, have no idea. I have no perspective on my career from the inside. I don't know how I'm doing. I don't know how I'm perceived. It's really, really hard to try and view myself from the outside, but all I know is that I want to do it for as long as I can because I love it. And my favorite thing in the world is to write. And I think that it's so cool to get to share that. And obviously, if you're a creative and you love your job and you care about what you do, you're going to struggle so much with self-doubt, right? I think everybody does. And everybody's their own sort of harshest critic, right? But that's just because I love it so much. And yeah, I don't know, I have no perspective on any of my career… all I know is that I love doing it and I just really want it to carry on and I'll do anything to make that happen.
Holly Humberstone on Her New Album and Staying True To Herself…
I think that I am really proud of the fact that I have stayed true to myself and the music that I want to make and not be influenced by outside pressures. I felt like the natural next step for me, I think a lot of people were expecting it be some kind of like... For me to write more songs like “Scarlett" or “Walls". And I didn't really feel like that at the time, and I didn't. And I had an interview last week and it was so weird because the guy was like, "I did a article on you two years ago and I predicted you to be the next huge, huge pop thing." And he was like, "I guess you don't want that though after listening to the album." And I was like, well, I think it was meant as a compliment because he was like, "It's dark." So I think it was meant as a compliment. I think one thing that I have realized whilst writing this album and going through all of the motions and emotionally with everything that comes with writing an album is just that it's not a competition. It's not a race. I'm not in competition with myself. I can just make my music and just write truthfully from the heart and I really want to not look back on it as a negative time and just be proud of what I did. It's just cool that I even get to make an album. I still think that's the coolest thing ever and I never thought that I'd get to, so I want to look back and, yeah, and remember it as a cool time.