WRITTEN BY: ZOE @ GRRRL MUSIC
PRESS CONFERENCE HOSTED BY: 1824
At just 23 years old, Holly Humberstone is able to reflect on her growth as an artist with her debut album release, Paint My Bedroom Black. The incredibly bubbly rising artist shares her use of songwriting as an outlet for her mental health, her creative growth between projects and her experience touring for several months at a time during the 1824 press conference.
Originally to be named “I’m Going Through Something”, Holly shared that Paint My Bedroom Black sounds exactly like how she felt while touring. Though she is not a fan on journaling, the singer-songwriter is able to mentally reflect through her music, “I save it all up for the studio and for writing” she shares, “I feel like the album has been really really important for me to do over the past few years just to kind of stay sane and have a moment to touch in with myself and regroup”. Through every track, Holly’s emotion is captured in her brilliant lyricism and sung as an upbeat, alternative pop ballad. In describing her experiences of being away from home for months at a time on tour, Holly says, “It’s all completely different than I had imagined it to be”. Though it is one of her favorite parts of the job, it was an emotional rollercoaster for her as the imposter syndrome kicked in and she missed the comfort of her hometown and friends.
Her first two EPs, Falling Asleep At The Wheel and The Walls Are Way Too Thin, that she shares are “very heavily location-based” and about growing up and leaving her childhood home. In comparison, Paint My Bedroom Black follows a pattern of symbolizing “rooms” throughout. Reflecting on this, Holly accredits her symbolism to feeling like this album “doesn’t have a place or identity”, given she was bouncing from one hotel room to the next while writing. Holly also shared that she really pushed herself to be less serious in writing this album, and to have more fun with it. In the past, she felt the need to be serious all of the time, which resulted in her music not reflecting her true personality, “I feel like there was never any room for me to show that I’m not really like that all the time, I’m actually quite a bright, bubbly person”. That being said, she wanted Paint My Bedroom Black to be more vulnerable and less serious to give listeners a more authentic sound that matches her personality. She expressed that she had so much more fun making Paint My Bedroom Black in not taking it too seriously and she has started to realize, “It’s kind of a cool thing to just be so candid in my writing”.
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