English singer/songwriter Holly Humberstone sat down with L'OFFICIEL to discuss her influences, tour, stage style, and more.&nbsp;

<div style="text-align: center;">PHOTOGRPAHY: Charlotte Alex</div>
STYLED BY: Lauren Anne Groves
On a chilly Saturday night in May, English musician Holly Humberstone entered the stage at her first of two sold out shows at Brooklyn Steel. Her stage outfit immediately communicated who she is, as a person and as an artist: a black dress with a fitted bodice and bubble skirt, chunky combat <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/frye-boots-trend-90s-inspired-outfit-vintage">boots</a>, and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/marianna-hewitt-chanel-couture-fw-2024">Chanel</a> earrings. She wore her waist-length, wavy light brown hair down, allowing it to get in her face. Behind her, a simple backgorund also communicated her witchy, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/stevie-nicks-ttpd-bracelet-taylor-swift">Stevie Nicks</a> aura: her name shined over a glittering spider web. The enthusiastic crowd who knew every word to almost every song consisted mostly of her loyal Gen Z audience, but peppered throughout were enthusiastic music fans spanning multiple generations.
Humberstone&rsquo;s sound is subdued and modern; the perfect medium for her thoughtful, introspective, witty and on-the-pulse songwriting. Think <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/lorde-style-evolution-solar-power-music">Lorde</a> meets <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lykkeli/?hl=en">Lykke Li</a>. Songs from her debut album, Paint My Bedroom Black, released in 2023, include &ldquo;Ghost Me&rdquo; and &ldquo;Antichrist.&rdquo; The titular track on the album begins with the lyrics, &ldquo;Well, you kicked his lazy ass out of your life/And, suddenly, you don't hate yourself.&rdquo;
On one side Huberstone's work includes references to The Real Housewives (she watches <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/jessel-taank-photo-diary-2023-new-york-diwali-gala">New York</a> and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/rhobh-lisa-rinna-erika-jayne-dorit-kemsley">Beverly Hills</a>. On the other, the 24 year-old dives deep into her relationships, romantic and platonic. &ldquo;Elvis Impersonators,&rdquo; a song she described as being about the chaging relationships with her sisters as they grow up. Humberstone just ended her Paint My Bedroom Black tour and will perform at the <a href="https://allthingsgofestival.com/">All Things Go Festival</a> in Maryland in September (other artists on the lineup include Hozier and Chappel Roan). Humberstone sat down with L&rsquo;OFFICIEL to discuss her background, her big break in the industry (she calls it luck), influences, touring, and style.

Holly Humberstone L'OFFICIEL

L&rsquo;OFFICIEL: Where are you from?&nbsp;
HOLLY HUMBERSTONE: I grew up in the East Midlands of the UK, in this little pocket of countryside. There's really not much going on at all up there. I have a big family&hellip; I've got three sisters and my mom and dad.
L&rsquo;O: I also have three sisters!
HH: Oh my gosh. I'm second youngest. I'm number three.
L&rsquo;O: I'm number two.
HH: I live with my number-two sister! I've never met anybody who has the same sibling situation as me! But yeah, I grew up there and my sisters. My parents were working for a lot of my childhood. They worked for the NHS [National Health Service], so they were really busy, but they cared about us being creative. My parents had an amazing music collection, and I'd go into their room and steal the CDs that I thought looked cool. My mom is really musical and my dad loves poetry, so had a bit of both. I started playing the piano when I was really young, just teaching myself, and I don't know why. Music was never, ever a legitimate career path that people from Lincolnshire ever would do. So it was never a thing. I think the only person I can think of that's come out of Lincolnshire, I guess, is Bernie Taupin, who writes for Elton John.
L&rsquo;O: So a career in music was never really something you thought was possible?
HH: I never considered that I would ever be able to do it. I would write songs secretly at home after school and stuff, and I'd spend all my time just doing that. My parents luckily were really, really supportive. I uploaded one of my songs&mdash;one of my really, really shit demos that I made on my dad's computer&mdash;to a site called BBC Introducing. One of the songs that was played on there found its way to a manager who is my current manager now. I'm really lucky. I think lot of luck has kind of gone into my career.
L&rsquo;O: There's a lot of luck that goes with honestly any career. But particularly in entertainment, it's the right skill and the right timing. When was it that you uploaded that song? Do you remember what year that was?
HH:&nbsp; I think I was 17, so 2017. I was in high school, and my friends were starting to apply to universities, and I was like, Right, what should I do? Because I'm just not interested in anything else really. I was an average student, and the music department in my school was super neglected and just wasn't it. So I was just like, I'll take it into my own hands and see what happens. I feel like super lucky to be able to do my hobby for my job. It's so cool.
L&rsquo;O: Is there anything about this job that you don't love as much?
HH: I've found that I have to also be an influencer, and having a following on social media means that you have other responsibilities. In some ways, I'm really lucky to be able to do that. But in other ways, I'm also a kid still, I feel. I mean, I'm 24, I am still growing up. I'm still trying to figure out who I am and how I want to represent myself.I'm still trying to navigate having a bit of a presence online, because it was never actually anything that I had ever considered would be a part of my day-to-day job. It's become an even bigger part of the job. It has its perks and it also means I have a platform and that I'm able to talk about things that I care about and share things that I care about and bring people together, I guess. But it's definitely a responsibility that I didn't realize that I was going to have. My brain doesn't really work in that way. I don't feel like I'm a very visual person, so I find it really hard.&nbsp;

L&rsquo;O: Do you feel comfortable on stage? Because I kind of got that sense.
HH: I do now. Before this tour, I found being on the road quite alienating and just really strange, and I'm not the most outgoing person. I don't have a bunch of friends in the industry, or I didn't before meeting my band and my little crew. People around me are lifting me up and we're all lifting each other up when we're on stage. I mean, you must relate being one of four girls.
L&rsquo;O: Oh yes.
HH: I'm the sister that is the peacemaker. I don't have opinions in my family role. I'm just there to keep the peace. I'm very much like a beta person. I'm not at all the main character in any of my life, apart from when I'm on stage when I feel like I have some sort of alter ego that comes out. I'm like, I'm a fucking pop star. This is my hour to be a pop star. I get to let loose. It's really empowering. It's cool.
L&rsquo;O: Who are some of your inspirations or influences in music?
HH: Formy mom and dad, I think music may have been their way of escaping their stressful jobs. We would always have music on at home, in the car. They'd buy all the NME CDs and listen to them and discover loads of cool stuff through that. They have cool music taste. I didn't think that until I started working in the industry and I started going to sessions and all of the references that people were using were stuff that my parents had gotten me into when I was younger. And I was like, Oh, shit, my parents are actually really, really fucking cool.
L&rsquo;O: Isn't it funny when you are old enough to realize that your parents are cool and like&hellip; real people?
HH: Yeah, they're still in touch with everything! [inaudible 00:14:02].
L&rsquo;O: Do you remember what any of that music was?
HH: My mom loves Radiohead and my dad loves the classic dad bands&hellip; Pink Floyd and Led Zep. But also we listened to a lot of The Beatles and a lot of songwriter-y based music. We had a lot of Regina Specter and Damien Rice and people like that. So there was a really big, really broad selection... stuff growing up. And Dire Straits and things like that are some of my favorites.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: That's why I like your music... All of those influences make so much sense. I noticed seeing you live, your voice is quite raspy, which sounded really cool, and it sounded a little bit different from your recordings. Is that something that you're leaning more into? Is that a new development in your voice as you've gotten older?
HH: I think it must be. It is really strange, listening, for me to... I don't love listening to my stuff after it's come out.. If it's a new song that I've worked on, I'm really excited. But the moment that it comes out, I try to avoid it at all costs.
L&rsquo;O: I can relate.
HH: Maybe it's the writing or something, I get really nitpicky with it. Listening back to older stuff, even stuff that I've recorded a year ago, it's really strange how the sound of my voice has changed. I'm not honestly sure what it is. I think maybe just being on tour night after night, wears my vocal cords out a little bit. But I kind of love it.

Hilly Humberstone L'OFFICIEL

L&rsquo;O: I don't want to say, "Well, it sounds really good&rdquo; if it&rsquo;s bad for you. But it sounds really good. I loved your look that you had at Brooklyn Steel. It was like a bubble skirt and chunky boots and Chanel earring. Can you talk about how you come up with a stage look?
HH: Fashion was never something my family spent a lot of money on, but it was always just super fun. There's something really cool about finding independent, individual pieces. Being sustainable with what I'm wearing is a really, really important thing to me when I'm shopping for a tour wardrobe, because we can't afford, with the climate shit going on, to be shopping fast fashion. Also, if I'm on tour and I have 20 dates, I've got to be careful about how I'm spending my money, because touring obviously already not great for the planet. You know?
L&rsquo;O: Absolutely.
HH: I'm constantly trying to find new brands that do things sustainably, but I found this Peachy Den dress, which is what I wore, the black dress. I wore my New Rock boots, which are my favorites. It's this Spanish brand called New Rock. Just big stompy boots. I feel like they make me feel really powerful.
L&rsquo;O: Oh, boots are amazing for that.
HH: I wear them every day, whether I'm on stage...
L&rsquo;O: I wear boots every day, even in the summer.
HH: Yeah, same. They probably stink. They're probably bloody... But I love them. I also reached out to Chanel and they lent me those earrings.&nbsp; I grew up shopping from the charity shops, so it feels really cool to be able to dress up an outfit a little more and make it a bit more of a statement.

L&rsquo;O: You have this edge to your style, but also a little bit feminine, which is also kind of how I am as well. And I think the Chanel earrings balanced it out and really made the whole look very you.
HH: My style has changed quite a lot throughout the four years I've been releasing music. When I started out, I was wearing a lot of hoodies and covering myself up. I didn't really know how I wanted to present myself. Now that I'm 24, I am like, Fuck it, I'm only young once. I'm going dress up like a slut if I want, and just go for it and wear a skirt. And I don't know, it's really fun to be able to... It's a way of also making myself feel really feminine and really empowered, and I feel the most powerful when I'm dressed up and yeah, it's just fun. It's something that I'm discovering more and more that I can play with. And I don't know. I feel like, for me, when I'm stepping out on stage, if I look good, then I can deliver the best performance that I can on that night. You know what I mean?
L&rsquo;O: What you&rsquo;re wearing really does have so much impact on how you look to other people, but more importantly for yourself.
HH: Yeah. Totally.

Musician Holly Humberstone Talks the Signifcance of Stage Style

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