In many ways, Holly Humberstone is like any other mid-twenties girl living in London. She pulls on her giant, black leather boots one at a time in the morning, leaves the flat she shares with her sister and friend in New Cross and heads into the city to do her job. Except when she clocks off and puts her headphones in, she’s not listening to someone else. She’s listening to herself. “Nothing beats the feeling of being in the studio and coming out, getting on the Tube and playing the song I just made,” she says gleefully, sitting across from me in a dinky café in Hammersmith as the sound of the roundabout rages outside. It’s the type of place where the barista doubles as a DJ and nearly every customer orders a matcha — the daytime watering holes of young London.
Humberstone is no egotist. She’s thoughtful and self-effacing, with a wit that jumps out at just the right moments. I ask her if she ever feels embarrassed listening to herself in public places. “I do not give a shit,” she smiles, confident in her love of her work. The 27-year-old singer-songwriter transplanted herself from the Midlands (“It’s the sticks,” she declares of her hometown, Grantham) to London a few years ago and is only just finding her feet in the capital. So far, so relatable. But the reason it’s taken her so long to settle in the city is decidedly less so.
