{"id":386857,"date":"2026-04-11T14:56:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T14:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/386857\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T14:56:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T14:56:30","slug":"youve-got-to-roll-with-the-punches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/386857\/","title":{"rendered":"You’ve got to roll with the punches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Holly Humberstone<\/a>\u2019s personality has enough warmth to put the coldest of winter mornings to rights. That\u2019s exactly what happens on 2026\u2019s edition of \u2018Blue Monday\u2019 (January 19), as Humberstone gazes at the guitars that garnish the walls of London music store Dawsons before joining NME on the sofa. Visibly excited for the year ahead, you can only imagine how Humberstone is feeling today (April 10), as she finally unveils her long-awaited second album \u2018Cruel World\u2019.<\/p>\n

In truth, the gap between now and 2023\u2019s \u2018Paint My Bedroom Black\u2019<\/a> \u2013 plus her appearance on The Cover<\/a> \u2013 feels long because of the rocket strapped to Humberstone at the start of her career. NME was one of the first on board around her outstanding 2020 EP \u2018Falling Asleep At The Wheel\u2019, which introduced the magical combination of her spellbinding voice with gut-punch indie-pop storytelling. She landed a major label deal with Polydor\/Interscope, and was soon collaborating with The 1975<\/a>\u2019s Matty Healy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The reality of Humberstone\u2019s move to London from Grantham, where she was raised, was laid bare when she performed \u2018London Is Lonely\u2019 at the 2022 BRIT Awards<\/a> as the winner of the Critics\u2019 Choice (fka Rising Star) award. Touring life, it turned out, was just as intense as the Big Smoke. Four-walled hotel rooms, distance from her loved ones and never-ending change informed much of \u2018Paint My Bedroom Black\u2019. When its resultant tour cycle finished in September 2024, Humberstone, after nearly five years under the lights, finally had some downtime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I came off tour, I was like, \u2018I know who I am as an artist, but who am I as a person?\u2019\u201d she tells NME. \u201cIt was the first chunk of time that I\u2019d ever had off. The main objective is to go and live your life like a normal person and write an album, which was a very different experience to how I wrote \u2018Paint My Bedroom Black\u2019. I really needed the space to take a breather, slow things down a bit and reconnect with who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result is \u2018Cruel World\u2019, a radiant album that finds beauty in the good, the bad and the ugly of life as Holly Humberstone traverses her twenties, step by step. For the latest edition of our In Conversation<\/a> series, she discussed the journey to the album.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Silken Weinberg<\/p>\n

NME: Where did \u2018Cruel World\u2019 start? Did it fall out of you, or was it a process you instigated?<\/p>\n

Holly Humberstone: \u201cLots of things [changed] during this past year that informed the writing of the album. Firstly, my first experience of being in love and in a relationship. That\u2019s such a formative thing, exploring love as an emotion and finding out that actually, it can be the most amazing thing, but it\u2019s inherently such a painful emotion at its core. You can\u2019t really separate out the amazing parts with the really, really rubbish lows. Exploring that dichotomy was a big theme in the album, which you can hear.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, we moved out of the \u2018Haunted House\u2019 [Humberstone\u2019s family home in Grantham]. For that first chunk of the writing period, I was going back to the Midlands and helping my parents sort out 25 years\u2019 worth of six Humberstones. I rediscovered lots of old relics that I used to treasure in the back of my wardrobe and under my bed in my childhood room that I would never have found\u2026 it really helped me reconnect [with] who I am at my core.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve all got to surrender to the weirdness of life\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s it like trying to start a new life in London and say goodbye to the place you grew up in? Is it something you\u2019re still navigating?<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely. I\u2019m so heavily inspired by my physical surroundings. I\u2019ve moved house in London\u2026 redefining home and physically shaping my world around me has been really crucial to the writing process. I painted my new bedroom pink, it\u2019s the colour of my childhood bedroom. I think it\u2019s hilarious, the character arc that I\u2019ve been through.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in your twenties is so confusing. I personally feel like a different person every week, trying to figure out who the hell I am\u2026 writing has always been my way of trying to navigate what\u2019s going on around me. \u2018Lucy\u2019 is for any other young girl out there like me trying to navigate life in a world that isn\u2019t really built for them. Things can be super confusing, but you\u2019ve got to roll with the punches and realise that it takes time to find your feet in the modern world.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s such an important message\u2026 things are changing, things are confusing, but that\u2019s okay. What revealed that to you?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe songs, honestly. I have no real control over what comes out in the room. That sounds so stupid, but I have to go with my gut in the room and write about how I\u2019m feeling on the day. The beauty of life is that anything could be around the corner, and you\u2019ve got to roll with the punches and remember that you\u2019re only a human being. We\u2019ve got to ride the wave of chaos that comes at you in your twenties\u2026 it\u2019s hopeless trying to keep your life in check. I think we\u2019ve all got to surrender to the weirdness of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

What did that life look like? You said you had to figure yourself out \u2013 did you need time for Holly Humberstone, the person, to catch up with the artist making music?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely took me a while to figure out how to exist, be on my own and have thoughts, because touring is overwhelming and overstimulating. [I was] trying to be kind to myself and to give myself the space to be creative in my own time. Obviously, the objective was to write an album, but also to find out who I am again and live my own life. I like going to the pub with my friends and sisters, and seeing my family is really important. It\u2019s been a formative year, and I feel like I am in a position where I finally can take agency in my personal life, as an artist and run my own project more, which I found super hard to do in my early twenties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery songwriter probably has that intrusive thought \u2013 \u2018I\u2019ve written my last good song\u2019 \u2013 but I think that\u2019s a normal thing\u201d<\/p>\n

That empty time, feeling understimulated \u2013 were there things you did to fill that void? Was music the thing that kept coming back? Or is it not about filling the void, and just being okay with it?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe instinct is to try and fill the void with having The Simpsons<\/a> on a constant loop in the background\u2026 me and my sister [Eleri] had a lot of time to go on some crazy tangents with the films we were watching that have really heavily inspired the creative, as well. Especially with fixing up the house, it\u2019s been a learning curve, and I still don\u2019t really know anything. For once, going to the studio was the least stressful part of my life. I didn\u2019t have the spare mental capacity to be worrying about what I was going to write. So when I did get to the studio, that felt like the place to escape and to create my own fantasy world, which is where \u2018Cruel World\u2019 came from. It\u2019s nice to be able to romanticise the mundane. I talk a lot about where I live, being a young woman in London and trying to figure out this confusing city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Silken Weinberg<\/p>\n

For future periods of change, you\u2019ve always got songwriting and the studio. Is that a nice thing to think about, that music can always be there for you?<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery songwriter probably has that intrusive thought \u2013 \u2018I\u2019ve written my last good song\u2019 \u2013 but I think that\u2019s a normal thing. Music will always be such a huge part of my world, which I\u2019m so grateful for, because the world would be such a dull place without music and human connection. Especially with the current climate and all the horrific, terrifying things that are happening in the world, having human connection and music to retreat to as a comfort thing has been so important for me. I think that\u2019s why it\u2019s important to be vulnerable, open and share the truths, the good parts of my life, being in love, and also the not so pretty parts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018To Love Somebody\u2019 is a great example of that. How easy or difficult is that to focus on lots of different emotions, rather than isolated emotions, and channel them into a song? It\u2019s so easy to focus on negatives, when times are tough. Where do you find the silver lining?<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote it about somebody really close to me going through a really, really rough breakup. When I set out to write that song, I think my main aim was to give her something that felt positive, to flip a horrendous, brutal heartbreak on its head. You\u2019re feeling all of these really low lows right now, but the grief that you feel now is only a reflection of the love that you felt. Some people go through their whole lives without being in love, and it\u2019s such a special thing to have in your life, even if it is short-lived, it comes and goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

To follow on from that, \u2018Make It All Better\u2019 and \u2018Die Happy\u2019 are about the relationship you\u2019re in at the moment. What\u2019s it like to give yourself to that amazing feeling and convey those emotions?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re talking about the exact same thing, how love can be all-consuming and so powerful. \u2018Die Happy\u2019 was really inspired by the season I wrote it in, which was Halloween. I loved Tim Burton movies, his world-building aspect, and I wanted to write my own Tim Burton-esque song about how love can feel really dangerous, and you can love somebody so much that it can be scary. \u2018Make It All Better\u2019, I\u2019m really proud of that songwriting. I wanted to romanticise my own life and write in a melodramatic way about love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Silken Weinberg<\/p>\n

Your sister Eleri was involved with the creative, something you said you threw yourself into more than you\u2019ve had time to in the past. What was that process like?<\/p>\n

\u2018When we wrote the song \u2018Cruel World\u2019, that sparked everything and led my sister and I on this crazy tangent. I\u2019ve always been inspired by gothic, dark fairytales. Alice In Wonderland, The Wizard Of Oz and stories about alternative universes where the main character goes into this underworld or upside down to try and escape growing up and avoid reality. The videos tell that story from my point of view, and I feel like \u2018Cruel World\u2019 is my own dark fairytale universe that I\u2019ve made with my sister. It was my first time working with a female director [Silken Weinberg]. It\u2019s definitely given me so much more backing and confidence to work with my sister, who knows me better than anybody. I really trust her.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve moved in with two of your sisters plus a friend, and you\u2019ve never been shy about writing songs about how much you appreciate them. What\u2019s that been like in this house, especially given \u2018Paint My Bedroom Black\u2019 was partly written about missing some of these people and holding relationships when you\u2019re halfway across the world?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all young girls trying to navigate life in our twenties, and it\u2019s really nice to be able to do that alongside each other. My sisters and my friends are so much wiser than I could ever be. I don\u2019t feel the need to leave the house because I\u2019ve got my best friends and favourite people within the house. I think it\u2019s turned \u2018Cruel World\u2019 into a very feminine record. The transition from girlhood to adulthood is very scary, and I\u2019m very lucky to be able to do it alongside other girls. My small contribution to what we\u2019ve got going on in our little cult is that I can write songs for everybody. It\u2019s not that great, but everybody needs to know that they\u2019re on the right track sometimes. That\u2019s why \u2018Lucy\u2019 and \u2018Beauty Pageant\u2019 are really important for me to put out and were really cathartic for me to write.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holly Humberstone\u2019s \u2018Cruel World\u2019 is out now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Holly Humberstone\u2019s personality has enough warmth to put the coldest of winter mornings to rights. That\u2019s exactly what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,37957,46,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-386857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-in-conversation","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}