New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Over the past few weeks, Holly Humberstone has played four-sold Omeara headline shows and lit up festival stages from Reading & Leeds to All Points East, with the "confidence and stature that defies [Evening Standard]" an artist who is performing to thousands of fans for the first time since becoming the breakthrough star of 2021. With her tattoo-lyric songwriting already connecting across the atlantic, having sold out The Bowery Ballroom in NYC and Roxy Theatre in LA in just three minutes, the Grantham based artist is a superstar in waiting and today releases her "favourite" song to date, the colossal 'Scarlett'. Lifted from her highly anticipated second EP, The
Walls Are Way Too Thin, and produced by long-time collaborator Rob Milton, the track was written for her best friend
Scarlett about a toxic relationship. Through late night conversations and the power of female friendship, Holly helped
Scarlett through the breakup, and has written a song with powerful immediacy and resonance, with lyrics: "we go together like bad British weather, on the one day I made plans". 'Scarlett' is another example of Holly's deep understanding of the art of storytelling, and signals the UK's next great songwriting talent. Also known for distinctive and symbolic visuals, the official video shows Holly and
Scarlett stealing an arctic truck from an airport hanger and driving off into the sunset, free.
"This track is my absolute favourite," says Holly. "It's a fuck you to the guy that was going out with my closest friend
Scarlett and it was written as they were breaking up. The relationship was totally one sided and lasted for years.
Scarlett was all in and had pretty much planned their future and it was pretty clear to me that he was stringing her along, until he broke up with her in a really insensitive and heartless way. I was her closest confidant and so I knew everything she was feeling, and I'd see how passive he was with her at parties first hand. She vented to me for probably about a year and so I went through all the stages of a break up with her and watched as she slowly realised her worth and that he wasn't worth her tears anymore. I wanted to write this one from her point of view. It's a pretty positive song as it's about her finally letting go, realising his many faults and taking back her life.
"Sonically and lyrically,
Scarlett breaks away from the rest of the EP and in so many ways it feels like such a release," adds Holly. "It was really important to me that the music video felt really empowering and a reminder that you can shake off anything rubbish going on in your life and be in control of your own destiny. Obviously the song is about
Scarlett so she had to be in the video - especially after being named an 'emotional grim reaper' lol. The two of us break into an airport hanger, steal and spray paint an arctic truck, then I perform on the back of it as Scar drives it down the runway. It was honestly the most fun."
Recently nominated for the Ivor Novello Rising Star Award with Apple Music, Holly Humberstone's highly anticipated second EP The
Walls Are Way Too Thin will be released on 5 November 2021 on Polydor/Darkroom/Interscope. Featuring the landmark A-List title track, with the cinematic masterpiece The
Walls official video, and the immaculately beautiful 'Haunted House', the six-track EP includes brand new song 'Please Don't Leave Just Yet', a collaboration with Matty Healy, frontman of one of Holly's favourite bands The 1975.
The
Walls Are Way Too Thin follows Holly's critically acclaimed debut Falling Asleep At The Wheel, which marked the first chapter in the story of a new global talent who's garnered over 150M global streams to-date. Having just been announced as the Ivor Novello Rising Star Nominee, to being named the BBC Sound of 2021, Apple's Up Next Artist, VEVO DSCVR's Artists To Watch 2021, and internationally heralded by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel,
James Corden, Triple J, The Sunday Times, NME (5*), The Guardian, i-D, ELLE, and Billboard, it is Holly's remarkable storytelling that has captured the hearts and minds of fans globally. Holly wants her lyrics to be the ones people could tattoo on themselves and her songs embrace and translate some of life's most intense feelings in a way that typical conversations all too often fail to capture, from mental health struggles to the dizzying feelings of displacement as you grow out of adolescence.
Creating a visionary world within her music, Holly has also set up the Fifth Sister Swap initiative, as a way for her and her fans to swap clothes without relying on fast fashion. At Holly's Omeara show, she hosted the first ever IRL Swap Shop out the back of her dad's car, where fans queued for 2-hours to swap their clothes with Holly. It's an idea that stemmed from her three sisters constantly borrowing from and swapping their own wardrobes, and growing up in a house of women has made Holly passionate about issues affecting women. The artist recently filmed a session for Splendour In The Grass Festival in the Mind Charity shop in Camden, with the focus being on the incredible work Mind do in the UK for mental health, an issue close to her heart.
TOUR AND FESTIVAL DATES
10 Sept - TRNSMT Festival (Glasgow)
17 Sep - This Is Tomorrow Festival (Newcastle)
07 Oct - The Roxy Theatre (Los Angeles, USA)
09 Oct - Austin City Limits (Austin, USA)
12 Oct - Bowery Ballroom (New York)
26 Oct - The Cluny (Newcastle Upon Tyne)
27 Oct - Brudenell Social Club (Leeds) SOLD OUT
28 Oct - Yes (The Pink Room) (Manchester) SOLD OUT
30 Oct - Whelan's (Dublin) SOLD OUT
31 Oct -N Oh Yeah
Music Centre (Belfast) SOLD OUT
02 Nov - King Tut's Wah Wah Hut (Glasgow) SOLD OUT
03 Nov O2 -
Institute 3 (Birmingham) SOLD OUT
04 Nov - Clwb Ifor Bach (Cardiff) SOLD OUT
08 Nov - O2 Shepherd's Bush
Empire (London)
10 Nov - Rescue Rooms (Nottingham) SOLD OUT
02 June Primavera Sound (Barcelona)
18 June - Hurricane Festival (Germany)
19 June - Southside Festival (Germany)
