-Welcome back to our show. Thank you for doing talk with us
and thank you for doing that song with us earlier.
I appreciate that.
You singing "Margaritaville"
was something I don't think everyone thought we would see.
I want to talk to you about going on tour.
You're about to start off -- kick off another tour.
Are you excited? Are you preparing?
What are you doing?
-Um, yeah, I'm so --
I'm so excited to play again, because there was just --
Yeah, there was a period of time where I thought -- I was like,
"God, Do I need to, like, find another job?"
-I mean, I guess during the pandemic also --
-Yeah, all kind of singing and performing was gone,
and that's kind of all I've really known.
But what's really funny about it, we've done some shows --
Because the last two years feel like I kind of blinked.
Our last show was in 2019,
and so when I came back to play again, I was like,
"Wait. Was I just here? Did this just happen?"
But it's been -- Do you know what's the nicest thing,
is going and seeing everyone who come to the shows
because they make such an effort and everybody dresses up.
The Florence + The Machine show
is, like, a fully immersive experience.
-Yeah, I've seen people dress like you.
Like, identically. And they actually --
Yeah, I've seen it.
-But it's nice for me because I play a show
and I also get to watch a show
because, like, the whole front row
will just be in these amazing outfits.
What did it -- I think "Rolling Stone"
described it as, like,
"Euphoria" meets the renaissance fair.
[ Laughter ]
Which is a really good, accurate description, I thought.
-Yeah, I would take that. But, I mean, look at this.
By the way, look at this picture.
This is how cool you are. Come on.
[ Cheers and applause ]
You know what I mean? That's your move.
I love that. Gorgeous.
And I was like, "Okay. I love that. That's your move."
I wonder how long you've been doing that.
And I got actually -- I found a baby photo of you.
And here's Baby Florence. With your mom, Evelyn.
Look at the-- Look at the -- the flower crown.
-There's already a flower crown.
-You were always into flower crowns.
-I know. Always in a flower crown.
Born in one, will be buried in one, I think.
-Will be buried in one. You were saying, too --
I go, "Where did your kind of thing come from?"
Where did your whole identity come from
with Florence + The Machine?
-So I think -- I don't know.
I was thinking a lot about this,
and I sometimes wonder if the whole thing
of Florence + The Machine is, like,
an amalgamation of things that I loved when I was a kid.
So I feel like Florence + The Machine is a mix of,
like, Rogue from X-Men with a Victorian ghost
and then, like, mermaids, and I wonder if one day
I'll wake up and I'm back in my childhood bed
and it was a dream.
I just kind of, like, made it up.
-Oh, wow. And you made up -- And I love that I'm in your dream.
This is awesome. -Yeah, I know!
-This is the best thing I've heard all week.
I looked it up because I was like, "Oh, Rogue from X-Men."
I just wanted to look it up and see what it is,
and I kind of get it.
Yeah, I see this.
-It was redheads, so it was, like, Rogue from X-Men,
the Little Mermaid, Anne of Green Gables.
Pippi Longstocking was huge for me.
-Oh, yeah. -So, yeah.
-Like, what were early gigs like for you?
Do you remember where you started out?
What was one of your first gigs?
-Um, okay. So a lot of my first "gigs" --
-Yeah, sorry.
-Gigs were -- I just kind of pretended I had a band,
and I didn't really have a band.
But there was -- Yeah.
So there's a lot of imagination that goes on.
There's a lot of pretending, as you can see.
So Florence + The Machine kind of started out
with everyone in the Southland and indie scene all had bands,
and so I would just show up to these club nights
and be like, "Yeah, I have a band. I have a band, too."
And that's how I got booked for my first show,
by pretending I had a band that I didn't have.
[ Laughter ]
I had no band members.
I had a name -- I had the name of the band
and saying I had a band,
but there were no members of this band.
I had to find some members.
-But what would happen when you get booked? You're like,
"Hey, I just got booked. I need someone to play with."
-That was exactly what happened.
Because I got booked for my first show
by auditioning in a night-club toilet
and saying I had a band and just singing.
-Wow. -And then I said --
I need to find a guitar player because I have a show in a week.
And I was, like, on a bill, yeah, so --
-Isn't it funny, the stories --
No one knows all the stories and the hard work and the hustling.
You had to audition in a toilet to get to where you are.
-No, I did, yeah, but bathrooms have very good acoustics.
-They do actually. Yeah, you are right.
-They really do.
"Dance Fever" comes out this Friday.
It's beautiful. It's fun.
It's -- There's bangers on here.
Like, I think my jam right now is -- I like "Free"
right now, is what I'm jamming out to.
But I love it so much.
You've been working on this for a few years.
-I started working on it in 2019.
As soon as kind of the last record --
that cycle ended, I --
The album is kind of about that fever of creativity.
So as soon as I finished playing the last show,
it was, like, all these songs arrived in 2019,
and I set off to New York
in January --
end of February 2020,
just thinking, "This is gonna go so well."
-Wow!
Boy, were you wrong. Wow. Wow.
-I was like, "This is gonna go so well."
I had three months booked at Electric Lady.
-Oh, yeah. -I've been --
I had so many songs written already.
I was like, "Do you know what? I think we can just
get this done fast.
I really think this is gonna be easy, this one."
-And then this happened.
-And then my mum called, and my mum never calls me
because she's very busy.
She only calls me if something --
I don't know if anyone else has -- But she only calls --
I looked down, I was like, "Oh, my God.
Something terrible must have happened or somebody died."
Like, why is she -- -The only reason why mom calls.
-I was like, "Oh, my God. It's Professor Evelyn Welch."
I was thinking about this story before I came about the album.
I was like, "I need to look at my phone."
Because she can't actually be "Professor Evelyn Welch"
in my phone. Like, she should be "Mum."
-Mum, yeah. Did she change the contact?
-She's not.
In my phone, I've full-named her.
It comes up as Evelyn Welch. And I don't -- I'm like --
That's the most British thing I've ever done.
-[ Laughter ] -That is very British of you.
-Why don't I have my mum in my phone?
-Your own mom, yeah. Or mum.
-"Oh, Evelyn Welch is calling. Time to go."
-And she was like, "Hey. This is serious. Get home."
-I think maybe I full-named her
because she's quite a serious person.
And she was like, "Yeah, you should come home now."
But we also thought, "Well, I'll be back in a month.
See you then."
No, I didn't actually get back to New York
to work with Jack for a year and a half.
-I think we all thought that.
This was going to be finished in a couple of weeks.
And cut to two and a half years later, yeah.
It turned out unbelievable. And we need entertainment.
We need good music. We need solid stuff.
This is -- And you said Jack. Jack Antonoff.
-Yeah, Jack Antonoff and myself and Dave Bailey produced it.
-Ah, talented people right there.
You're doing -- What song are you doing tonight for us?
-"My Love." -Yeah.
And do you want to set that up? What's "My Love" about?
-It started off as just a really sad poem,
but when I tried to put it acoustically,
it was too sad.
It was just like, "This is too bleak."
-Really? -Yeah, I couldn't --
It was just sort of --
I needed something to kind of turn the sadness on its head
and add some euphoria.
I needed catharsis at that time.
And so, yeah, me and Dave Bailey,
who was also at that point stuck at home
having the biggest hit of his career
and doing all of his interviews from his kitchen.
So we got together and kind of made this song.
-And it's a jam, so get ready, guys.
It's unbelievable.
"Dance Fever" is out this Friday.
Florence will be performing later in the show.
Florence Welch, everybody.