| FLORENCE + THE MACHINE down the rabbit hole... |
| Written by Shahlin Graves | ||||||
| Thursday, 04 March 2010 00:28 | ||||||
 Imagine a world where Alice hadn't fallen down the rabbit hole. If - like most people - Alice had instead run away from the White Rabbit, or ignored the extraordinary. You choose to see and believe in, only what you want to... and it's a 'Brave New World' out there. So you better thank your lucky stars, that FLORENCE WELCH is a believer. Having tumbled head over heels into Wonderland alongside her Machine's debut album 'Lungs', Welch invited the world to join in - howling, screaming and dreaming. FLORENCE + THE MACHINE is a rare kind of character, actually living up to the fairy tale that precedes the fabled band's name. By day, frontwoman Welch is an earnest Alice in conversation; transforming on-stage into an eminent hell-raiser by night, as savage and unpredictable as the Queen Of Hearts. The twenty-three year old's domain of BRIT Award wins, double platinum homeland sales and an Elle Style Award, seem worlds and worlds away - as Welch giggles over her Auckland shopping adventures, talks of former and current loves, and marvels at how magical the air of New Zealand smells. It's Welch's first time here and her enthusiasm is contagious. "I'm really excited! I've already managed to find my first vintage shop. Groovy vintage? Which is just around the corner I think. Real Groovy! It was amazing. I walked in there and there's all these band t-shirts everywhere and there's vinyl... and then there's vintage! I was in heaven. And the air here, smells like rainforests. It's nice."  It's Welch's magnetic personality, that you'll fall in love with. She is gracious; extremely thankful that her diet coke was delivered with ice, "thank you so much! Radical". She has mastered wordplay and quips; "I did once do a drawing of myself as a pine tree, because I was pining for my boyfriend... I was a pine tree with a cloud over my head". She's also girl-most-likely-to apologise for meticulous colouring-in - "Sorry! I'm a perfectionist." - and bounce up and down over designer cupcakes. "NO. WAY! That's so cute!" Florence likes polaroid photos - "Everytime someone takes one of me, I always ask if I can have one. Helps me remember what I do, I date them." - visual diary-ing, and best friend Isabella Summers. Like any girl missing her boyfriend of two years ("give or take complications"), Florence turns to her keyboardist for comfort. "I'm so busy that it's actually okay. But when I talk to him it gets a bit... When you wake up in the morning, it's always the hardest. When you wake up, you're like 'ah!'. That's why Isa - who is my keyboardist - we have to share hotels. We get our own hotel rooms and we just have to share a room to sleep, because I get scared as well. I'm such a wuss. I always think people are trying to come in the room and stuff. And I get scared of ghosts and have nightmares. So we always just end up sleeping in each others beds." It's ideal, having a best friend on tour, I agree... "SO nice. I couldn't do it without her I think." But unlike you and me, Florence is the kind of girl whose adventures spin the wheels of the U.K. press. We discuss the kerfuffle over a media-spread story of Jay-Z apparently praising Florence for her DJ-ing talents, at a Donatella Versace's menswear after-party in Milan. "He didn't praise me! He just praised Ray Charles 'I Got A Woman' - the song. *laughs* YEAH!" Was it surreal, I ask? "Mairead [ Nash ] my manager, was the one who was really DJ-ing. I was only there pretending to be Queens Of Noize and I'd never DJ-d before in my life. I was so terrified. But when that sort of stuff happens, you're just like - *exhales* - WHOAH. I saw Jay-Z play at Glastonbury and he was AMAZING." Oh Florence, you're worlds away now from 2008 and your Father driving yourself and a two-man Machine in your step-mother's camper van - supporting MGMT for €75 a show...
COUP DE MAIN: You've been working on your second album... What can we expect on the follow-up to 'Lungs'? FLORENCE WELCH: So far things have been a bit heavier, than they were before... more bass. The one thing I said I wanted, was it to be just bass and drums - like heavy. So that's, been happening. A bit more guitar. A bit harder, punk-ier almost. CDM: The media recently 'reported' that you'd banned booze from your pre-gig rider, due to concerns from your Mother. True? False? FLORENCE: We have not banned booze anywhere, my tour manager will testify to that! We just have a general - don't get too drunk before you're on-stage - because you want to be able to remember your gigs. And you want to make sure you're giving people the best of you, not the drunken mess of you. We used to hit it a lot harder, than we do [ now ]. Especially back on the NME tour. Now, we're the headlining act. When you're a support band you can get away with SO much more. Also, because you're on earlier and people aren't really coming to see you. So you can start drinking at six. By the time the headline act come on it's ten and you're just like - "WHOOAAAHHHHH!!!!!" - So now, we're the headline act; we have to kind of act, like a headline act. CDM: Is entertaining, or your vocal performance, more important during a live show/concert? FLORENCE: I think you should try and mix, but it depends on the atmosphere. And the venue, and how many people, whether it's a festival, or whether it's inside a church. If I'm singing in a church-environment, it's kind of quiet acoustically. Then, it's a lot more about how I perform vocally. Whereas at a festival, you have to just let yourself go. If you hit a bum note but you're really giving it some - then that's not the end of the world.  CDM: You've said that some of the first songs you ever wrote, were imaginary break-up songs about things that hadn't happened to you yet. Do you feel differently about these songs now, in retrospect? FLORENCE: I don't know, because I never recorded any of them. I just probably think they were rubbish. *laughs* CDM: Are you quite a perfectionist when it comes to writing songs? FLORENCE: Yep, I think so. It's half and half, because I'll just sing gibberish - create a vocal melody by doing the music, then just free-singing over it. That's usually how it happens. But then I'll pick my words quite carefully and I'm usually quite analytical of what I'm saying. Whether I should change the phrasing on this - it takes me weeks. CDM: Do you write your lyrics, or music first? FLORENCE: I have a notebook and I'll write down phrases. Or if I see a poster on the wall, a phrase of that might inspire me. Or something I read in a book, or something I see written up somewhere. Or an art-piece, or a title of an art-piece might inspire something. But often, I just sing free-style. Like not really words, and then the words themselves... It's almost like you're translating the music - you're translating it back into words.
CDM: We are now going to play a game! I will give you a start-off word and then in the next thirty seconds, write down as many words one after another, that instantly come to mind. Then using all the words you have written, draw an image using a 'Florence In Wonderland' theme... Your first word is 'Lungs' - go!  CDM: Are there off-stage Florence Welch and on-stage Florence + The Machine personalities, that you switch between? FLORENCE: I think I'm different when I'm actually singing. Because then, it's a different part of me. But as soon as I stop singing... I have to stop speaking in between gigs because everytime I do, I always just revert back to being really polite. I'll be singing, I'll be really carried away in the music and feel really free - it's aggressive, you feel quite powerful - then as soon as I snap back out of the song, I'm just like... "Oh! Hi." It's like being off in a dream and then you suddenly snap back to just being quite a polite, English girl. So, I just try and talk as little as possible now. CDM: What do you do when life gets so crazy you just want to scream? FLORENCE: I usually cry. I've had one day of tears on this tour. But sometimes, it's really hard to write when you're really sad 'cuz you just feel so down on yourself - that everything that comes out, is just so self-involved. Poor me... sometimes I think it's really not the best. You have to try and write about something that's not about how sad you feel inside sometimes, 'cuz often it can just get too depressing. CDM: How important do you think 'change' is to our generation? FLORENCE: I think we're quite a conflicted generation. I think it's really exciting, our generation. I think we have within us the power to really create change. But again, there's also the doom-y side. You know, why bother? But, I don't know. I wouldn't even know how to be a spokesperson for this generation. I mean, I LOVE - the election with Obama was just the most wonderful and inspiring - I watched it happen when I was on tour. We were all staying up and watching it happen. Watching him do his speech was an unbelievable moment. And that really filled me great excitement about the future. We're living in times that are changing, we're living in an age of such important historical events. HUGE events, that we're living through. Like the election of Obama, the Twin Towers, this is all massive. We're living in an age of history. People before, said history was over - [ that ] there would be no more huge historical events - and it's just not the case. It's an exciting and terrifying time to be alive, I think. CDM: Do you believe in making things happen? Or do you believe in fate? FLORENCE: A strange mix of the two, I think. Sometimes things all collide. Like the way I got discovered was, by singing to a manager in a toilet. But at the same time, I was only there because my ex-boyfriend who was my boyfriend at the time, was DJ-ing there. And then the guy who was in his band, then went on to be my first guitarist... and my current boyfriend, was in the same room as well, but we didn't know each other then... and more friends were there... It seems like that one room, held a really weird connection of events and things, that were all tied together. But at the same time, I made that happen by singing to her in the loo. And then, my boyfriend then, went on to be my ex-boyfriend, and my guitarist went on to be my ex-guitarist and... you know. It's a very strange catalyst.  "I look pretty Amish in this. Basically, I look like a Christmas tree?" - FLORENCE WELCH Read our 2009 interview with Florence + The Machine HERE. FLORENCE + THE MACHINE's debut album 'Lungs' is in-stores now. Features the singles 'Kiss With A Fist', 'Dog Days Are Over', 'Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)', 'Drumming Song' and 'You've Got The Love'.  |
