When it comes to barmy Brits, 23-year-old Florence Welch, the flame-haired siren behind Florence and The Machine, has Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen beat. Her Mercury Prize-nominated debut Lungs combines ex-boyfriend death threats with witchy-woman wanderings, resulting in a bombastic, emotional ride that runs the diva landscape from Annie Lennox to Sinead O’Connor to PJ Harvey. EYE WEEKLY spoke to the singer over a plate of edamame at the Rivoli, the morning after her Canadian debut at the Mod Club on Monday night.
Welcome to North America, Florence. I was reading a SPIN review of your show at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom and the reviewer said that it was “vagina rock for dudes.”
Oh my God — what does that mean?
Exactly. I was wondering what you thought about that.
I have no idea what that means, I really don’t know. What else did it say? Was it a good review?
It was a good review.
Oh, OK!
It was positive. But that phrase, “vagina rock,” seemed sort of insulting to me.
Yeah, “vagina rock”… now that is a horrible phrase. I wouldn’t back that phrase, to be honest. But there’s always this idea with women and powerful singing that they have to point out the fact that you have a vagina. Can’t you just say, “Guys like it as well?” It’s like, “oh my God she’s a woman! Do you think she has a vagina?” Yeah, I probably do! It’s so ridiculous. Oh sorry, what was your question?
Well it’s interesting when you consider how many “vagina rockers” have come out of the UK recently. There’s a pretense that every female singer is going to write a confessional song about giving head to their ex-boyfriend.
Mm-hmm.
But there’s also a more creative subset to that. Your music is very emotional, but also very literary.
Well I always wanted to create music that couldn’t be placed in a time frame. Like, I wouldn’t sing about a mobile phone, because you’d be able to trace that to a particular period of time. I always wanted to deal with things that were bigger sorts of subjects with a broad spectrum. But maybe I’m being cowardly. Maybe I’m just not brave enough to talk about what’s actually happening to me. I’d rather hide behind metaphors so people don’t get pissed off for me talking about them.
Really?
Well, that’s one way of looking at it.
But Lungs is an especially violent breakup record.
The first songs I wrote when I was 11 were about imaginary heartbreak, before I even had a boyfriend. So I was already starting to move toward the darker side of love. I think most of (the songs on the album) are love songs; they’re just about the not-so-nice aspects of it. There are songs on Lungs that are about love, though. “Between Two Lungs” is about love in positive way. But I’m attracted to the juxtaposition of the euphoria of music mixed with uncomfortable imagery.
The problem is, every song on the record is so emotional and sweeping, it can be an exhausting listen.
It’s exhausting to play. I need to chill out! All the songs were written from a period of 17 to 22, and that is exhausting. Maybe when I make to 30 I’ll calm down and make a really mellow album, but writing about those experiences — first love, first heartbreak, falling in love again — seemed so catastrophic at the time. Now I can look back on it with a kind of maturity… but being 23, you’re not a teenager, you’re not an adult and you can still fuck up.
You also take a visually intensive approach to performance.
Well, I think music is about escapism. When I listen to music, I’m also building pictures in my head. Music creates visuals, and I think it’s important to incorporate that into a live set, to really draw people in. When you create the landscape you’re imagining, it’s cool to see it in reality. When we studied installation art at art college, we learned how to create different environments. My room at home is like this junk shop. So I wanted to bring that onstage.
There’s always this idea over here of UK artists only being "big in England.” Do you feel like crossing over to North America is the ultimate definition of success?
I’m not really sure what being successful is, I’m still trying to be a successful human being. I think I’m just here to see how it goes — if it doesn’t work, I’m not gonna feel like I’m a complete failure. I still made enough, which I think is a success. There’s so many ways that the album could’ve not gotten made, so for it to just exist is a success. The whole music business side just baffles me. I’ll sing, I’ll talk; don’t ask me to understand the business…
Not to mention that you entered the music business at the worst possible time.
But I don’t look at it as a business. You know my mum said, “If I thought you were entering this to make money, I would tell you to stop because you would be really stupid.” I’m not doing it for monetary reasons; I’m just doing it because I really love it.
Do you feel like you have a compulsion to make music?
Definitely. I’ve been making music in some capacity all my life. When I’m not doing it, I feel weird, I feel really at odds with myself. I remember just lying awake at night when I was 17 and thinking, “I have to do something with this music, I must write my songs.” I’m much calmer now that the album’s actually made. The whole process of making it and the lead-up was really tumultuous. Because it’s quite an anxious process, getting signed, not being signed, making the album, how you’re going to make the album, finishing the album. It’s really stressful.
And now it’s out and you have no control over how it’s going to be received.
And that’s kind of a relief.