The New Yorker Radio Hour - Florence Welch Talks About Life on the Road

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Across five studio albums, Florence and the Machine has explored genres from pop to punk and soul. Florence Welch, the group’s singer and main songwriter, is by turns introspective and theatrical, poetic and confessional. She sat down with John Seabrook at The New Yorker Festival in 2019 to reflect on her band’s rapid rise to stardom. She also spoke about her turn toward sobriety after years of heavy drinking. “The first year that I stopped, I felt like I’d really lost a big part of who I was and how I understood myself,” she says. “What I understood is that that was rock and roll, and, if you couldn’t go the hardest, you were letting rock and roll down.” But eventually getting sober let her connect more deeply with fans and with the music. “To be conscious and to be present and to really feel what’s going on—even though it’s painful, it feels like much more a truly reborn spirit of rock and roll,” she says.  Welch wrote the music and the lyrics for “Gatsby: An American Myth,” which opened in June at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts.This segment originally aired on May 24, 2022.  New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The Great Gatsby was published almost a century ago in 1925. Somehow the story of a very shady, wealthy businessman's downfall hasn't grown stale. It's still widely read and regularly adapted in film and theatrical versions. The most recent adaptation is a new stage musical called Gatsby, an American myth. That voice belongs to Florence Welch,

who leads the band Florence in the Machine, and she wrote music and lyrics to this version of Gatsby. Welch started her career at clubs in London before fronting the band's debut album in 2009. Their third album went to number one in the U.S. 10 years into the band's run, Florence Welch joined us at the New Yorker Festival, along with her band,

and she sat down for an interview with John Seabrook. Thank you so much for having me. Let's jump back to the beginning, to the beginning of your career, which we're talking about a decade here, so it's really not a great deal of time, but you packed a lot into that decade, and you kind of hit the ground running. I thought we would sort of go through your life by talking about a few songs, your professional life. We're going to start with Dog Days are over. I feel like this was a song where you maybe first discovered your song. sound, or at least for me, it was when I first heard your sound, and maybe for a lot of us.

So I wondered if you could talk a little generally about where the song came from and how it fit into what work you were doing at the time. So I had been writing some songs, but because everything was on guitar, and I didn't know how to play guitar, so I just assumed I would be the singer in someone else's band, or I'd be a front woman. and I think there was a kind of internalized self-doubt as well. I didn't know. I'm not like a trained musician.

I didn't have the attention span to sit and learn the piano or the focus. And I was good at singing. And I was like, I'm already good at this thing. So I would write the, they were kind of little Gothic fairy tales. You know, it's so much like, and drama involved. I don't know what I was... Sort of journaling and then moving into songs.

I think I was already trying to process. I just think from an early age, like I felt so much shame, and I don't really know why. I don't know where that came from. And I think those songs were always a way of trying to process what I felt was wrong about me. I always felt very like,

so over-sensitive as a... kid and like I felt like people other people had like a ticket to kind of get through life that I didn't know and how did you get that thing and everyone seems to have a map and I don't and I think these songs were a way of trying to express through these little metaphors how I felt and kind of beautify the things that had happened to me or that I'd done in a way to kind of own them and the first song that I actually wrote, which you can tell, because it's just an ascending scale, was between

two lungs. And that was kind of the first thing that that sort of felt like it really came truly from me, and I was so excited by that. Then the next song that we wrote was Dog Days. That was like the first two.

And I remember how they're not the most complicated chords, but because I'd never fucking played anything, I thought they were amazing. I was just like, I'm making this sound. Can you hear this? It's like, yeah, it's a fucking piano.

It makes that sound for everybody. But because I was the one, like, getting to put them in order and stuff, I just thought, like, this sounds incredible. And we didn't really have any equipment. Like, we stole a drum from someone. And we used, like, pens. stuff and it was kind of the feel of that song came from just a lot of enthusiasm but not really any skill or equipment so that's that's how it came about okay you're ready he's ready we're

ready we're ready happiness I hit her like a train on a track coming towards her Stuck still no turning bad She hid under beds She killed it with kisses And from it she fled With every bubble She sank with a dream And washed it away down the kitchen scene

The dog days are over Thanks Welch at the New Yorker Festival. She spoke with staff writer and master guitar player. John Seabrook will continue in a moment. You're on a bit of a hiatus at the present from touring. Can we talk about how that happened, where that came from? Well, I've been touring since I was 21. I think I'm a person who works in extremes,

and so I just didn't stop. I don't know how to relax. I think that's probably clear. but lungs and ceremonials was just sort of one, I don't know how long that was, then like five years of touring. And I'm not a natural traveler. Like, I'm not...

You don't like flying, I think, right? Oh my God, I'm so scared of flying. Which is tough for an artist to visit international... It's the worst. And I had hypnotism on it, and it wore off. I... It's me that hypnotism wears off. Or I just think my anxiety is so powerful

that it destroyed the hypnotism. It like defeated it. And then I had a break and also a kind of breakdown which is what happens when you don't stop touring for five years. Then when the touring stopped all the structures that I'd been using

with touring you're kind of very taken care of so you could be quite a high functioning fuck up which is what I was very high functioning but kind of of so self-destructive and such a lack of, like, lack of any will to kind of take care of myself. That gets me into the next subject here is drinking, which we both have in common. So after the success of lungs, you were sort of thrown into the world of success and fashion.

And when you read your interviews from that time, you practically, in the interviews, you're falling apart. So I guess it's not surprising that with this life came drinking, but it got to a point where it was unmanageable or beyond. Yeah. I mean, I had insane endurance. That was, but also people would come up to me who I thought were like the craziest drinkers and drug takers I'd ever met and be like, whoa, you go harder than anyone I've ever met. I was like, oh my God. But yeah, I think It was hard I think

I'd grown up in South London And that whole scene is like Punk on a pirate ship You know, it's sort of Pirate folk And it's kind of everyone fend for themselves And the whole gig is like an extended

drinking game where you just have to play in the middle And that's kind of What I understood is that that was rock and roll and if you couldn't go the hardest you were letting rock and roll down and you were letting these legendary people down

but I think really why I would stay out for so long was my you know that sense of shame I spoke about in the beginning that was there before any of the drinking and the drugs I already had that

and then to escape that, you know, it would give me an escape from that, but then the things I did or the things I would say or the way I would treat people, it just confirmed the way that I'd felt as a kid. You know, it was just like, you are bad. There is something wrong with you. And then I would carry on trying to escape it in that way,

but it would just keep getting worse. And if you've been doing that in whatever way since you were 14, by the time you get to 27, you're just, yeah, I couldn't. I just didn't want to feel that way anymore and it was so repetitive and at some point the fun the fun bit had gone and as much as I tried to get it back I just couldn't I think that's it when the fun goes it does not come back um the first year that I stopped I um I felt like I'd really lost a big part of who I was and how I understood myself.

And also I felt like I was like letting down rock and roll history because I couldn't cope. And I had to kind of like kind of rebuild from scratch a little bit. But the thing is, is that now, like, I don't know. I feel like it's almost like the idea of rock and role that we had. Like, I can, we've seen it so many times and it doesn't end well.

And I didn't want to be part of that story. But yeah, then I, then I went back on tour for how big, how blue, how beautiful, after my break slash breakdown. And that was kind of the first tour that I'd done sober.

And yeah, it was amazing. And it really feels much more rock and roll than anything. I ever did when I was drinking is kind of like doing shows and connecting with people. And that, to me, especially with everything going on and in the world, to be conscious and to be present and to really feel what's going on, even though it's painful, it feels like much more a truly reborn spirit of rock and roll.

It feels like that's what it should be about right now. That's beautiful. Hollywood sign we decided to get hurt Now there's a few things we have to burn It's let our hearts ablaze And every city was again And every skyline was like a kiss upon my lips And I was making you weak

And every skyline I'll be how blue Florence Welsh around me And meanwhile the man As he hit the earth I left this place Let the atmosphere surround me

We've opened the door And now it's all coming We've opened our eyes in his train Well, what do we know? Florence Welsh performing with Rob Ackroyd on guitar And Tom Manger on harp. harp. They played how big, how blue, how beautiful. And before that, dog days are over. Welch wrote music and lyrics for Gatsby and American Myth and Martina Mayok wrote the book. It just premiered

at the American Repertory Theater. I'm David Remnick. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I hope you had a great Fourth of July. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of tune yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Alicia Zuckerman. With guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Mike Cutchman, Alex Parrish, Victor Gwan, and Alejandra Deckett.

And we had additional help from Ursula Summer. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.