SHE'S GOT THE LOVE
Over the past decade, Florence Welch has gone from raging against the machine to SEIZING THE DRIVER’S SEAT. The singer tells author and poet Yrsa Daley-ward how she CONQUERED HER DEMONS AND FOUND HOPE
FLORENCE WELCH APPEARED ON THE MUSIC SCENE IN 2008 IN A HAZE OF HEDONISM, RED HAIR AND GLITTER AS THE FRONTWOMAN OF INDIE BAND FLORENCE +
THE MACHINE. Now – a decade later – the band has three number-one multi-platinum albums and countless Grammy, BRIT and MTV awards, while the 32-year-old has landed several Gucci campaigns and published a poetry book.
With one of the most distinctive voices of her generation, Welch’s sound merges music you want to jump up and down and dance to with lyrics that are perhaps best described by Greta Gerwig, the director of Lady Bird, as evoking “the deepest, darkest well of pain”. The single “Hunger”, from her latest album
High As Hope, is a classic example of this tension. It’s a deceptively breezy, upbeat anthem — that exposes her longtime struggle with drugs and an eating disorder.
While creating the album (her fourth), Welch discovered a new sense of clarity and openness, revealing her demons as she frankly described her struggles through song. The album’s release also coincided with her first book Useless Magic: Lyrics
And Poetry (you’ll find her notes and drawings scattered throughout these pages). It is in the book that Welch pledges to readers, “You can have everything.”
Among the women who inspire Welch’s work is friend and fellow poet Yrsa Daley-ward, whose honest approach to poetry in both her anthology Bone and memoir The Terrible has made her a global and social-media sensation. In her book, Welch credits Daley-ward for “her influence, support and setting the bar so high”. ELLE listens in as the two friends discuss taming addictions, the healing power of writing and the joy a great pair of silk pyjamas can bring.
FLORENCE WELCH: We met through [my book club] Between Two Books, didn’t we? The amazing poet Nayyirah [Waheed] wrote the most incredible piece about your work. And I remember reading Bone and being like, “Oh, shit. This is so good.” The poetry really speaks to people, but it’s also accessible. I feel like there’s a real resurgence in poetry at the moment, and it’s so exciting to see how current poets are using social media as a new platform. YRSA DALEY-WARD: It’s like a renaissance of sorts. But I think people have always wanted to read or hear or see something that makes them feel less alone. How did you start writing poetry? >
FW: I’d gone through a lifestyle change — as in, I’d had to stop drinking. I was a party monster and it was getting to the stage where I was just mashing myself to bits all the time. The scariest thing is, I used to think what made me creative was the fact I was a big hedonist. But towards the end, it was actually quite hard to make songs because I was in so much pain and all I was writing about was: “How do I get out of this trap?” The theme of my writing was like: “I’m stuck, I’m fucked, I don’t know how to make this stop. Help, help, help!” I sort of stopped [the abuse] just before I made the track “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful”. To show people this side of yourself, which is so frightening to you, and for people to accept it with love, and to sing it with people, was a really big catharsis. So I just found that my brain was more open. I just kind of wrote it down and let it all go.
YDW: Do you feel a different sense of vulnerability when writing poetry? FW:
What I have found is that – like with songs – poetry has been a safe place for me to put truths. You’ve said it as well: “If you’re afraid to write it, it’s a good sign.” I definitely felt that with some of the songs on this record, I was really afraid.
YDW: What was the fear about? FW:
I was horrified at what I was doing. I was so scared before “Hunger” came out. I don’t know if you felt that way before The Terrible was released?
YDW: Absolutely. There were things in it that I’d never told anybody. I was like, “Oh great. I’ve actually done this on purpose to mess myself up.” FW:
Yes, exactly! There were things in “Hunger” that I still haven’t really spoken about to some of my oldest friends; I don’t really talk to my mum about it. My little sister was like, “What are you doing? You can’t speak about this stuff and you put it in a fucking pop song!” [Laughing]
YDW: It’s like a breakthrough, isn’t it? FW:
I’m not religious, but for me the act of singing has always been such a reverential thing. I’ve always felt this peace when I’m singing.
YDW: But that’s wonderful, because it’s like you channel a goddess. It’s just so natural. It’s instinctive. FW:
There’s a question I get asked quite a lot: about how it feels to be a woman headliner. It’s something I find interesting, because when I’m performing, I don’t really know if I’m in the male or the female. I feel like it’s this strange straddling of both. I feel like both the masculine and the feminine exist inside everybody. I don’t know what that energy is when I’m up there, it seems almost genderless.
YDW: It’s power, we all contain it... FW:
If I go into a studio situation, I know what I’m doing and what I want to do. But when I was younger, especially if it was with an older man, I would end up doing what I thought they wanted to do – and it meant that nothing sounded right. And so when I finally went in to work with Isa [bandmate Isabella Summers], she just let me sit down and do whatever the fuck I wanted at the piano and hit the walls with sticks and it was from that, from the safe space of a female collaborator, that the sound of Florence + The Machine was born. I feel so assured in what kind of music I want to make now and how I want to make it. But it definitely took a while, and I don’t know if you’re just taught to doubt yourself a bit and you have to fight against that.
YDW: We’re conditioned not to feel that confidence of just walking into a room and being like, “I know what I’m doing.” FW:
That’s totally it! I’ve been doing this for 10 years now. And this time, I was finally like, “Yeah, I’m co-producing this one.” I also realised I’ve always been co-producing, but you don’t know you’re allowed to ask for the title [laughing]. I don’t think of myself as an angry person, but often this ferociousness comes out in the music or the lyrics or the songs and I surprise myself. Do you feel there are emotions you access in your work that in your daily life you’re not as aware of?
YDW: 100 per cent. I was brought up religious and had Jamaican grandparents. I learnt to suppress everything and be the most polite person in the world. To this day, if I’m pissed off about something, the person would not know. I’ve learnt how to have that feeling and keep it moving. It doesn’t feel right [at the time], but you don’t really know until you write it down and go, “Hang on, I’m actually really mad about that!” FW:
Yes! I’m like, “Oh fuck, I didn’t know that until I wrote it down!” It’s the sort of revelation that you don’t know until you’re actually in the process of writing. I started to look at my childhood, which was chaotic: there was death and divorce and a lot of uprooting and a lot of disappearance of family structure, which did lead to a sense of emptiness. I love the way you use social media; you seem super up for talking to people and giving advice. I actually really love Instagram as a way to put out poems and artwork. I just find it so addictive. I have to really try to find boundaries around it.
YDW: You have to, because you really need a break from it. It can be a real time thief. But I think you have to get in and get out, and be intentional about what you’re looking at...
FW: I get quite a lot of anxiety every time I post something – I feel this vulnerability of putting something out into the world. [Laughs] Oh my God, so I have this app on my phone, which is the Moon app, and it tells me when it’s a full moon.
YDW: Me too! FW:
Did you just get the weird text from the moon that said, ‘Drank expired orange juice today, ugh’? [In fits of giggles] I was like, who is organising these moon texts, because I’ll do that job on the side, I’ll be the person who texts as the moon. The best thing about Instagram is that Patti Smith has one now. I wrote this song, “Patricia”, [which] is about her. She messaged me on Instagram to be like, “Thank you so much,” and I was just like, “Oh, this is amazing.”
YDW: On a completely different note, I was going to send you a photo this morning... FW:
Oh my gosh! Did you get the pyjamas [from Welch’s sleepwear collection with British department store Liberty]? I’m so glad that you like them. I’ve always been really obsessed with Liberty print, so they let me go into their archive of paisleys from the 1800s and the ‘60s.
YDW: They are so beautiful, I feel really posh in them. They’re the nicest thing I’ve ever lounged in at home. I also love what you wear to perform. You’re always draped in gorgeous fabrics and silks.
FW: I promise you – when I first started performing, I was so messy. But now I find that if I can move in something well, it works. Alessandro [Michele] at Gucci really understands the energy of the way I perform. It’s weird, because I’ve never met anyone who has such a similar aesthetic to me. A lot of my performance influences came from watching Otis Redding, Mick Jagger and Nick Cave, so my influences were masculine. But then to subvert that with the femininity of the dresses, I always found that quite interesting. To try and be scary and strong, but in a nightie.
YDW: And I love it! That’s power... You are channelling every single part of your energy. FW:
So I was watching this documentary on The Beatles, and in it there was a concert that Allen Ginsberg and all the beat poets performed at in the ’60s at the Royal Albert Hall and I just thought that we should fucking do that again! I would really love to get poets, like yourself, down to hear poetry. I might need your help. We’d have to get a load of poets together...
YDW: Yes! Oh my God. That would be amazing. FW:
It’s on! We’ll do it! Ah well, I’m going to let you go, but I miss you!
YDW: This has been a pleasure. So much love! by Florence Welch by Florence
($49.99, Fig Tree) and her album
+ The Machine are both out now
Useless Magic: Lyrics And Poetry High As Hope
“To show people this SIDE OF
YOURSELF… was a really big CATHARSIS”