FLORENCE + THE MACHINE
INTERVIEW BY ELLY SMITH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDRÉ PAUL PINCES
STYLING BY LEILA BANI AT THEYREP.COM, ASSISTED BY BRENNA HOLLER
HAIR BY TANIA BECKER AT NOBASURA
MAKE-UP BY SONIA LEAL-SERAFIM AT THEYREP.COM
—
Before Hollywood gobbled up her first album Lungs to accompany scenes from Grey’s Anatomy, Jennifer’s Body and the latest Twilight movie; before music videos of flowery floating coffins and leggy dancing in gargantuan churches; before “The Machine” even existed, Florence Welch was a south London art-schooler who made provocative statements with artificial flowers and baked a cake with the words, “It’s going to get worse” iced on the top before eating it as part of a performance. This is a girl whose mum partied at Studio 54, who’s been compared to Kate Bush and Aretha Franklin, who gives Gaga a run for her money with her treasure-trove wardrobe. Twenty-three years of living aside, this girl is a legend. Fortunately, she is the sweetest, most personable superstar imaginable. We talked about books, free speech, subatomic particles and crowd surfing in a chainmail dress.
ELLY SMITH—Hi Florence! I really want to know what you’re wearing.
FLORENCE WELCH—What am I wearing? I’m actually in my pajamas because I’m at home and I just got up – it’s really disappointing. I’m trying to spend as much time as possible not dressed up when I can. I’m a big fan of pajamas at the moment.
ES—Your outfits are always so creative. I saw an interview where you talked about a friend dressing you in a gown made of metal.
FW—The chainmail thing?
ES—Yeah, the chainmail dress.
FW—It’s not that good for crowd-surfing because it was quite heavy. When I first started touring my friend came along with me and we didn’t really have access to a lot of different clothes so we just piled all our clothes in a suitcase and took them with us, and we used to play dress-up before I went on stage, and it was just part of the mishmash that we’d thrown in there.
ES—While you were crowd-surfing in chainmail, one of your songs was chosen to appear on the soundtrack for the new Twilight movie, Eclipse. Have you noticed any new fans or attention from your song’s inclusion in the franchise?
FW—I have no idea. Maybe… I don’t really check the Internet, so to be honest I would be clueless. I didn’t even know the song had come out until yesterday.
ES—No fanmail or anything?
FW—I don’t really do the Internet thing. I’m really shit at keeping updated with Twitter and all that kind of stuff. I sort of forget about it a bit. It’s amazing for me to have done the song. I love the Twilight books and I thought the last two films were really good, and I’d wanted to do something for them. It’s amazing that I got a song in there. I’m sure it has put me in touch with people who wouldn’t have thought to listen to me before, but I don’t really know if they are.
ES—A lot of your music is featured in movies and TV shows. Do you think your songs have a particular cinematic quality, or do you just have really good relationships with music supervisors?
FW—I always wanted to make quite epic-sounding music. I think my favorite artists are people like Arcade Fire and Interpol, and I’ve being listening to the new Peter Gabriel album Scratch My Back which is just acoustic covers – it’s all strings and drums and big swelling melodies and it’s so powerful. I think I’d always wanted to make something that was quite ambitious in its sound; quite grand, because that’s always the music I’ve been drawn to. Music is such an emotional thing for me, like performing, and I guess that comes across in the songs.
Continue Reading This Article 1 2 3 4 5
