Florence Welch Talks About Life on the Road
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Listener supported. WNYC Studios. Hey, it's Latif from Radiolab. Our goal with each episode is to make you think, how did I live this long and not know that? Radiolab. Adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Listen wherever you get podcasts. 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 and 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. Ten 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. The dog days are over, the dog days are over

I feel like this was a song where you maybe first discovered your 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 this 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 guilt and drama involved. I don't know what I was... Starting a journal, 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 oversensitive as a kid and, like,

I felt like other people had 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 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?" He's like, "Yeah, it's the fucking piano. It makes that sound for everybody." But because I was the one getting to put them in order and stuff, I just thought, "This sounds incredible."

We didn't really have any equipment, like we stole a drum from someone and we used like pens and 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 how it came about. Okay, you're ready? He's ready. He's ready. We're ready. We're ready. If you want to, yeah.

Happiness that hit her like a train on a track Coming towards her, stuck still, no turning back

She hid around corners and 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 down the kitchen sink. The dark days are over. The dark days are done.

Horses are coming, so you better run. Run fast, run for your children, for your sisters, and for running behind. You can't carry it, we want to survive. But don't, don't, can you hear the horses? Cause he has anything from you. He said he was left after that.

Florence Welch at the New Yorker Festival. She spoke with staff writer and master guitar player John Seabrook. We'll continue in a moment.

Hello again, WNYC. It's Andrea Bernstein. I co-hosted the podcast Trump Inc. This August, I'm guest hosting The Law According to Trump, a special series on amicus from Slate. Long before this year's historic Supreme Court term, Donald Trump created a blueprint for shielding himself from legal accountability on everything from taxes to fraud to discrimination. Listen now on amicus as we explore Trump's history of bending the law to his will. Search amicus wherever you're listening.

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 thing.

I don't know how long that was then, like five years of touring. And I'm not a natural traveler. You don't like flying, I think, right? Oh my God, I'm so scared of flying. Which is tough for an artist who is an international... It's the worst. And I had hypnotism on it and it wore off. I...

Nobody told 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. Right. Which is what I was. Very high-functioning, but kind 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

It got to a point where it was unmanageable or beyond. Yeah, I mean, I had insane endurance. 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. 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, 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. 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. 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. And also I felt like I was letting down rock and roll history because I couldn't cope. And I had to kind of like...

kind of rebuilt 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 roll that we had, like...

And we've seen it so many times, it doesn't end well. And I didn't want to be part of that story. But yeah, 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. It's kind of like...

doing shows and connecting with people and that to me especially with everything going on 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

Between the crucifix and the Hollywood sign, we decided to get hurt. Now there's a few things we have to break. Set our hearts ablaze and every city was a geek. And every skyline was like a kiss upon my lips and I was making you weak. And every skyline I've been out.

How beautiful, baby. How blue, beautiful. And meanwhile, a man was falling from space. Every day I wore your face like an atmosphere on me. A satellite sighting. Meanwhile, a man was falling from space. As he hit the earth, I let go.

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How do I be till you are? So much time on the other side waiting for you So much time on the other side waiting for you to wake up Maybe I'll see you in another life if this one wasn't enough So much time on the other side of you

Florence Welch performing with Rob Aykroyd on guitar and Tom Monger on harp. They played How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, and before that, Dog Days Are Over. Welch wrote music and lyrics for Gatsby in American Myth, and Martina Mayock 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 Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Alicia Zuckerman, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Mike Kutchman, Alex Parrish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett.

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