Top 55 Florence Welch Quotes

I’m one of those people that is up for most things. When I was offered to sing at the Oscars I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to know what that’s like!’ I’m always curious to know what things are like – as long as you’re not compromising who you are.

The stage is a place where I can be wholly myself. Even though you’re in front of people almost to be judged, it is a place without judgement.

When making the first album, I think I wrote a song about every six months. The first album was so much about the vocals carrying it.

Maybe in music you’re making an auditory environment and maybe you change your environment around you to suit your own way.

When I am with my family, then I can just sort of switch off. It’s kind of weird, because I go back and I go into this bedroom that I have had since I was a teenager. It is like this parallel universe, because one minute I am on the red carpet and then the next I am hiding out in this room I have had since I was 15.

I started off singing in church as a child. The sound of voices coming together, that was my first moment of touching something outside of myself.

I’ve got quite a vivid imagination and I’m easily overwhelmed by sensations and things that are beautiful or scary. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ghost – I think I’m probably haunted by my own ghosts than real ones.

I can’t wait to get on stage, because there you don’t worry about whether you’ll ever get married because your life is insane, or whether you’ll ever have another boyfriend again, you don’t worry about the typical boundaries of how your life has to be.

I dyed my hair red when I was ten and when I was 11 – in my goth period – I dyed it black and I was really into witchcraft. I made mini shrines in my bedroom with candles and tried to cast spells to make the boy in the next class fall in love with me. I don’t think he did.

The first album, for better or for worse, was done over from the ages of 17-22, with a couple of different producers. Some of it was recorded in an old swimming pool, some of it was recorded in a synagogue – it kind of was all over the place.

I’m a choir girl gone horribly, desperately wrong.

Music can tear me up inside.

I saw ‘The Artist.’ It’s really beautiful and it’s all done to the letter with all the silent film techniques. The costumes were amazing and the dog is so good.

I’ve been having this really weird anxiety dream about arriving too late or too early, and the people in charge are like, ‘You have to leave! You have to go back to the hotel and get ready!’ And I use the wrong exit, and I’m running down the red carpet in pyjamas, like, ‘No! Don’t look at me!’

When I’m singing I’m always trying to get to the highest point possible. I’d fly to the top of Buckingham Palace to sing to the queen.

During the songs, you transcend yourself. The best way to be in the performance is to be without pause and be essentially in the moment, in that moment of expression.

I feel things in quite an intense way. I’m not actually the most intense person.

I got to live out my 11-year-old fantasies – I got to go on stage with Green Day. Billie Joe called my name from the stage. ‘Dookie’ was the first album I ever bought. I covered the whole of ‘Nimrod’ and he’d heard it. That was like the 11-year-old girl dreamed.

I’m completely in love with the world but also terrified of it. It creates some overwhelming feelings. Wanting to battle out that joy and fear is part of my music.

If you asked me to go back to being 14 or 15, I couldn’t – it was a terrifying time. I was so awkward in my own skin. I used to hide behind my hair because I was so ridiculously self-conscious.

My siblings and I were friends with the boys who would become our stepbrothers – we grew up on the same street. I feel very special to have these amazing people in my life and if we hadn’t all moved into this big house together I think I would have missed out on that, because we would have drifted apart.

You know, people always ask, ‘What are you like offstage?’ And I always say, ‘Well, I’m completely normal and mellow.’

I didn’t want to become a personality, I wanted to be a musician, but because I didn’t have an album to stand by yet it was hard for people to see that. But now, two albums in, I’m happy with things.

Growing up, I always wanted to be in punk bands, so I’m really enjoying the harder, heavier element. It’s always been my dream to have people moshing at my gig, kind of that really feral element of the music coming out more. I love crowd-surfing.

The release of ‘Lungs’ was so hard. It was terrifying, because it was the first time doing everything. The first experiences of media exposure were almost paralysing. I spent a lot of time crying on the floor of the studio – it sent me a bit mad.

I’ve got some incredible fans actually – so loyal and they make me birthday cards and Christmas cards. I got this package of poems and artwork based around the songs. They’ve got this thing called ‘Floetry’ where they all have to put in artwork. They’ve set up their own competitions and stuff which is kind of amazing.

When you’re heartbroken, you’re at your most creative – you have to channel all your energies into something else to not think about it. Contentment is a creativity killer, but don’t worry – I’m very capable of making myself discontented.

‘Spectrum’ is in part a disco song. But we play it hard, and it’s a real euphoric, wailing tune. It’s kind of like a total house anthem, in a way, but it seems to be going down really well. We’ve got all the grunge kids going mad for disco house raves.

I feel a responsibility to the fans who have paid to see me and I want to give as good a show as I possibly can.

It would be too frightening for me to consider myself a role model. But I like the idea of not being afraid of letting your imagination rule you, to feel the freedom of expression, to let creativity be your overwhelming drive rather than other things.

I always wanted to sound like a man, like Jeff Buckley or Tom Waits.

I made music with my friend, who we called Isabella Machine to which I was Florence Robot. When I was about an hour away from my first gig, I still didn’t have a name, so I thought ‘Okay, I’ll be Florence Robot/Isa Machine’, before realising that name was so long it’d drive me mad.

I think I should get a bigger between-the-song persona, so then I’m not wandering around the stage like some mad old auntie that’s saying hello to people and falling over.

I’d experimented with so many different types of music. I had these folky songs I’d written and recorded, but something wasn’t quite right.

I have this sensation of being in flight all the time, but being on stage is like creating a sanctuary in which you can completely lose yourself. The bits of your personality that you keep under wraps in ordinary life, you can let them run free.

I get in fights with my sister all the time. She comes on the road with me and we fight – like sisters do.

I’ve got my ideal job. I like to sing, I like to dance, I like to bang drums and dress up, and someone pays me – it’s incredible.

I’m quite glad I never learned to play the guitar, because I think I’d write songs that were more classically structured. As it is, I’ve had to create my own way of writing, which isn’t typical. Everything’s a big crescendo.

But I was always much more interested in reading fashion magazines than I was music magazines when I was a teenager. Just that sense of romanticism and escapism and the dream of it has always been quite alluring to me, as well as that sense of becoming a character through clothes.

I love Lady Gaga and I love Katy Perry and R&B and rap music… I love big, American pop music.

My style of playing is more enthusiasm and instinct than skill.

I think I just get excited by music, and, like, singing is a very physical thing. It releases endorphins in your body. You’re using almost muscle in there, and I think that adrenaline really helps to kind of make the songs fresh every time.

I’ve always been able to just concoct a melody quite easily – it’s just kind of instinct, really. You’ve got to channel your subconscious.

When you play, it’s like you know that there are people out there who are hearing it for the first time, and I think that’s really important.

Music to me is so internal. It’s physical and it’s emotional. Whereas fashion is so much about the external that it’s almost like a break. It’s not inner turmoil. It’s total escapism.

Music is my way out. I keep things locked up and never say anything. I guess in order to say something to one person, I have to sing it to a couple of thousand. It doesn’t make for healthy relationships.

I always seem to feel that everything is about to cave in on me. I think that maybe music is my protection from that and in some senses it’s an outlet to turn it into something euphoric: embracing the eventual decline.

I definitely have a real self-destructive streak.

I love that sense of release as you throw yourself into the crowd as hundreds of arms are carrying you.

I’ve built my wardrobe color palette around red, so I’m happy with it, but I do get pangs when I see beautiful brunettes. I’ve already been blue, green, black, and blonde.

The sense of jubilee for music and what we’re making is always genuine.

I’m just a black hole for stuff. No one should ever hand me anything, because I get so easily distracted. I’ll be like, ‘Oh, look, something shiny!’ I’m glad I never learned how to drive. I would be really dangerous.

I try to write lyrics so that they won’t age, which sort of leaves you with the big subjects like death and love and sex and violence.

I think an encore is perfectly acceptable, but I find it so weird when people do two or three.

Look, if Givenchy is going to lend you a dress, I’m not going to turn it down. I would wear that dress to just go out and buy a pint of milk if they would lend it to me.