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.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

Imagination Car Vivid

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.

Florence Welch

Men Art Your

I like the idea of taking off like a bird.

Florence Welch

Taking T Off

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

Florence Welch

Age You Well

I'm down to bleach my eyebrows again. I tell you what, though - that didn't go down well with my boyfriend. Girls love it. Guys, not so into it.

Florence Welch

Love You Wit

On stage, you can use your emotions. It's the place where you can channel them. They have a purpose.

Florence Welch

Age Your You

At the beginning of my career I was going through a really weird phase of dressing in boys clothes. I would only wear one American Apparel T-shirt and shorts and brogues the whole year round. Not the same T-shirt, obviously, but one style of American Apparel T-shirt. I think I was going through a tomboy stage.

Florence Welch

Car Age Year

My room is like an antique shop, full of junk, and weird stuff. There's a big sword in there. And a taxidermy bird, and a couple of birdcages. And a lot of newspaper cuttings. I used to have a weird thing about cutting out morbid headlines from newspapers, and collecting them. I was fascinated with drowning, which is kind of strange.

Florence Welch

Age Word Wit

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.

Florence Welch

Men Age 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.

Florence Welch

War Wit Wardrobe

When something really hits me, it makes me want to either jump off something really high or lie down and be buried. I want people to get hit and caught by my music.

Florence Welch

Music Want Us

I'm a light sleeper. I've never been one of those people who can put their head down and suddenly everything disappears. Nighttime is the time I get most scared, anxious or worried. In those darker moments before waking or sleeping is when I feel most, I don't know, I can turn on myself, and my imagination can take me dark places.

Florence Welch

Time Mom Men

It's very flattering when you look into the crowd and people have made an effort and dressed in your style.

Florence Welch

Your You Very

Music can tear me up inside.

Florence Welch

Music Us Up

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.

Florence Welch

Music Where Us

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

Florence Welch

Music Love Us

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.

Florence Welch

Mom Men Yourself

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.

Florence Welch

Imagination Freedom Your

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.

Florence Welch

Music Men Written

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.

Florence Welch

Love Witchcraft Witch

Bono told me how to dance in high heels and he also told me about U2's Glastonbury performance and how everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong, including him ripping his trousers on stage. I think he was lunging and his trousers ripped! He was telling me how he had to find a new way of performing that didn't involve moving.

Florence Welch

I'd gone from being this art student messing about with music to this girl with a record deal, magazine front covers and all this hype. In many ways, it was everything I ever wanted, but when it happened all I felt was total, paralysing fear.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

There's such an extreme feeling to be in love, especially in quite an emotionally destructive relationship, where you're both kind of really bad for each other, but you love each other so much. Those extreme emotions, I think, can only be described with extreme imagery.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

The Teenage Cancer Trust does incredible work supporting and caring for teenagers and young adults with cancer, and it's a cause that is really close to me and my family.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

I'm really careful with what the music gets put with, and we say no to so much stuff, loads of it, for things that might quadruple the sales of my album. But if it doesn't fit then it doesn't fit, you know?

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

'Dog Days' was recorded with pens and the wall, and half a stolen drum kit that was out of tune, in what was basically a cupboard. The only instrument I could really play was my voice, so we just layered everything a hundred times. It was enthusiasm over skill.

Florence Welch

When I first started, especially because I got the Critics' Choice before I'd released an album, there was a lot of scrutiny on what my character was, what my background was, what colour my hair was. I fought quite hard for the music to overtake the personality aspect.

Florence Welch

'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.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

The aesthetic came along the way, I think - just through experimenting, and going on tour, and trying stuff out on stage, having fun with it, and not taking it too seriously. If I had a ballgown at home, I'd wear it onstage. If I found something in a charity shop, I'd wear it. That's where it grew from - just wanting to play dress-up.

Florence Welch

I think music should be scary. Music is an exorcism.

Florence Welch

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

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

Touring, and being in a band, it's almost like the other stuff, the other parts of life, get put on hold.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch

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

Florence Welch

I am obsessed with the whole Victoriana thing, the whole Jack the Ripper London era, the grayness of it, the haunted feeling of it, all ancient and bloody.

Florence Welch

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

Florence Welch

I can't ever seem to shake the feeling that when things are really good it essentially means that things are going to go really bad. When I feel calm and settled, there is always an underlying feeling of impending doom... I don't think that it's healthy.

Florence Welch

I love performing outside because it's as if the heavens are open and the elements become part of the stage show as well - you know, the wind and the rain and the thunder. It's almost as if there's a sense of invocation in performance.

Florence Welch

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.

Florence Welch