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.

[MUSIC - Florence & The Machine: Over the Love]

Now there's green light in my eyes

And my lover on my mind

David Remnick: That voice belongs to Florence Welch, who leads the band Florence + 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 US. 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.

[cheering]

Florence Welch: Thank you so much for having me.

John Seabrook: Let's jump back to the beginning of your career, which we were talking about a decade here. It's really not a great deal of time, but you packed a lot into that decade and you hit the ground running. I thought we would go through your life by talking about a few songs, your professional life. We're going to start with Dog Days Are Over.

[MUSIC - Florence Welch & The Machine: Dog Days Are Over]

The dog days are over

The dog days are done

The horses are coming

So you better run

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father

John Seabrook: I feel like this was a song where you maybe first discovered your sound. 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.

Florence Welch: 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 frontwoman. I think there was a kind of internalized self-doubt as well. I'm not a trained musician. I didn't have the attention span to sit and learn the piano or the focus. I was good at singing. I was like, "I'm already good at this thing." They were little gothic fairy tales, so much guilt and drama involved. I don't know what I was--

John Seabrook: Sort of journaling and then moving into songs?

Florence Welch: I just think from an early age, I felt so much shame and I don't really know why. I don't know where that came from. I think those songs were always a way of trying to process what I felt was wrong about me. I always felt very so over-sensitive as a kid. I felt other people had a ticket to get through life that I didn't know, and how did you get that thing? Everyone seems to have a map and I don't. I think these songs were a way of trying to express through the little metaphors how I felt and beautify the things that had happened to me or that I'd done in a way to own them.

The first song that I actually wrote, which you can tell because it's just an ascending scale, was Between Two Lungs. That was the first thing that felt like it really came truly for me. I was so excited by that. Then the next song that we wrote was Dog Days. That was the first two. 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, "Yes, it's a fucking piano. It makes that sound for everybody." 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. We stole a drum from someone. We used pens and stuff. The feel of that song came from just a lot of enthusiasm, but not really any skill or equipment. That's how it came about. You're ready?

Speaker 4: She's ready.

Speaker 5: He's ready.

Speaker 4: We're ready.

Florence Welch: We're ready.

[laughter]

[MUSIC - Florence Welch & The Machine: Dog Days Are Over]

Florence Welch: You can get up if you want to.

Happiness 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 drink

And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over

The dog days are done

The horses are coming

So you better run

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father

Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers

Leave all your love and your longing behind

You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over

The dog days are done

Can you hear the horses?

'Cause here they come

And I never wanted anything from you

Except everything you had

And what was left after that too, oh

Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back

Struck from a great height

By someone who should have known better than that

The dog days are over

The dog days are done

Can you hear the horses?

'Cause here they come

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father

Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers

Leave all your love and your longing behind

You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over

The dog days are done

Can you hear the horses?

'Cause here they come

Here they come

Here they come

Here they come

[applause]

John Seabrook: You're on a bit of a hiatus at the present from touring. Can we talk about how that happened, where that came from?

Florence Welch: 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 one-- I don't know how long that was, like five years of touring, and I'm not a natural traveler.

John Seabrook: You don't like flying, I think?

Florence Welch: Oh my God, I'm so scared of flying.

John Seabrook: Which is tough for an artist who is an international--

Florence Welch: It's the worst, and I had hypnotism on it, and it wore off.

[laughter]

Florence Welch: Nobody told me that hypnotism wears off, or I just think my anxiety is so powerful that it destroyed the hypnotism.

John Seabrook: Oh.

[laughter]

Florence Welch: It defeated it. Then I had a break, and also a breakdown, [chuckles] 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 very taken care of, so you could be quite a high-functioning fuck-up, [laughter] which is what I was. Very high-functioning, but so self-destructive, and such a lack of any will to take care of myself.

John Seabrook: That gets me into the next subject here, which is drinking, which we both have in common.

Florence Welch: [laughs]

John Seabrook: After the success of Lungs, you were 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. I guess, it's not surprising that with this life came drinking, but it got to a point where it was unmanageable or beyond.

Florence Welch: Yes. I had insane endurance, but also people would come up to me who I thought were the craziest drinkers and drug takers I'd ever met and be like, "Whoa, you go harder than anyone I've ever met."

[laughter]

Florence Welch: I was like, "Oh my God."

John Seabrook: [laughs]

Florence Welch: Yes, it was hard. I'd grown up in South London, and that whole scene is like punk on a pirate ship. It's pirate folk, and it's everyone fend for themselves, and the whole gig is like an extended drinking game where you just have to play in the middle. That's 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. 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?

John Seabrook: Yes.

Florence Welch: 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." Then I would carry on trying to escape it in that way, but it would just keep getting worse. If you've been doing that in whatever way since you were 14, by the time you get to 27, I just didn't want to feel that way anymore. It was so repetitive.

At some point, the fun bit had gone. 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. Also, I felt like I was letting down rock and roll history because I couldn't cope. I had to rebuild from scratch a little bit. The thing is, is that now, I don't know.

I feel like it's almost like the idea of rock and roll that we had, we've seen it so many times and it doesn't end well. I didn't want to be part of that story. Then I went back on tour for How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful after my break/breakdown. That was the first tour that I'd done sober. Yes, it was amazing, and it really feels much more rock and roll than anything I ever did when I was drinking.

John Seabrook: That's great.

Florence Welch: It's kind of doing shows and connecting with people. 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.

John Seabrook: That's beautiful.

[applause]

[MUSIC - Florence & The Machine: How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful]

Between a crucifix and the Hollywood sign, we decided to get hurt

Now there's a few things we have to burn

Set our hearts ablaze, and every city was a gift

And every skyline was like a kiss upon the lips

And I was making you a wish

In every skyline

How big, how blue, how beautiful

How big, how blue, how beautiful

And meanwhile a man was falling from space

And every day I wore your face

Like an atmosphere around me

The satellite beside me

And meanwhile a man was falling from space

As he hit the earth I left this place

Let the atmosphere surround me

The satellite beside me

What are we gonna do?

We've opened the door, now it's all coming through

Tell me you see it too

We opened our eyes and it's changing the view

Oh, what are we gonna do?

We opened the door now, it's all coming through

How big, how blue, how beautiful

How big, how blue, how beautiful

So much time on the other side

Waiting for you to wake up

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

(Ooh, ooh, ooh)

(Ooh, ooh, ooh)

(Ooh, ooh, ooh)

[applause]

John Seabrook: Florence Welch performing with Rob Ackroyd 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: An American Myth, and Martyna Majok wrote the book. It just premiered at the American Repertory Theater.

 

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