I look really odd in jeans and a hoodie - it doesn't feel or seem right.
— Florence Welch
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.
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 definitely have a real self-destructive streak.
I think music should be scary. Music is an exorcism.
I was having a conversation with my father and he was talking about this thing - strangeness and charm. It's actually the name of the two smallest particles that there are when you split the atom, so I wrote a song around it. I even managed to fit the word 'hydrogen' in there. Isn't that a nice thing for scientists to call them though?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 like the idea of taking off like a bird.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's very flattering when you look into the crowd and people have made an effort and dressed in your style.
Music can tear me up inside.
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.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
'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 quite like the drama of an encore. I think an encore is for those artists who are inclined to do dramatic gestures, and I certainly would say I am inclined towards them.
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 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?
I've always been attracted to romantic secondhand clothes. But my style developed as I started going to these strange raves where everybody had these very definitive costumes.
I used to dress like an eight-year-old boy. Traveling has inspired me to be more experimental.
I love that sense of release as you throw yourself into the crowd as hundreds of arms are carrying you.
You should have high expectations for yourself and others should come second.
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 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.
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.
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 always wanted to sound like a man, like Jeff Buckley or Tom Waits.
I love Lady Gaga and I love Katy Perry and R&B and rap music... I love big, American pop music.
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.
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.
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.
I think an encore is perfectly acceptable, but I find it so weird when people do two or three.
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.
I'm pretty obsessed with Stevie Nicks from her style to her voice. I like watching her on YouTube and her old performances, the way she moves and everything.
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.
I like to wear clothes that I will wear when I am an old lady.
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.
My mum wanted me to go to university.
The sense of jubilee for music and what we're making is always genuine.
