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November 3, 2011

Photo: NME

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Between the graceful way she carries her lithe, well-dressed frame and the elegant snap of her British diction, she comes across as a creature airlifted out of a regal if slightly macabre tea party.

"I am obsessed with the whole Victoriana thing," says Welch, 25, lead singer and muse of Florence + The Machine, whose second studio album, Ceremonials, is out now. "The whole Jack the Ripper London era, the grayness of it, the haunted feeling of it, all ancient and bloody."

Welch pauses to sip her to-MAH-to juice here at the W Hotel restaurant — she's in town for a quick performance at an iTunes-sponsored event — then smiles. "It's good to frighten people."

Welch's ethereal music does cause eyes to pop wide, but it's less about fear than wonder.

With an elastic voice that can dance between Kate Bushmelodrama and Otis Redding soul, Welch aims to take the intimate club party started by Amy Winehouse, Duffy and Adele and turn it into a dance-anchored rave (see her performances on the MTV Video Music Awards,Saturday Night Live and The Colbert Report).

Building on the success of Dogs Days Are Over — the hypnotic single (1.8 million downloads and heard in a Glee cover and the Eat, Pray, Love trailer) off her 2009 debut Lungs — Flo, as friends call her, is determined to hammer her vision home withCeremonials.

And that would be … ?

(Warning: Welch speaks in exquisite ellipses, a linguistic world in which thoughts have no stop signs.)

"I wanted to make an album that sounded like the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, the violence mixed with the classical Shakespearean drama mixed with the pop and the pulp, extreme neon stuff."

Here comes a big laugh, as if Welch knows her free association is about to ramp up.

"Oh, and the violence. Mmm. The word itself I'm obsessed with. I wanted to call this whole record just Violence. A violent emotion. You can feel things violently. It's a beautiful word," she says, finally exhaling. "I'm such a non-violent person, too. I keep so much inside. I'm the least aggressive person ever. I can't argue."

Sounds and salvation

If you're picking up complex woman from that quick emotional download, Welch would be the first to concur.

Raised by a mother who teaches Renaissance studies and a father in advertising, Welch saw her childhood turn dark in her early teens when she contended with the suicide of a grandparent. She also learned she had dyspraxia, a form of dyslexia that doesn't affect reading but instead leaves her an organizational wreck.

Sounds became her salvation, she says, recalling early days listening to her father's CDs (The Smiths, Velvet Underground), which proved to be gateway discs to favorites such as Eurythmics and Nirvana. That gave way to "an obsession" with movie soundtracks, particularly Rocky Horror Picture Show and Pulp Fiction.

"Music is my way out. I keep things locked up and never say anything," she says. "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."

An on-again, off-again relationship dances vaguely through the discussion. Welch says that at one point recently, she was keen on getting married and having children. But fame, and a musical mission, has derailed that for now.

"I have a ridiculous life. This is all consuming," she says. "This album will be my life for the next two years. You have to shelve things. You live for that moment on stage when none of that matters, whether you'll ever have a normal life. Because you live in that song."

Such fully committed intensity harks back to the trance-like performances of Janis Joplin, says Gary Trust, associate director of charts/radio for Billboard.

"There are many women out there now mixing R&B and soul, but few are rocking as hard as Florence," he says, noting that the new album's first single, What the Water Gave Me, quickly charted on Billboard's Hot 100. "No one's sitting down when they're listening to Florence + The Machine."

The other compelling aspect of Welch is her look — from her translucent skin to her red hair, all complemented by studied trips to vintage clothing stores and, these days, trips to Paris to compare notes with the designers at Paris Fashion Week.

She's stylishly defiant

"She's a throwback to another era, someone with a '40s movie vibe that mixes with something heavenly in her voice," says Ian Drew, senior music editor at US Weekly. "Florence defies the genre-dropping of today. She is bigger and more celestial than any one style. Her hipster calling card is beyond reproach."

Drew also picks up on an endearing aspect of Welch's persona. While she might appear to be an untouchable siren lost in her art, in real life she's an eager party girl.

"She and Adele share that same thing, a really moody performance personality that, when the show's over, is far from staid," he says.

Welch admits as much. Asked if her idea of a good time is heading to a club with friends, she looks at the ceiling.

"My idea of a good time is, OK, first you start with two or three mates at a pub, then go to a rave, then back to the pub with your mates, then go to a park, then a restaurant, then back to the pub and the mates."

A wistful look crosses her face.

"Those were glorious days. The night you stay out all night is amazing, it's so fleeting because you know you'll feel terrible soon, but right now it's the best, before the crash, so every second of that day is magical," she sighs.

Instead, these are dog days indeed, filled with — most recently — rehearse, record, sleep, repeat, and now the rigors of a publicity tour followed soon by concerts. These days, fun means "dashing out to a museum, or a thrift shop, or holing up in a hotel room watching really bad or really good movies," she says.

Her latest cinematic obsession: Cher's vamp through Burlesque. "Oh, my God, Cher, I love you!" she squeals. "I love, love, love those high camp musicals."

Such giddy release is critical for Welch, who is known for her sonic perfectionism. "The people I work with (five musicians make up The Machine) are aware of my inability to put things down," she says. "Sometimes I have to be taken aside and given a chat."

Drummer and musical director Chris Hayden says Welch is "a lot of fun to be around, but she's very serious about her music. She wants the sound right, and she wants it deep and open."

Hayden says the stated mission of Ceremonials was "to have it organized as an album, not a collection of singles." Welch seconds that, though she doesn't want to give the album one overarching label

.

"It all comes down to the drums," she says, as the waiter sets down her tuna tartare and heirloom tomatoes. "That layering process is huge for me, the swells of music, the overwhelming feelings they create."

One tomato disappears past her red lips.

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

There goes a piece of tuna. But then Welch puts her fork down. She's summoning another wave of thoughts, this one final.

Hallelujah for the stage

"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.

"On stage, it's violent and frightening and overwhelming, and you're disappearing yet completely present." Pause. "It's the hallelujah moment. You know what you've been living for."

Then she's off. A local museum awaits her discerning eye. Then later perhaps another Cher screening. The odd and exotic treadmill of a woman on the march.

Gawd, I love her. Can't wait to sit down and give the new album a proper listen!