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.”

“I look really odd in jeans and a hoodie - it doesn't feel or seem right.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

“My mum wanted me to go to university.”

“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 always been a bit of a decorator. I think if I wasn't a singer I'd probably be in stage setting or interior design or something. I like clutter and I'm quite visually greedy. I can't have things to be plain; I have to have things looking interesting... maybe I'm just a frustrated interior designer stuck in a singing career.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“'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.”

“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've learned not to hide behind a veil of irony - to talk about my work in a more honest way.”

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

“The sense of jubilee for music and what we're making is always genuine.”

“I like the idea of taking off like a bird.”

“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 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.”