Florence Welch tells Apple Music about the meaning behind ‘Everybody Scream’ and the fear of releasing new music
Zane Lowe: You’ve taken your time and come back and once again, you’ve planted a new flag in the ground. It feels like something we all want to stand around. What a record.
Florence Welch: Thank you so much. I’m feeling okay. I’ve gotten past the week before I have to release something where I just go, “What am I doing?! Why would I do this again?! I’m so scared! I made a huge mistake!”
Zane: What’s the fear rooted in?
Florence: It’s a strange thing. It’s interesting because it’s also what the song is about, which is about being an artist, and also being someone who’s kind of stressed sometimes about being visible or being out in the world, and who finds it kind of overwhelming to put out work. There’s always a bit of me that wants to keep hiding—like, “No no no, I’m not ready, put it off.” This time, I challenged myself to not delay a record. I was like, “Just move through the fear and put it out.” The song itself is about the pull back to the stage and why I always keep going back there, even though every time it takes a little bit more from me.
Florence Welch tells Apple Music about the trepidation of going back on stage
It’s like, why do I keep going back there? It gives me something I can’t get anywhere else, and what is that thing? There’s a line: “Here I can take up the whole up the sky/Unfurling becoming my full size”—there’s a part of me that wants to hide and not be seen, but there’s this huge thing in me that needs to get out, and the stage is the only place, for my whole life, where I’ve felt could hold how big my feelings are, and the people that come to my shows, that we get to connect like that.
Florence Welch tells Apple Music about feeling “possessed” on stage
I really wanted it to feel when you had it like you were at the show, that you were taken over by something, because it is a possession for me when I’m onstage, and there is something there that takes over me that isn’t me. I wanted people when they heard the song to feel that possession, to feel compelled to move, compelled to dance, compelled to scream, to be kind of taken over by this sound.
Florence Welch tells Apple Music about ‘Everybody Scream’ as a title
The title for this song came before there was even a song, because honestly, I just wanted to write a song that rhymed with Florence + the Machine. I was like, “Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a title track that’s also the title of a record that rhymed with Florence + the Machine?” (laughs) I was just like, “I just really want it to rhyme!” There was a playlist that was like “Songs to Scream Along To” and I was like, “What does that mean? You just put this playlist on and scream alone in your house, into the floor?” I kind of was thinking about this and this phrase people use onstage: “Everybody scream!” in this sort of celebratory way. What if it just meant, scream into the ground?
Florence Welch tells Apple Music about working with Mark Bowen of IDLES
Bowen kind of reached out on ‘Dance Fever’. He really loved that record, and wanted to do a remix, and was like, “If you ever want to get in the studio together…” I loved the IDLES remix of ‘Heaven is Here’, it’s amazing. We just got in the studio; I don’t think we actually meant to write as much of the record together, it just happened. We ended writing up like, maybe half the songs for this record together. I find it is so raw what he does, but there’s so much emotion in it. I cry at IDLES songs—I ugly cry at them—because there’s an emotion to the chords that he uses, and the discordance. It really is so full of feeling. I feel like we really connected in terms of emotion.
Florence Welch tells Apple Music about working with Mitski and the “Swans vs Adele” mention she posted on Instagram
When we started working together, I sent Bowen a playlist, and [Swans’] ‘It’s Coming It’s Real’ was on there. I remember hearing that song and just the build and intensity of it, it’s so ominous. I think that I was looking for was an ominous feeling but that also has clarity and beauty, and those incredible soaring choruses of Adele, and incredible ballads. We were looking a lot at pop as well, and the amazing things that are happening in pop, where it’s so experimental at the moment. We were listening to ‘Angel of My Dreams’ by JADE a lot in the studio, and it was like pulling all those things together. Me and Bowen started sharing a Notes app as well, and I would put lyrics in there. I just had “Florence + the Machine, Everybody Scream,” and that was it. Bowen came in and was like, “That looked like a title track to me.” He had this glam rock thing that started out but then it broke down into this drone discordance that was really shocking, and sounded like a sonic scream. I was just listing “everybody do this, everybody do that!” and the song really didn’t become what it was until Mitski came onboard. She came to the studio one day and was like, “You need a chorus.” (laughs) “I just feel like there’s a chorus coming after this drone, it’s so striking.” Working with her, honestly, she’s one of my favorite artists of all time. Getting to work with Bowen and Mitski on this record is just so special to me. I didn’t know if she even worked on other peoples’ records, but I reached out: “I know you’re in town for shows, would you like to come to the studio?” And she said yes! We discussed what the song was about because it was just a list of commands at that point, and she was like, “I think you’re talking about the intimacy you have with the stage—and I have that, too.” We just started talking about that, and the song emerged from us talking about this thing. It was such an amazing couple of days.
Florence Welch tells Apple Music that ‘Everybody Scream’ is her most personal record to date
Florence: I think this is my most personal record to date, I think, which has also made it in some ways my most mythological. I had to find a world that I could build around it that was really solid … When am I outside is quite a good question for me and something my friends ask me a lot: “Have you been outside today? Did you get out of the cry corner? Have you stopped screaming into the ground?” This isn’t the cry corner. I’m in my study. The lungs from ‘Lungs’ are in here, there’s artwork from all the albums, this is a happy corner. The cry corner is elsewhere (laughs). The record is coming out on Halloween. It was like, Florence + the Machine, ‘Everybody Scream’, out on Halloween— I‘m really happy we managed to make it all rhyme.
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