Interview

If there were ever any doubts about Florence Welch’s self-possession as a performer, they were quickly dispelled during her set at the Met’s Costume Institute Gala last May honoring the late Alexander McQueen. Backed by her band, The Machine, her improbably red red hair loose to the shoulders, and her impossibly long, lean, five-foot-eight-inch frame draped in an orange-gold McQueen gown, Welch offered up powerful renditions of a handful of songs off her critically lauded 2009 debut album, Lungs, before closing out her set with a blistering cover of David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel,” which she dedicated to McQueen. Welch then punctuated the tribute by running out into the crowd of assembled heavies, which included Karl Lagerfeld, Jay-Z, and Madonna, and sidling up to Paul McCartney, with whom she purposefully locked eyes as she sang, “Rebel rebel, how could they know? / Hot tramp, I love you so . . . ” Welch had never before met McCartney. But he, like most everyone else in attendance, was up and dancing—a testament to Welch’s ability to win fans in even the toughest of rooms.

It was the kind of moment—and the kind of instinct—that makes it easy to understand how so many people have so quickly become so enamored with Welch and her brand of dramatic, monumental pop. The Met gig marked a culmination of a season of high-profile command performances for Welch—she’d also been summoned earlier this year to sing at both the Grammys and the Oscars. Just five years ago, though, she was still an art-school dropout from Camberwell, in southeast London, who was discovered by her manager, Mairead Nash, while belting out an Etta James song in a bathroom at a club. At the time, Welch was working with a rotating cast of musicians as she developed a raw, nascent version of the widescreen art-pop sound that would later emerge on Lungs.

In reading descriptions of Welch, two terms appear over and over: pre-Raphaelite, which is usually used to describe the left-of-center effect of the way her shock of fiery hair frames her prominent features and cream-colored skin; and whirling dervish, which often refers to the bouncing, swaying hippie rain-dance she likes to do when she sings. But neither gets at the eclectic set of ideas and influences that seem to converge in Welch’s work: Lungs is a nuanced but unabashedly outsized record that draws on aspects of classic soul, confessional singer-songwriter music, and British art-pop and post-punk—Aretha Franklin funneled through Carly Simon and dressed up like Kate Bush; her lyrics read like extended journal entries; live, she seems like she’s leading a rapturous spiritual gathering that’s also a clubby performance-art piece; and her predilection for billowy boho tops, sparkly short shorts, and sky-high heels projects both an easy earthiness and a high glamour. Welch’s endearing eccentricity has also captured the attention—and affection—of the fashion world. Gucci designer Frida Giannini has said that Welch served as an inspiration for the house’s Fall 2011 collection; Giannini also created the costumes for Florence + The Machine’s most recent US tour.

Next month, Welch will unveil her as-yet-untitled (at press time) follow-up to Lungs, the first single from which, “What the Water Gave Me,” is a swirling, mounting, moody ballad in the mode of more elegiac tracks from her first album such as “Dog Days Are Over,” “Kiss With a Fist,” and “Cosmic Love.”

On a warm evening in June, director Baz Luhrmann, who helped stage Welch’s performance at the Costume Institute Gala, met the 25-year-old singer and her younger sister, Grace, at the Standard Grill in New York City’s Meatpacking District, where they were decompressing after having miraculously recovered Florence’s cell phone from the taxi in which she’d inadvertently left it behind.

BAZ LUHRMANN: Hi, Flo. How are you? Baz Luhrmann, intense interviewer, reporting for duty. [laughs] I’m holding a Gucci handbag, which I found in a taxi, and I was one of the crowd standing outside of the Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District in New York City, where I saw this striking-looking woman with red hair shaking and trembling . . .

FLORENCE WELCH: In the gutter!

LUHRMANN: Yes, and wearing this fantastic gypsy velvet frock, and there was a lovely person with blonde hair sitting next to her going “Snap out of it! You can survive this! Pull yourself together!”