Welcome to the Rolling Stone interview podcast.

This episode was taped in front of a live audience at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York City.

You can watch the full conversation on Rolling Stone's YouTube channel and Spotify video or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

My name is Brittany Spanos and welcome to the first ever live edition of the Rolling Stone

interview.

Beginning with tonight's event, these interviews will live as podcasts you can find on Rolling

Stone's YouTube channel, on Spotify video, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

And on special occasions, the Rolling Stone interview will be done in front of a live audience.

And tonight is one of those special occasions.

Here at New York City's Cherry Lane Theater, I am joined by the bewitching Florence Welch.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having it.

I want to start with how this album came to life.

And I know this story of the album starts with your last tour for Dance

Fever. Can you tell me about kind of going into that tour and how you left as a different

person after it? I guess in a way, like, dance fever was like a record about, um, it was like a record

of like prophecy and then I guess this record is a record of catastrophe, you know?

I think the, that was a record that dealt with performance as well and like, you know, the fact that all the performance had been taken away.

You know, I never, I was a period when musicians really didn't know if live music would come back.

And it had been a record like questioning whether I wanted to keep doing it

or whether, you know, would I want to start a family on that tour?

You know, I had a sort of like life and death experience that

...