Florence Welch has spoken about the moodboard she shared with IDLES‘ Mark Bowen when creating Florence + The Machine‘s new album ‘Everybody Scream’.
The London band are due to release their sixth studio record on October 31, and have previewed the project with its epic title track. Welch and co. had previously teased the follow-up to 2022’s ‘Dance Fever’ with a series of eerie videos.
The album contains contributions from Bowen, Mitski, and The National’s Aaron Dessner – all of whom worked with Welch on the title track, too.
During a new interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, Welch was asked about the cryptic series of photographs she shared on social media last month. One slide included the note “Swans vs Adele“, suggesting that inspiration had come from these two acts.
“When we started working together, I sent Bowen a playlist, and [Swans’] ‘It’s Coming It’s Real’ was on there,” Welch told Lowe. “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.”
The singer-songwriter went on to reveal that she had been “looking a lot at pop” when making her new album. She referenced “the amazing things that are happening in pop” currently, “where it’s so experimental”.
“We were listening to ‘Angel Of My Dreams’ by JADE a lot in the studio, and it was like pulling all those things together,” Welch continued.
“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 on board.”
Explaining what Mitski brought to the table, Welch said: “She came to the studio one day and was like, ‘You need a chorus. I just feel like there’s a chorus coming after this drone – it’s so striking’.”
She added: “Working with her… honestly, she’s one of my favourite 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 people’s 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.”
Inspiration for the ‘Everybody Scream’ album came from Welch undergoing lifesaving surgery during the ‘Dance Fever’ tour in 2023. She also began to look into spiritual mysticism and folk horror – understanding the limits of her body and questioning what it means to be “healed”.
These are themes that helped shape the record, along with exploration of womanhood, partnership, ageing and dying.
As for the title track, Welch told Lowe that the song “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’,” she said. “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.”
She went on to say: “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?”
Welch called her sixth LP her “most personal record to date” and “in some ways [her] most mythological”. She explained: “I had to find a world that I could build around it that was really solid.”
Bowen remixed Florence + The Machine’s ‘Dance Fever’ song ‘Heaven Is Here’ in 2022, with Welch calling IDLES “one of her favourite bands” at the time. The pair then co-produced F+TM’s cover of No Doubt’s ‘Just A Girl’ from Yellowjackets the following year.
Speaking to Lowe, Welch called IDLES’ ‘Heaven Is Here’ remix “amazing”, and recalled how she and Bowen “just got in the studio”. She said: “I don’t think we actually meant to write as much of the record together; it just happened.
“We ended up writing 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.”
Back in June, Welch joined The Maccabees on stage at Glastonbury 2025 for their closing headline set on the Park Stage. She performed the band’s ‘Love You Better’ as well as her own hit single ‘Dog Days Are Over’.