Dry Cleaning

Florence:  I find it very hard to remember (laughs).
Tom: The main thing, really, was the fact that we were doing the EPs as a social thing. Not only doing the EPs, but, we started the band as a social thing.

Florence: Yeah. Just like on Sundays to hang out and do a band. I think we all just wanted to do some music. It was an interesting thing to do and we were all friends beforehand, so it just grew out of that really. And by the time, obviously, we were doing New Long Leg, we'd already signed a deal and stuff like that. So it did change because you knew then people were going to listen to this. Whereas before, we kind of thought we'd make a tape and play some shows in London to our mates and that would be a little side thing you'd do, because we all had jobs. By the time we'd do it [New Long Leg], we'd all quit our jobs. So that was the big difference, I think. It was a very exciting time because none of us have ever done anything like that before.

Florence: It was quite by surprise. A woman called Clotilde used to work at 4AD. She left just recently, but she was coming to a few of our shows, but she didn't ever ask for a guestlist or we never met her. She would just be there.
Tom: Eventually we kind of figured out who she was just through her Instagram.
Florence: She added us and she'd put up videos, and we were like, Oh, she works for 4AD, and that was exciting. But then lots of people used to say, 4AD don't sign bands until they're, like, 3 or 4 albums in. They don't usually sign a new kind of project. So we put it out of our minds. We were like, Oh, they're just being supportive. That's nice. They actually said that we could use the label’s studio that's in their basement when we wanted, which we thought was just really generous and nice. We were just taking it as a complement really, I don’t know about you Tom? (laughs).
Tom:  I thought it'd be too good to be true! That can’t be, that can’t be…
Florence: Right. Especially at that time because this was, obviously way before New Long Legs. This is like 2019, and we'd only just done our only tour ever that we'd ever done. So it was, like, very nascent. It was very early. So we just thought, oh, they're our friends! We can be friends with them (laughs). Then all of a sudden things happened quite quickly where they're actually going to offer us a deal, which was just mad. I think I was in a state of shock.

Florence: Some of them.
Tom: Yeah, It was Unsmart Lady. We've been playing that live for a bit, and Scratchcard [Lanyard] was pretty much there.
Florence: Strong Feelings?
Tom: Strong feelings was there.
Florence: So I guess the singles. Now if you think about it, those are the singles. Right? That wasn't really the plan, but it just so happens that those are the ones we'd already written. It's maybe a habit, we tend to write our most kind of immediate sounding songs first, and then we explore a bit more.
Tom: It's not a bad idea (laughs).
Florence: It's like Stumpwork. We wrote Gary Ashby and Don't Press Me first. It's weird, now that I think about it we did the same as in New Long Legs with that record too.

Tom: It was kinda tricky because it seemed like the music industry was redefining itself week to week. They were trying to respond to what was happening, and it felt like nothing was happening for a little while, and it was quite scary. But then it seemed like everybody involved seemed to think, let's get the album done. So we were able to start writing again.

Tom: Right, we worked separately for a bit. Then eventually, there was a situation in England where you could be together if you were doing it for work.
Florence: Oh, yeah I remember. We found a space underneath the railway arch right in there. Then it became apparent that we could go to Rockfield to record with John Parish who produced it. When he got on board, he was very practical about how we could do it safely. He was very practical about how we could make it work within the rules about Covid and everything back then.
Tom: So it's kinda weird because the Covid situation kinda worked in our favour in a sense because we couldn't tour or promote it, but it also meant that loads of people were sitting at home looking for new bands. They were just sat there ready for it. We've met lots of people over the years that have told us how much it meant to them that something else. The other big thing was that we were the last band to do a KEXP session right before the lockdown.

Tom: That’s right. They didn't bring that session out until 7 months into Covid. So it's right in the middle when people [were bored] out their minds KEXP dropped this YouTube session which was perfect for us. I think a lot of the songs like Scratchcard [Lanyard] got attention so that worked perfectly.
Florence: We played a song on KEXP, we haven't given it a name.
Tom: It was [originally called] Jam Jar.
Florence: (laughs).

Florence: I'm not sure why we called it Jam Jar. We just came up with the name on the spot because we needed a title for it when we were going to play it during the KEXP studio recording session.

Florence: I used to go to Glastonbury a lot when I was a teenager. I went about 4 or 5 times. It's quite a meaningful festival for me. But we don't all have those same memories. Glastonbury, like other big things we’ve done, happens a lot, we all have a different response. I was quite overawed by the whole thing just on a personal level. But also lots of people do not like Glastonbury (laughs).
Tom: It's quite iconic, isn't it, Glastonbury?
Florence: I guess so. It's hard to say. It's always hard to tell. I don't think we look a lot of stuff up. We don't really Google ourselves or I definitely don't. So it's like I never know what impact anything's having. I feel really oblivious (laughs).

Florence: Do you mean in terms of our approach or for the audience?

Tom: The thing about Stumpwork, by the end of recording New Long Leg, we kind of worked out a way of working in the studio that we were becoming quite comfortable with. Particularly working with John Parish for this album, we'd sussed each other out over two weeks. We couldn't tour the first album so we pretty much released New Long Leg and [went] straight back to writing again. Because we couldn't tour we just wrote loads of new stuff. It's a weird thing that when you record something, all the potentials of what that song or album could be are closed off. It sort of leaves loads of frayed ends like oh, I wish it was more like that, so you just start writing again. And all those things become the new songs. And then you record Stumpwork and that same process happens again. So all those things go on to the next.

Tom: We started writing quite quickly and I think we've developed a relationship with John. It was a no-brainer to do the next album with him. So it wasn't really a case of thinking about the pressure of recording a new album in 4AD at all because it took a little while for New Long Leg to gain a reaction.
Florence: I just remembered what happened during that session. I remember when we were recording Stumpwork, that's when all those end of year lists came out. We were like oh New Long Leg is on loads of them. I didn't think that was going to happen. I don't know if it's in every country, but in the UK, there's this whole thing every newspaper and every magazine does, like, a 100 best albums of the year, blah blah blah. I think The Guardian gave it number 7 or something. Who cares? I really don't care about things like that, but it was almost like a bit of information saying that people are actually listening to your record, and more people will listen to it because of this, because it's on the front of a newspaper’s website or whatever. That was quite a surprise to me, I think to all of us.
Tom: Rough Trade gave it Album of the year as well. So it was like our first album had this second life. It's almost like it came out again.
Florence: But we were already working and recording something else.
Tom: It made it more exciting because you sort of think I hope they like this one too (laughs).
Florence: We kind of swerved.

Florence: It's funny because he's the only Producer per se, with a capital P, that we've worked with. So it's hard to know because that’s all we know, working with him. It's hard to say what it was like because there's not a lot to compare it to. He's very structured. The thing he does is extremely structured, which is good because we're quite a democratic band. We don't really have a leader. It's 4 opinions about everything, which I think is our strength, but it's also handy to have someone who's willing to be a lightning rod for criticism or is willing to put his foot down at certain times and risk being unpopular and run things like a tight ship.
Tom: Yeah, it's his album as well. He shaped it. There's definitely things that we wanted to do that he didn't want to do. That's kind of why you get producers, isn't it?

Florence: He did two records, maybe more with Aldous Harding, who's on our label. He's been working with her quite consistently. She recorded at Rockfield with John as well. So his name came up because of that collaboration that was already happening, basically and we are fans of her.

Florence: It's an interesting question. For a while, I thought, okay, I'm a poet. That's what I do, I write poems. Then having since met a few poets and talked to people about poetry, I realised I know nothing about poetry (laughs). I've kind of changed my feelings about that. I mean, they're lyrics, they're written for music, and some of them work away from the music as pieces of spoken word, that's kind of by chance, they're written in response to something, they're not written on their own. I'm in a bit of a muddle as to what exactly they are these days.

Florence: No, it's all instinctual. I don't really make plans. Or if I do, I don't remember them, and then I just write something else. I don't really know what poetic means. When people say poetic, what do they mean? Do they just mean creative? Do they just mean interesting?
Tom: Something lovely.
Florence: (Laughs) What [d’you] fucking [mean]. I'm quite a direct person, and I struggle with ambiguity. I'm always a bit confused.

Florence: Oh, yeah. I love poetry. I think poetry is wonderful. It's one of the most economical art forms that exists. I've always loved it very much, it's a bit of a journey. I really haven't been doing this very long. I always wrote things, but not self consciously, not with being a writer in inverted commas in mind. I would just write things because it's fun, and I wanted to. So labelling it and talking about it, I actually find it harder than when I do it.

Florence: It's an artist duo called Rottingdean Bazaar who designed it. They shot it with a photographer called Annie Collinge who they always work with, and they've been working with pubic hair in their artwork for a long time. I remember years ago, they made little badges that said words written in kind of like pubes, basically. I think they've been looking for an opportunity to do it again, more of a still life kind of way. So we asked them if they wanted to work with us again because they did our Scratchcard Lanyard video as well.
Tom: We asked them if they would be up to doing the album, but they thought we were going to ask them to do another video. I think they wanted to do another video. In fact, they did actually then pitch for a video. We asked them to consider doing the album cover. And they were sort of giving it a go. We didn't give them anything, just to listen to the record maybe. And then at the moment we saw the cover, we were like, Amazing (laughs).
Florence: A light bulb moment. Yeah. It was very fully formed when they first showed the cover to us the first time.
Tom: They had ideas for everything. It was really overwhelming, like, in a good way.
Florence: I think our only feedback was, like, could you make it look more pubey? Like don't hold back. It's kinda iconic.

Tom: I don't really care to be honest. I just don't think about things like that. I just don't think about labels. I listen to whatever I wanna listen to and when I'm listening to other people's music, I don't think, oh, what's this?
Florence: I think some labels make sense because, like, where do you put it in a record shop then? Do you know what I mean? You have to organise things somehow, but in terms of making music I agree totally.
Tom: When you're writing something, you accidentally go down an avenue you didn't expect to go down. If you stop to think, what is this? You might lose it, so you're better off just writing the stuff. And then once you finish writing it, you don't care what it is anyway. If you like it, you like it.
Florence: We play Leafy in our set now from the first album tonight. That's not post-punk to me. Like, the way Nick plays the drums is kinda like minimal house music or something.
Tom: Post-punk is quite an interesting term because it just seems to mean you can just chuck loads of other things into punk music, I think the term that people think of post-punk is quite a reductive term now. Whereas when it first came out, it was more expansive. I don't mind if people use it, but it doesn't do anything for me.

Tom: We just got asked to do it.
Florence: We don't know him personally. It didn't come about in a personal way. It just came about in a way that almost everything comes about through management. One day you get an email that says, “Do you want to do a tour with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds?” Being a touring musician is quite a weird job in that way. You do just get these insane things that seem kind of unbelievable just in a very boring email (laughs).

Tom: I'm sure our manager probably did.
Florence: Yeah, lots of things happen that we don't know about (laughs).

Florence: Oh my god (laughs). I wish the world was like that.
Tom: Behind the scenes of the music industry is just like any other. I think it's quite boring.

Tom: It's been fantastic, to be honest, but we've watched their show every night, which I didn't expect to do. It's a two and a half hour show for a start. Yeah. So it's very long, and I feel like we've learned a lot. Well, I've learned a lot.

Tom: It just seems like a mixture of stuff from old stuff, like, From Her to Eternity, Red Right Hand, Tupelo, right up to the Wild God stuff, and it all works. It all fits perfectly into the same thing. He's a very charismatic performer, and I like the whole orchestration, everything about it. It's very inspiring.

Tom: No more than anything else you encounter that you like. I think this is the culmination of a life career. I don't think you go from our position to that position just because you've seen it. You might aspire to it, but I think it'd be wise to sort of take it step by step like he did. That's why they're so good because he's got loads of albums. He's been doing it for a long time. This is the reward you get, I guess, or this is the combination of all that work.
Florence: I think if you're going to be like, we need 4 gospel singers, some tubular bells (laughs), I think it's not going to work. You know? But it's just definitely inspiring to see.
Tom: The thing that impressed me the most about his show is how powerful it is and how tender it is. And even those things [that] aren’t necessarily the loudest ones are the most powerful. He does Into My Arms quite near the end of the set. It's just him on the piano. So after all that cacophony, he's just at the piano, and it's really powerful. It brought tears to my eyes.
Florence: It's quite astonishing, his movement on stage and the way that he dances and leaps around and just emotes, it’s very, very powerful. It's weird, it does have an effect on you. It's almost like you can be in the next room hearing it and you think, that sounds good. And then you walk into the room and it actually does overwhelm you. To actually see it, [he] does have a sort of a magic about him that is quite unexplainable unless you see it with your own eyes.

Florence: Not really. We've said hi and stuff in the corridor and backstage things like that. But I think I get the sense that they're kinda crafting the show. They're on a big tour. We're just on a bit of the European leg of it. I feel like they're very much at work, very focused  like they're perfecting it and changing it a bit and kind of wrestling with it still, but, in the way that everybody does when they do a big tour.

Florence: So many. I mean, it's almost like everything. It's hard to answer that question. 5 years is such a short time, but everything in our lives has changed so much, almost everything.
Tom: Maybe one big thing is getting over that imposter syndrome you have. You have had imposter syndrome for quite a long time. In just the last sort of 6 to 7 months or something I feel like I am actually the guitarist in the band. Up to that point, you feel like everyone's going to find out that I'm shit at the guitar. You know? It's only really been recently that I feel I’m moving beyond that now. I'm just going to get on with what I wanna do. Just because the whole thing is so short and so surreal, you feel any minute is going to blow and then [I’ll be] back at work (laughs).
Florence: Absolutely. [Playing in a band] feels temporary, [it] doesn’t feel that you're really in it. You feel like you're a guest all the time in the music industry. There's nothing promised, and that's true. There isn't. So it's quite a strange thing to battle with, but those moments where you do convince yourself that you should be making things, are great moments. But, yeah, you kinda dip in and out of that all the time, and that does have an impact, definitely.

Florence: Yeah, very much.
Tom: There'll be a new song in the set tonight.