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Florence Welch is the lead singer of the English indie rock band Florence and the Machine. She can be heard on popular songs such as "Kiss with a Fist" and "Shake It Out."
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Play NowFlorence Welch. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 09:01, May 18, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/florence-welch-20883057.
Florence Welch. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/florence-welch-20883057 [Accessed 18 May 2013].
"Florence Welch." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 18 2013, 09:01 http://www.biography.com/people/florence-welch-20883057.
"Florence Welch," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/florence-welch-20883057 [accessed May 18, 2013].
"Florence Welch," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/florence-welch-20883057 (accessed May 18, 2013).
Florence Welch [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 18] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/florence-welch-20883057.
Florence Welch, http://www.biography.com/people/florence-welch-20883057 (last visited May 18, 2013).
Florence Welch. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/florence-welch-20883057. Accessed May 18, 2013.
Synopsis
Born on August 28, 1986 in Camberwell, England, Florence Welch was raised in a family of writers and academics. She took to music at an early age and created her own band, which she named Florence and the Machine. The band met with success beginning in 2006, and became famous a few years later with their debut album, Lungs (2009). On the album, Welch's voice can be heard on popular songs such as "Kiss with a Fist" and "Shake It Out." In 2011,
Florence and the Machine released its second studio album, Ceremonials.
Early Life
Born on August 28, 1986 in Camberwell, England, Florence Mary Leontine Welch, better known as Florence Welch, is the lead singer of the English indie rock band Florence and the Machine. Raised in a family of accomplished writers and academics, Welch received her education at the Camberwell College of Arts before dropping out to pursue a musical career.
Some of Welch's talents came from her father, Nick, an advertising executive who was himself a musical performer in his 20s. Welch's mother, Evelyn, a professor of renaissance studies and academic dean of arts at Queen Mary, University of London, also influenced her daughter, but in quite a different way. Welch said in an article in Q Magazine that a lecture of her mother's impressed her and inspired her to aspire to make music with "some of the big themes—sex, death, love, violence—that will still be part of the human story in 200 years' time."
Commercial Success
Welch's big break came in December 2006. Drunk at the Soho Revue Bar in London, Welch cornered host Mairead Nash—of the DJ duo Queens of Noize—in the bathroom and sang to her Etta James's "Something's Got a Hold on Me." A week later, the Queens of Noize invited Welch back to open for their club night.
"She belted it out, and I was thinking, 'Oh ... my ... God,'" Nash told The Telegraph in a June 2009 article. "I had literally never heard anyone with such a powerful voice ever. I turned to [DJ partner Tabitha Denholm] and said, 'I have to manage her.'"
Florence and the Machine initially consisted of Welch, her friend Isabella "Machine" Summers and a drum kit and ended up becoming a seven-piece band by 2009. In 2007, Welch recorded with the band Ashok, which released an album with the earliest version of her song "Happy Slappy"—later renamed "Kiss with a Fist"—and made a hit. Shortly after the release of the album, Welch resigned from Ashok.
After signing up with Nash, Florence Welch and the Machine rose to fame. The band released its debut album, Lungs, in the United Kingdom in July 2009 and met great success, peaking at No. 1 in the United Kingdom and at No. 2 in Ireland. When it was released for download in the United States several weeks later, the album debuted at No. 17 on the Billboard Heatseekers Album chart.
"Kiss with a Fist," released as the album's lead single, was featured on a number of film and television series soundtracks. A number of the band's other singles were also used as theme songs or featured in several American television shows, including Grey's Anatomy and So You Think You Can Dance.
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