Florence Welch Biography

Birth Name :Florence Mary Leontine Welch 

Date of Birth : 28 August 1986, London, England, UK 

Height : 5' 9" (1.75 m) 

Occupation : Musician 

She had a conventional enough background, growing up in south-east London to educated, middle-class parents, that is until her mother fell in love in with the neighbour and moved her family next door. It's fair to say this must have had a knock-on effect for Flo, who then rebelled briefly getting into punk and even starting her own band called the Toxic Cockroaches.

She had a brief foray at the Camberwell College of Art (one project being a cake iced with the words 'it's all going to get worse', which she then ate as part of the performance) before making a stab at the singing lark, which she was luckily much better at. After drunkenly blowing her own trumpet to Queenz of Noize music promoter Mairead Nash at a bar, she was invited then to perform at London's Soho Revue Bar and the rest as they say is history.

Welch was educated at Thomas's London Day School then went onto Alleyn's School, South East London, where she did well academically. She often got in trouble in school for impromptu singing. Welch has been diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia. Following her meteoric rise to fame, she suffered a bout of depression. Upon leaving school, Welch studied at Camberwell College of Arts before dropping out to focus on music. Welch's fascination with terror and doom was intensified by the death of her grandparents within a few years of each other. At the age 10 Welch witnessed her grandfather's deterioration, and her maternal grandmother, also an art historian, committed suicide when Welch was 14. When Welch was 13 years old, she and her mother moved in with their next door neighbour and his three teenage children. According to Welch: "We get on brilliantly now, but it was a nightmare then. I just used to stay in my room and dance around."

Welch contributed vocals to David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's 2010 album Here Lies Love, an album about Imelda Marcos. When discussing her fashion style, Welch said that "(f)or the stage, it's Lady of Shalott meets Ophelia ... mixed with scary gothic bat lady. But in real life I'm kind of prim."