performing live in
Shoreditch Park, London, 2007
2007–2010: Formation and Lungs The name of Florence and the Machine is attributed to
Florence Welch's teenage collaboration with
Isabella "Machine" Summers. Welch and Summers performed together for a time under the name Florence Robot/Isa Machine. According to Welch, "The name Florence and the Machine started off as a
private joke that got out of hand. I made music with my friend, who we called Isabella Machine to which I was Florence Robot. When I was about an hour away from my first gig, I still didn't have a name, so I thought 'Okay, I'll be Florence Robot Is A Machine', before realising that name was so long it'd drive me mad." In addition to Summers (keyboards), the current band members include musicians Robert Ackroyd (guitar), Chris Hayden (drums, percussion and backing vocals), Mark Saunders (bass guitar and percussion) and Tom Monger (harp). In the past, Welch has praised her band for understanding her creative process, claiming, "I've worked with most of them for a long time and they know my style, know the way I write, they know what I want." In 2007, Welch recorded with a band named Ashok, who released an album titled
Plans on the Filthy Lucre/About Records label. This album included the earliest version of her later hit "
Kiss with a Fist", which at this point was titled "Happy Slap". Florence and the Machine released their first album
Lungs in the Netherlands and Ireland on 3 July 2009. The album was produced by
James Ford,
Paul Epworth,
Steve Mackey,
Isabella Summers and Charlie Hugall. Following its 25 July 2009 release for download in the United States, the album entered the charts at number seventeen on the
Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart, ultimately peaking at number one. The album was released physically in the US on 20 October by
Universal Republic. , 2010 "
Kiss with a Fist" was released as the album's
lead single on 9 June 2008. The track was featured on the soundtrack to the films
Wild Child (2008), ''
Jennifer's Body (2009), and St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (2009), as well as in the television series 90210, Community and Saving Grace. Follow-up single "Dog Days Are Over", released on 1 December 2008, was recorded with no instruments in a studio the "size of a loo". The song was used in the American television series Gossip Girl, Covert Affairs, in the British television series Skins, and in the theatrical trailer for the 2010 comedy-drama film Eat Pray Love, starring Julia Roberts. "Dog Days Are Over" was also featured in the Glee'' episode "
Special Education", where it was covered by
Jenna Ushkowitz and
Amber Riley. "
Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" was released on 22 June 2009 as the third single from the album. After the release of
Lungs, "
Drumming Song" and a cover of
the Source and
Candi Staton's 1986 song "
You've Got the Love" were released as singles. "
Cosmic Love" was released on 5 July 2010 as the sixth and final single from
Lungs, with a music video having already been shot. The song was featured in several American television shows, including ''
Grey's Anatomy, The Vampire Diaries, V, Nikita and So You Think You Can Dance. The band also made a guest appearance on 7 February 2011 episode of Gossip Girl, titled "Panic Roommate", where they performed an acoustic rendition of "Cosmic Love". On 12 May 2010, it was announced that Florence and the Machine would provide a track called "Heavy in Your Arms" for the soundtrack to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
, the third film of The Twilight Saga. Eclipse'' was released in cinemas on 30 June 2010, with "Heavy in Your Arms" playing during the end credits. The music video followed on 7 July 2010. An exclusive remix of "I'm Not Calling You a Liar" is featured in the 2011 video game
Dragon Age II as "I'm Not Calling You a Liar (Dragon Age II: Varric's Theme)", produced by the game's composer
Inon Zur.
2011–2013: Ceremonials 2012 in
Indio, California The first demo session occurred in January 2010 with Welch and
Paul Epworth at a small London studio. Numerous producers expressed an interest in working on the album but Welch rejected the offers because she wanted
Ceremonials to be a better version of
Lungs with a "more dark, more heavy, bigger drum sounds, bigger bass, but with more of a whole sound". For the rest of the year work on the album continued only intermittently as the band concentrated on an extensive tour of the US, where
Lungs had become popular. The majority of the writing for the album was done between January and April 2011, with recording taking place in April at
Abbey Road Studios. Refinement took place at Epworth's own London studios while Welch recorded vocal tracks in various US studios, during days off from touring. The final recording session took place in July at Epworth's studio. Epworth co-wrote seven tracks. Several other British writers share credits on the album, including Summers,
Kid Harpoon,
James Ford and composer
Eg White. and they performed
Ceremonials setup track "
What the Water Gave Me" at the
Greek Theatre in
Berkeley, California. In August 2011, the single "What the Water Gave Me" was released on
iTunes along with an accompanying video on the band's website and YouTube channel. The video drew 1.5 million
YouTube views in two days and the track received play on US alternative radio with strong support from
Los Angeles radio station
KROQ. On 12 January 2012, Florence and the Machine were nominated for two
Brit Awards, Best British Female Artist and British Album of the Year, with the
awards ceremony taking place on 21 February 2012 at
the O2 Arena, London. On 26 April 2012, the band released "
Breath of Life", a song that was recorded as the official theme song for the film
Snow White and the Huntsman. On 5 July 2012, a remix of "
Spectrum (Say My Name)" by Scottish musician
Calvin Harris was released as the fourth single from
Ceremonials, becoming the band's first UK number-one hit. Welch expressed excitement about putting new material together for a third album after the band finishes touring at the end of September 2012. Welch collaborated for a second time with Harris on the song "
Sweet Nothing", released on 12 October 2012 as a single from Harris's third album
18 Months (2012). The song entered at number one on the UK Singles Chart, becoming their second collaborative number-one single. In mid-2012, it was announced that Universal Republic Records was going defunct, moving all artists including Florence and the Machine to
Republic Records making the label itself revived. In late August 2012, Welch told
Style magazine that she plans to take a twelve-month hiatus before starting work on the band's next album, stating, "There's a big 'take a year off' plan. The record company have put no pressure on me for the next album. They've said I can have as long as I want." In December 2012, Florence and the Machine were nominated for
Best Pop Vocal Album for
Ceremonials and
Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for "Shake It Out" at the
54th Annual Grammy Awards. On 4 April 2013, it was announced that Florence and the Machine had written a song for
Baz Luhrmann's film rendition of
The Great Gatsby (2013), titled "
Over the Love", which was released on 17 April 2013 on
SoundCloud.
2014–2016: How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful , 2015 On 4 June 2014, Welch told
NME that the band's third album was in the works. In January 2015, a fansite posted a photo showing Florence and the Machine's upcoming album being mixed in a recording studio. On 9 February, the band played all the songs from the new album in full, among them "Ship to Wreck", "Caught", "Delilah" and the album's first single, "
What Kind of Man" in a private London show. The next day, on 10 February, the band released a short music video for the title track of their 2015 album,
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, which also acted as the official album teaser, directed by
Tabitha Denholm and Vincent Haycock and shot in Mexico. The single and album were available to pre-order subsequently on all popular online music stores. The music video is just under three minutes as compared to the five minute album version of the track. On 12 February, the album's lead single "
What Kind of Man" was revealed on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show, followed by the release of music video later that day on band's
Vevo channel via YouTube. The band released a music video of another track called "St. Jude" on 23 March. The video was choreographed by
Ryan Heffington and directed by Vincent Haycock; it continues the narrative from the previous video of "What Kind of Man". On 8 April, the album's second single titled "
Ship to Wreck" premiered on
Huw Stephens' show on
BBC Radio 1. The accompanying music video was released a week later on 13 April, continuing the storyline of past two videos. On 19 May, DJ
Annie Mac revealed another new song from the record on her BBC radio show, namely "Delilah". The album was released on 29 May in Germany, 1 June in the UK and 2 June in the US. A deluxe version of the album containing five additional tracks was released on 13 May 2015. The album became their third number one on the
UK Albums Chart, and debuted at number one on the US
Billboard 200. In June 2015, it was announced that the band would headline the
Glastonbury Festival in
Pilton, Somerset due to the withdrawal of previous headliners
Foo Fighters, after lead vocalist Dave Grohl fractured his leg on stage in Sweden. Florence and the Machine's Glastonbury set was critically acclaimed by numerous outlets. Welch thanked Grohl for his support following their choice as a replacement and wished him a speedy recovery, before performing a cover of the Foo Fighters' "
Times Like These". These nominations included "Ship to Wreck" for
Best Pop Duo/Group Performance,
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful for
Best Pop Vocal Album and
Best Recording Package, and "What Kind of Man" for
Best Rock Performance and
Best Rock Song. and the full version was released on 12 August 2016. Alongside their "Stand by Me" cover, they also composed two original songs for
Final Fantasy XV, entitled "I Will Be" and "Too Much Is Never Enough", which were also released on 12 August 2016. In April 2016, the band released
The Odyssey, a short film by Vincent Haycock and Welch that consisted of all music videos shot within the
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (2015) era, together with some interconnecting sung and spoken scenes. The premiere took place at London's
Rio Cinema on 20 April 2016, and was followed by an unrecorded Q&A. The online world premiere on 21 April 2016 was delayed to the 24th due to
Prince's death. The band contributed a song to the 2016
Tim Burton film ''
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children'' titled "
Wish That You Were Here", released as a single on 25 August 2016.
2017–2024: High as Hope and Dance Fever Welch confirmed on 27 May 2017 that a new album was in the works. On 28 February 2018, the band's drummer, Christopher Hayden, announced that he had left the band. Florence worked with Brett Shaw at 123 Studios in Peckham to record the raw beginnings of the songs from the album. The first single from the album, "
Sky Full of Song", was released on 12 April 2018, followed by "
Hunger" in May. Titled
High as Hope, the band's fourth album was released on 29 June 2018. A third single, "Patricia", was released on 10 August 2018. On 24 January 2019, Florence and the Machine released a new single, "
Moderation", which had been previously performed live during the Australian leg of the
High as Hope Tour. It was accompanied by a B-side, "Haunted House". On 21 April 2019, Florence and the Machine had a song featured in the
Game of Thrones episode "
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" which was composed by
Ramin Djawadi. The song is entitled "
Jenny of Oldstones". On 17 April 2020, Florence and the Machine released the song "Light of Love" in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic. The band announced that all proceeds from the song, which was originally recorded for
High as Hope (2018), would go to the
Intensive Care Society. In early 2022, Florence and the Machine were confirmed to be headlining a series of summer music festivals, including the Madrid's
Mad Cool. Towards the end of February 2022, fans of the band started to receive letters with a print titled, "King - Chapter 1", as well as a billboard in
London displaying the visual of the work. Speculation indicating that a new single was about to be released were confirmed on 22 February by Welch herself through her
Instagram account. The single, titled "
King" was digitally released the next day along with its accompanying music video. Soon after, the single "Heaven Is Here" was released on 7 March. On 9 March 2022, Welch announced
Dance Fever, the band's fifth album in a post to her
Instagram account also revealing the album cover and pre-order date. She described the album as "a fairytale in 14 songs" in the same post. The announcement was followed up with the release of the third single "My Love" on 10 March. On 20 April, the fourth single "
Free" was released. The album was released on 13 May. It debuted at number one in the UK and number two in Australia. In 2022, keyboardist Hazel Mills and drummer Loren Humphrey left the band. On 16 March 2022, Sam Doyle (drummer from
the Maccabees) was confirmed as joining the band on tour for this era. However, Humphrey rejoined the band in summer of 2022. On 15 May 2022, a deluxe of
Dance Fever was released, featuring four new acoustic songs and a cover of
Iggy Pop's song "
Search and Destroy". On 21 April 2023, a version of the album named the "complete edition" was released, including the new single "Mermaids". In 2024, Florence and the Machine collaborated with
Taylor Swift on the track "
Florida!!!" from Swift's album
The Tortured Poets Department; Welch also co-wrote the song. In 2025, Florence and the Machine collaborated with singer
The Weeknd on the track "
Reflections Laughing" from his album
Hurry Up Tomorrow, which also featured rapper
Travis Scott.
2025: Everybody Scream In August 2025, Welch began teasing a potential return through a series of cryptic posts on her social media accounts. Their sixth album,
Everybody Scream, was announced to be released on 31 October 2025. On 20 August 2025, the band released the
title track as the lead single. The second single, "One of The Greats" was released on 24 September 2025. Welch said that the song was originally written as a long poem and then recorded it one take, which she "sang straight from the page". Singles "
Sympathy Magic" and
"Buckle" followed. The album was released on
Halloween and debuted at number one on six charts and number four on the
Billboard Hot 100. The
baroque,
orchestral,
chamber pop album was named by
Welch as the most personal as it delved into her near-death experience in 2023 on the
Dance Fever Tour that explores elements of
witchcraft,
folk horror,
mysticism, magic, poetry, insanity and
death. The band embarked on the
Everybody Scream Tour to promote the album, visiting arenas across Europe and North America through 2026 such as
The O2 Arena in London and
Madison Square Garden, and headlining many European Music Festivals including
Reading and Leeds Festival and
Mad Cool ==Performances==