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/Isa Machine', before realising that name was so long it'd drive me mad.

My visual landscape as a child was the inside of a lot of these old churches. And the Baroque drama of the things was what I was first engaging with artwise. I'm much more attracted to the aesthetic of religious iconography than the actual religious side. The passion and the blood and the violence and the gaudy side of it I find really fascinating.

Excitable, easily distracted, sometimes vacant, prone to gloominess and also extreme euphoria; I can’t be generous with time, but I try to be generous with affection. I’m really lucky to be able to be in some of these situations and it feels really nice to be able to take people along with me for the ride. Oh, and I’m a pain in the ass as well.

It's always darkness before the dawn.

The music is so euphoric,as a way of battling the words. It’s like an exorcism, beating it out with drums, shake this demon out, it’s so visceral because the melancholy has to be drummed out. I can’t let it sit inside me.

Love is horrible. I mean, when you're in love, it's like a sickness. Such madness.

I always wanted to sound like a man, like Jeff Buckley or Tom Waits.