Florence Welch is on at Glastonbury and touring to Newcastle. Andy Welch meets her

IT'S a rare day off from The Machine for Florence Welch. If, of course, you can consider a day of interviews a day off. Compared to recent years though, when an average day might have consisted of travelling, soundchecking and performing, a TV appearance, or writing and recording for a new album, sitting and talking about herself is a walk in the park.

"It's kind of oppressive, the amount of work I have," she says. And that was before Florence became first choice to replace the Foo Fighters on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage this weekend, when headline act Dave Grohl broke his leg performing in Sweden, and announced UK tour dates including Newcastle's MetroRadio Arena in September.

After the release of her debut album, Lungs, in 2009 – when she won the Brits Critics' Choice Award and was among the most talked-about artists in the country – Welch barely stopped. Lungs was a huge success both here and in the US, selling around three million copies, and her follow-up, 2011's Ceremonials, propelled her to even more dizzying heights.

"I do and I don't enjoy that hectic life," she says. "There's a bit of me that's excited and excitable, that loves the travelling and moving around, but I'm actually quite a home bird. I am a creature of habit and I like being among my things and my books.

"It takes a lot to make me leave my house."

A lot – like a new album and the beginning of a world tour?

"Yes," she says, laughing, "that sort of thing. People get upset if you don't turn up."

Thanks to that hectic workload, and more importantly, the huge success, which culminated with Grammy nominations in 2013, Welch was given as long as she wanted to make her third album, the positively titled How Big How Blue How Beautiful.

She says she was given free rein to live how she wanted to live and do whatever she wanted to do – but much of the time was spent working out what exactly that was.

"I was just trying to navigate my 20s, after having been in the hermetic bubble of touring," she explains.

"You don't have to deal with anything when you're on tour. As long as the show is good, everything else is too. And then when you're not on tour, there's no big show at the end to absolve you or to reset you, and you just have to sit with whatever's left and dwell on it. My chaos was completely catered for on tour, but off tour, I have to deal with myself. I've now realised that I want a bit of calm."

Once again we've seen musical fame accompanied by the break-up of a relationship. Welch decided to get over the failure with her long-term boyfriend by learning to dance properly, having become obsessed with German modern dance performer Pina Bausch. But work returned a little sooner than she expected.

Producer Markus Dravs was named as a potential collaborator, largely because Welch liked his previous work with brass instruments on records by Arcade Fire and Bjork. But she says Dravs "tricked" her into starting recording.

"I was all over the place physically, and emotionally all at sea," she explains. "He wanted to do a trial run in the studio to see if we liked each other, but when I got to the studio, he literally locked the door behind me and said, 'We're making the record now', and that was that.

"We were still feeling each other out, and it was on the title track, How Big Blue How Beautiful, when I heard what he'd done with my ideas, that I cried, because he knew exactly what it was that I wanted, and it set the precedent for the whole record. It's my favourite track. I love to layer instruments on top of each other, and I had been writing all these mad songs about witches with football chants for choruses, and Markus made me get rid of all of it.

She claims some songs are "stripped down", but they still feature more instruments than most bands manage in a career.

"I've finally learned not to overcomplicate things. Which I love to do, in all aspects of my life. Just when things are clear and simple, I get scared and want to put on a cape and cover everything in glitter," Welch adds. "Now I know I don't need to do that. I can appreciate the quiet."

  • Florence + The Machine's third album How Big How Blue How Beautiful is out now.
  • The band plays MetroRadio Arena on Tuesday, September 15. Tickets are from £35. Box Office: 0844-493-6666 or metroradioarena.co.uk and eventim.co.uk