London trio FLO have just told me their clubbing days are over. I’m sceptical. After all, their new sophomore album, Therapy at the Club, is essentially one long night out set to music. Plus, they’ve only just got back from Ibiza — and loved it so much they’re already plotting a return for the end of summer. “We loved Pacha… that was one of the best clubbing experiences ever,” says 24-year-old Jorja Douglas. “We really do figure shit out in the club, come up with thoughts and have big conversations.”
A rapid rise to fame
Therapy at the Club arrives 20 months after the release of FLO’s debut album, Access All Areas. And it’s safe to say the trio — made up of Douglas, Stella Quaresma, 24, and Renée Downer, 23 — have had a pretty successful time since. Following their 2023 Brits Rising Star win, they embarked on a world tour, earned widespread critical praise, sparked a viral TikTok dance trend and became the first British girl group in 20 years to receive a Grammy nomination. They’re still in disbelief. “It’s mad, isn’t it? I mean, where’s the Sugababes’ Grammy? It is criminal. We want every girl group to know that whatever success we gain, we owe a portion of that to them.”
All of it has come with a huge rush of acclaim and attention. “It just feels kind of normal now,” says Downer, as the three of them lounge comfortably on a sofa. “But we don’t think of ourselves as celebrities or anything like that.” It’s been tiring, they admit, but making music is the thing that drives them. And although Access All Areas achieved everything they could have imagined, the band wanted more. “We wanted to elevate ourselves… [as people] we’re now more grown up, more assertive, more sure of the tone of voice we want to come across in our music.”
Creating Therapy at the Club
Therapy at the Club was written in a much shorter time frame than Access All Areas — the whole album, from start to finish, was completed in six months. The idea for the concept album was born when their long-time collaborator Lauren Keen came to them with the title track, Therapy at the Club. “We heard it, and it felt like a level up,” says Quaresma. “We related to so many of the topics in it. We thought OK, we can make an album about that.”
Once that was decided, the songs spilled out of them. “We had a lot of free rein,” Quaresma says. They took on individual writing responsibilities, went away and brought the songs they’d created back to each other for consideration. “It was like Christmas,” Downer says. “Like show and tell,” adds Douglas. But it also came with anxiety — when Douglas wrote Remedied alongside Amy Allen and Oak Felder, a more pop-influenced track about getting ready for a night out with friends, she was unsure what the other girls’ reaction would be. “I was surprised, they actually loved it.”
They list off the names of the people they’ve worked with: producers Julian Bunetta and Steph Jones, and creative directors Ciarra Pardo and Ana Boaretto. They even casually mention that they’ve been in the studio with Stevie Wonder. “It’s a blessing, for sure; it just reminds you how far you’ve come,” Downer says. All of it now seems like part of a day’s work.
Their sound and influences
They pride themselves on FLO’s sound being both heavily influenced by traditional R&B and also very contemporary. “Meshing those worlds is really fun… and that’s the music we love, so it is always going to be there,” Douglas says. Their musical influences are wide-ranging. They mention Frank Ocean — “he has a way of wording things that you have to decode”. And Downer adds that she tried to channel Mariah Carey while songwriting. “I mean, it was difficult, because she’s pretty good, isn’t she?”
Right now, FLO feel that, as a girl group, they are in the minority in the music industry. “We’d love there to be more,” says Douglas. “When we were growing up, we had girl groups we looked up to and we saw ourselves in their different personalities.” Why, in 2026, are there not so many around, then? “They’re hard to get right, they’re expensive… you have to get the right people that want to be in a group,” Quaresma says.
A bond that lasts
For FLO, though, there’s no question — this is where they were supposed to be. As we chat, their friendship bubbles to the surface. They finish each other’s sentences, giggle at each other’s jokes and look totally at ease in each other’s company. “The best part of being in a group is the camaraderie,” they all agree. Is it like this all the time, I wonder? “Yeah,” they say in unison. In an industry where friendships can fracture under the pressure of fame, three-way harmonies and a punishing schedule, FLO seem remarkably unbothered by the idea of a split. “We never really have bad days,” Douglas says. “We really enjoy each other’s company. We understand each other.”
It seems like the trio were an immediate match made in heaven. Quaresma and Downer were a year apart at the Sylvia Young Theatre School as teenagers — “I remember Stella had this beautiful singing voice and everyone was like, ‘Oh my gosh, wow,’” says Downer. But they were put together by record label Island Records, along with Douglas, who they both already knew from Instagram, after she won the CBBC show Got What It Takes? when she was 14 years old. After days of auditions with other girls, they refer to their first moments together as being like “magic”. “It was an instant click. We had the same music taste. Everything was very similar.”
Personal and nerve-wracking
It’s clear that Therapy at the Club is a very personal album to FLO, with the songs largely inspired by their real-life stories. They spotlight Cry Ugly — a song about their own difficult relationship experiences. “Real relationships involve arguing; it’s not always sunshine and rainbows,” Douglas says. And the club really did help them think through their problems. “It feels like a dystopian place,” Quaresma says. “You can have conversations about big stuff, but you can also push things aside and decide to have a good time… the club gave us such a big spectrum to write about.”
Because of this, the pressure of releasing it into the world must be high. And then there’s the small matter of second-album syndrome to contend with. Are they worried? “We put our necks and hearts on the line to write this album,” Downer says. “To step into something that’s more unknown is definitely nerve-wracking.”
FLO are sure their fans will love it, though. “Our crowds are the best, the girls and the gays really show up,” says Quaresma. Still, they can’t quite believe they might be role models to younger girls. “I don’t know if we will be after certain songs, our language is very naughty!” says Douglas, in fits of laughter. But they settle on the idea that they might be relatable. “We’re going to say the times we f***ed up, we’re going to be honest; maybe there’s something they can take away from that.”
After all, underneath all the girl group glitz and glamour, they think they’re just like any other group of twentysomething girls. “We’re all human, we’re going through the same things,” Douglas says. Even on their non-working days — which are few and far between — the girls spend much of their time together, shopping or eating their way through the different cities they visit on tour — they say Soho House is their reliable choice wherever they are. They’ve had a few messy nights out together, too, of course. “Once I threw up and there’s a picture of Stella and Jorja rubbing my back,” says Douglas. But, in true FLO style, it was the girls who got her home safe and sound. “I kept thinking, what would happen if I was alone?”
Therapy at the Club is out now.
