On the opening track of her second album, FLETCHER reveals that she's been called a sick, permanently numb, narcissistic crazy b—. And FLETCHER has one thing to say about that perception: "maybe I am."
It's a stark contrast to the narrative that opened the pop singer's debut LP, 2022's Girl of My Dreams ("Cause lately I've been feeling kinda lonely/ Kinda like nobody knows me anymore," she sings on "20 Something"). But it also highlights the growth evident on FLETCHER's new project, In Search of the Antidote.
While the freshly 30-year-old artist has never been afraid to pour her heart out and speak her mind (see her 2019 breakthrough "Undrunk" or her viral Girl of My Dreams hit, "Becky's So Hot"), In Search of the Antidote is FLETCHER at her most assured. Across 11 guitar-driven tracks, she embraces everything from the harsh realities of fame ("Doing Better"), to the pain of letting someone go ("Two Things Can Be True") and the rush of new love ("Joyride").
"It's the most f—ing unhinged and chaotic s— I've ever said, and also, the most healed," the singer, whose birth name is Cari Fletcher, tells GRAMMY.com of the album. "With growth and change comes evolution, both as a human being and as an artist. I've always, always, always sung from my heart, but every time it gets to be a deeper dive, because I get to know more of me. And the music just evolves with that."
Below, FLETCHER details the personal deep dive that helped her create In Search of the Antidote, and why this album is "the bridge of where Cari meets FLETCHER."
"[In Search Of is] a beautiful integration of me as a human being and me as an artist."
The difference between Girl of My Dreams and In Search of the Antidote was the headspace that I was in. I had taken quite a bit of time off last year to navigate some things with my health, and it forced me to get still and get quiet — outside of, you know, the shows, and social media, and just this constant inundation of validation from an external world.
While I was on this healing journey with my health and with my body [FLETCHER was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2023], I was creating this music at the same time. And because I didn't have the energy to be able to put on any sort of facade or any sort of character, I ended up getting the truest music from my heart.
Having that space allowed me to sonically go elsewhere, vocally go elsewhere, conceptually, thematically. Obviously with the through line of it always just being me, but this music came from a different place in my heart.
I think people can only meet you as deeply as you've met yourself. So the version of me that's existed on previous records was just the level of depth within myself that I was able to access at the time. But as we grow, and we evolve, and we have life experiences, we reach these new levels of our awareness, and our consciousness, and the depths of who we are and our own emotions.
This album is, like, the bridge of where Cari meets FLETCHER. In the past, Cari's always been there, but there's just been more of a beautiful integration of me as a human being and me as an artist in this project.
"F—ing question absolutely everything."
I have a song on my album called "Doing Better." It's a deeper reflection into this idea of the notion of fame, and when you start to achieve some of the things that you've wanted for so long — and then looking at all the ways that it doesn't necessarily feel like you thought it was going to. And then, navigating things with your health and your mental health [on top of that].
When all of that is sort of just compiling into one moment, you are absolutely forced to really do a deep dive and look at yourself in the mirror, and f—ing question absolutely everything. This album is an answer to a lot of those beckoning, deeper questions that I was sort of in search of the answer to.
There's a song that opens my album and it's called "Maybe I Am," and that song was written as a response of, What if we believed what everybody else had to say about us? And then all the ways that that forces you deeper into yourself, like, Who am I? What is my intention? Where is my heart? Why do I do the things that I do? What place am I acting from?
All of that pushed me deeper into myself and into exploring and knowing myself. All of it — the platform, everything that came from the last era — deeply informed the rest of how my journey has gone over the last year. And this record is a response to it.
"Chaos is feeling all your feelings."
I think people have this perception that once you embark on some sort of healing, transformational journey of working on yourself, that everything's all good, and it's all love and light. But actually, the magic in all of it is the integration of the messy feelings, the chaotic feelings — giving voice to all of the parts of you.
There were moments on this album where my ego really needed the microphone — even while knowing that some of these things that I'm saying are not coming from my healthiest, happiest, healed version of me. We have to let all of these other things arise [in order] to be to be felt and to be seen.
The FLETCHER brand has become synonymous with the word chaos. And I would like a redefinition, folks. Please. [Laughs.]
I don't know that I necessarily think [the "chaos" label] was a negative thing. It's a perception it's a lens that people have viewed me through. But I'm all of it, you know? That was the thing, even with "Maybe I Am" — like, "Yeah, maybe I am f—ing crazy b—, what would you say then?"
To me, chaos is just, like, feeling all your feelings. It's both the beauty and the absolute heartbreak that it is to be living a human experience. We get to feel it all.
I get to be the fullest expression of myself through my music. To have that, and then to be able to share that, and give someone else permission to just be in all of it, that's why I do it.
"I just have more acceptance for the process."
On Girl of My Dreams, there's a lot of narratives about other people. And while there are on this record, too, it's me learning about myself through other experiences. With "Doing Better," I'm poking fun at myself in those verses, and even through that, I was able to find myself in a different way. That is the exploration of love in all of its infinite manifestations, which just shows up as every feeling. And when I say love, I don't just mean romantic love or self-love. It's a universal love, and the world just being in such a need of that.
This is an album for little Cari to feel all the ways that she felt, like, not paid attention to, or her feelings were too big or too scary. FLETCHER gets to wear them on her sleeve now — through a reclamation of all of the parts of me that society wants to tell us are too much. Just being it all and not shying away from it.
It f—ed me up for a minute, and then I was like, "Wait, wait, wait — who are we?" And that's the thing — you start to learn your own internal navigation system, and the truth of who you really are. And I just am like, "This is what I want to say, and this is how I want to show up." It's always a refinement. I get to show up in this way with this album, and who knows how I'll show up next.
I just have more acceptance for the process and knowing there's no end goal to reach. I think there was always this version of me in the past that was like, When I achieve this accolade, and this amount of money, I'll be good, I'll be happy, and everything that I've been stressed about will just go away. And that's just not true.
When you really get to fall in love with the richness of you and who you are, then everything else just feels like an addition, and feels fun. I think that's where I'm at now. I feel excited to go play shows, and see my fans, and scream these songs together without an attachment on what it has to do or who I have to be. Just more of me loving me, and getting to be with this music in a way that feels really present.