Fletcher has had a chaotic few years. In 2022, the pop singer released her debut studio album, Girl of My Dreams, shortly after releasing “Becky’s So Hot,” a breakup single about her ex-girlfriend’s new partner that ignited a firestorm of sapphic drama on the app. Then, last year, she had to step back from the spotlight due to health concerns, canceling her tour following her Lyme disease diagnosis.
Thankfully, she's spent the year since since focusing on healing, and she's ready to share what she's found in the process. Her latest album, In Search of the Antidote, out today via Capitol Records, continues the poignant self-reflection of her studio debut, 2019’s Girl of My Dreams. But Fletcher isn’t pulling punches either, whether she’s candidly taking aim at people’s assumptions about her on the opening song, “Maybe I Am,” or ruminating on running into her ex-girlfriend at a Taylor Swift concert on “Eras of Us.” Taken together, the new tracks prove that an artist can still put out cathartic, emotionally urgent music while finding happiness outside the recording studio; in fact, Fletcher doesn’t see those pursuits as contradictory.
“Once you proclaim that you are on some deeper healing journey, there’s this false narrative that it's like, ‘Everything's all sunshine and rainbows,’ and ‘Wishing love and light,’” she tells me via Zoom. “But it’s also about the mess of it all, ’cause the human experience is messy, and it doesn’t make sense, and it’s not a linear journey. So to be able to say that this album is the most chaotic I’ve ever been and the most healed I’ve ever been feels really true.”
In short, you can still expect Fletcher to write passionate songs about relationships and breakups, but maybe without causing an internet meltdown as she did with “Becky’s So Hot.” And it also means the artist will be maintaining a committed self-care routine as she tours with the new LP this year. A key step? “Drinking more tea and less tequila,” she says.
Ahead of In Search of the Antidote’s release, Fletcher spoke with Them about creating the album’s raw sound, navigating the double-edged sword that is TikTok, and how she’d like to see queer pop music evolve.
In Search of an Antidote has this very raw, organic feel, focusing on live instruments and unbridled vocals. I'd love to hear about choosing that production style and why it felt right for this album.
I wrote most of this album in New Jersey, in a studio in Asbury Park, where I’m from. There’s this level of really wanting to get back to my roots because I was processing so much emotionally during the time of this album. I was healing my body from sickness and illness and dealing with Lyme disease. So, I wanted to create a project that felt like the root of who I am and [felt] more simple production-wise, and more natural.
My live show also informs so much of the way that I wrote this album and this project. I know the way that songs feel when I perform them live with my fans and I wanted to bring some of that to the record.
I feel like your songwriting flies in the face of this idea that when you've been doing healing work and taking that time, you should be all light and love all the time, which is bullshit. Why was that an important distinction for you to make?
Because I’ve read so many comments about myself online [where] my fans joke, “She’s never healed a day in her life,” and I’m like, “You guys, this shit is not linear.” It’s about the weaving of the mess of it all, too. That’s just the truth.
“This Shit’s Not Linear “would be a great song title.
I got you [laughs]. I’ll get it going.
You mentioned fan reactions and the process of deciding to incorporate your private life and relationship into music with songs like “Becky’s So Hot” and “Eras of Us.” What’s your process of deciding how many personal details you feel like including? Is it more of a gut feeling, or do you have specific boundaries around it?
I never really go into the room or the studio and decide, “This song has to come out.” It’s more [about] processing in real-time. It’s like my therapy. It’s a space to go and unleash the human emotion that I’m experiencing and feeling.
It’s what an artist does, I think: turn their beauty and their chaos and their pain into art. It’s part of my purpose in why I’m here, but I think there’s also a refinement of that. Like, “How much detail do I want to give? Can I be specific without being so specific and writing people’s names in songs?” I think we’ve had some growth since that era [laughs].
Have you talked to Taylor Swift about the “Eras of Us?” And if you did, what was her reaction?
I reached out [to her] saying that I was just really deeply inspired by going to the show and witnessing her in that space and watching so many people be so in awe of her. [That song] is a reflection on the experience of the show and the experience of running into my ex. I think it would have been the biggest missed opportunity to not write it. I mean, you can’t go to a Taylor Swift concert and run into your ex and not immediately go to the studio and fucking write a sapphic love song about it.
Yeah, I hope she enjoyed it. I feel like dealing with life in the limelight and non-stop opinions from strangers on social media is intense enough on its own, let alone dealing with health issues and your relationship with touring. What does your self-care routine look like in this phase of your career?
I’m about to go on the road next week, actually, and see how this self-care fares. But for me, it looks a lot like grounding in my body. I had navigated so much health stuff, and I realized all the ways that I was pushing through every pain and every symptom and was forcing my way through life. So much doing, and “I gotta go here, and I need to be here, and I do all these things.”
So it’s a slowing down. It is meditation. It is breathwork. It is eating my food slower, eating more regular meals, drinking more tea and less tequila. It’s journaling. It’s talking to my therapist. It’s laughing. It’s not taking myself so seriously. It’s not criticizing my body. It’s practicing gratitude for it and all the ways that it gets me through life and allows me to get on a stage.
Self-care has been a redefining of my love for myself and my vessel that gets me through life.
I find artists’ relationship with TikTok interesting because obviously, it does help people find lesbian and sapphic artists. But there can also be that pressure to reverse-engineer an artistic persona or art for an algorithm. How do you feel about it as a discovery tool and a way to connect with fans versus an industry pressure?
I think it’s incredible to get to find a new audience and have people discover your music, building a presence there and [being able] to share myself and be more playful and make videos to different sounds. It allows you to be in this space of not taking yourself so seriously while also being an incredible promotional tool.
But I don’t know. For me, it’s always been really hard to look at it through that lens because I’m so sensitive, and all I want to do is connect to people and feel them, and [let] them feel me. It brings up a larger conversation around social media in general, which is that it’s hard to exist in a world where there’s constant pressure to maintain a brand and keep selling yourself. So when you’re on a journey of healing and realizing your own enough-ness, the narrative of social media is quite different when there’s always the next trend to jump on, the next thing to go viral.
For me, it’s just been about navigating that balance, which I’m still learning.
It’s a double-edged sword, for real.
Yeah, it really is.
You’ve built your career writing very candid music that isn’t afraid to be passionate and delve into more complicated emotions. It’s refreshing to watch queer women in music move away from this toxic, longstanding expectation that queer artists should water themselves down to seem more palatable or treat being queer like this inherently sad, isolating thing. How do you want to see queer pop music evolve in the future?
I think it’s on a really beautiful trajectory at the moment, [with] people being themselves and being in their truth, and sharing who they are and their joy. Queerness, for me, earlier in my life, was a deeply personal struggle. It was a big part of turning me into the person that I am, and all the things that I had to navigate and go through and process.
But now it’s the gift that keeps on giving because it’s given me this freedom. I think learning that about myself from such a young age and having to do that deep dive and face really complex emotions at the time gave me that tool to be able to [examine] all areas of my life and all relationships. It’s a tool that I take with me wherever I go.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
In Search of the Antidote is available now via Capitol Records.
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