FLETCHER Brings Her Community Together

This past June, FLETCHER hosted her second annual FLETCHER & Friends festival right off the beach in New Jersey’s Asbury Park. With a lineup of collaborators and her own headlining set, she had plenty of reason for last-minute nerves, but, as she recounts, she was focused instead on the joys of performing in her hometown, eating pizza from the night before, celebrating her brother’s birthday, and thankfully not having a hangover. Her easy attitude seems at first an upbeat contrast to her best-known up- and mid-tempo pop bangers about regret and bad decisions. Her songs are filled with memorable lyrics and melodies that stay with you, alongside the specific troubles of dating in sapphic circles. Laughing over Zoom, this FLETCHER sounds refreshed, displaying a personable charm that has aided her in becoming a global pop sensation, with legions of fans screaming along with her confessionals.

Over the last couple of years, FLETCHER has become a queer icon. The musician, born Cari Elise Fletcher, first broke out in January 2019 with the single “Undrunk,” which peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at number sixty-one. She continued the momentum with her 2020 EP The S(ex) Tapes, her 2022 debut album Girl of My Dreams, and, this spring, her sophomore LP In Search of the Antidote.

FLETCHER’s personal and creative evolution has been clear as her releases have earned her increasing attention and accolades. The S(ex) Tapes was filled with lyrical content about feeling unsatisfied with a relationship and wishing it would end but being stuck in a cycle. Girl of My Dreams centered on leaving that relationship but still being unable to make changes for the better. In Search of the Antidote is the first FLETCHER release to focus on her battle to distract herself from the issues within herself and their root causes in an honest way.

Taking time away from the stage and the public eye recently, FLETCHER was able to take care of herself and make new art, and returned reinvigorated in her passion for the stage. Her vivacious attitude stems from the self-reflective journey of In Search of the Antidote. She wrote and recorded the album in her hometown while recovering from a Lyme disease diagnosis and began to reflect on the things she has used to cope and deflect in life. “The process was this combination of deep self-reflective healing both on a physical and emotional level,” she explains. “In Search of the Antidote, because I was literally in search of an antidote. The antidote has been many things for me. It’s been the road, relationships, tequila, the fans, and different things throughout the course of my life. At that time, it was healing.”

To start the healing process, FLETCHER returned home to New Jersey, staying in her childhood home with her mother and working in the studio. During this time, she began to confront the uncomfortable parts of life while also revisiting her younger self and the musical taste that influenced her early confessionals by listening to her old playlists. ”You come back to your hometown and have all of your inspirations that you grew up with like Avril Lavigne, Michelle Branch, and Kelly Clarkson,” she recalls. “I was back home and I was driving back and forth from the studio. I would just let my iTunes playlist from growing up play, which is all the albums that I bought and all the music that I used to listen to. This is an audible representation of my roots. I think that’s why it’s also the album that feels the most me.”

While the creative process has been different for each of her projects, there is connective tissue throughout. FLETCHER sees her releases as a chronological evolution of her experiences and a space that allows the listener to relate to her mistakes just as they would their own. “Through my music and through the eras, whether I do some kind of callback to a last project, there’s always some sort of reflection from each body of work,” she explains. “There’s always a seed from the last thing to the next thing. I think it’s a really fun way to be even more reflective and pick up where I left off or let people know. I’m such a believer in allowing ourselves to change and allowing ourselves to evolve and to grow and to learn after we know ourselves more deeply.”

FLETCHER speaks with candor about the push and pull of trying to work on yourself in a therapized culture with the recognition that the journey is not always a straightforward one that leads to instant healing. She understands that we are all multiple versions of ourselves at any given moment. “I think that’s a really sweet reflection. The healing journey isn’t something that’s linear and it has to be fully encompassing of the human experience, in its beauty and all of its gore too,” she adds. “We’re all seeking this love and light and inner peace and we can’t get to that without being able to hold and have the capacity to understand our darkness and our depth and who we really are. It’s like the full range of it. It’s not all just love and light.” Reaching this emotional understanding has expanded the range of her creative expression as well: “I give myself permission to feel those things in my personal life, to feel those things through my art. My art is like a symbiotic relationship. I feel like it’s always come through in my work.”

The album cycle for In Search of the Antidote has allowed FLETCHER a newfound acceptance and patience for herself but has also invited self-accountability and real introspection. In her past work, she often placed blame on those around her without looking inward. In songs such as “Serial Heartbreaker,” off her debut LP, she brushed off hurting former partners as an unchanging core characteristic. In “Fuck You for Ruining New York City for Me,” from 2019, FLETCHER blamed an ex-partner for her unpleasant memories in that city. Now, part of giving herself permission to heal has also required looking at herself critically.

This maturity and self-examination can be difficult for anyone but especially so for a queer person with so much stacked against her when trying to figure how to relate to herself and those around her. “In the past, there was a really big part of me that felt a lot of pressure to figure out what I was and what label I needed to use or how I identified. The most beautiful thing that my queer journey has shown me is how much freedom I really have to just be whoever I want to be and truly love whoever I want to love,” FLETCHER says. “It leads you on so many other journeys, whether that be spiritually, emotionally, in therapy. I’ve just felt this openness to life and such a curiosity.”

FLETCHER & Friends, now an annual festival and celebratory occasion for Pride Month, has become a place for FLETCHER’s childhood dreams, loved ones, queerness, and music to all co-exist. The festival took place at the Stone Pony, an iconic venue played by the likes of Bruce Springsteen where FLETCHER was able to play for a crowd of four thousand people, including “all my family and friends that have just been with me on the journey since day one. [Having] my first-ever vocal coach from when I was five years old, teachers, and our family chiropractor was such a full circle moment for me, especially during Pride,” she exclaims with gratitude. This year’s guests included G Flip, Maude Latour, and Ari Abdul, all friends and artists that FLETCHER admires, helping to shed a light on other female musicians, many of them queer. “I grew up in such a small, conservative town, really just confused about who I was, and to have this kind of full-circle moment of so much love and acceptance with all my family and friends at this place that made me is a really special experience.”

As our interview comes to a close, I ask if there is any new music or projects on the horizon, and it seems giving fans the best show possible is the main priority. “I’m just in my full tour mode the rest of this year,” she says as she prepares to cross the United States, Australia, and New Zealand this fall. “I’m always finding different ways to express creatively and finding some new hobbies and new functions. I just have a very artistic soul, so I’m always getting into some weird stuff. I’m focused on this. I’m in FLETCHER tour mode.”

In conversation, FLETCHER comes across just as she does in her lyrical content and melodies—heartfelt, honest, vulnerable, and funny. She is truthful about sapphic chaos and self-discovery. She continues to bring us her true self in her music and it is a gift that so many who need it get to see on the road.

In Search of the Antidote is out now. FLETCHER’s tour continues through Wednesday in North America and resumes on October 20 in Australia and New Zealand.

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