FLETCHER is back after an intense bout of soul searching, and she’s got a new album to show for it.

The 30-year-old singer dropped her sophomore studio album, In Search of the Antidote, on Friday, and told ET’s Denny Directo that major shifts in her love life, health journey, and more over the past few years have inspired her best music yet.

“When, in the past, the antidote has been fans and stages and bottles of tequila and all these things, it had now become something totally different,” she said of making the record. “It was like, deep, really getting in touch with myself and my feelings and healing my heart and body.”

“That’s what the search for the antidote has been, and it has led me to my greatest music yet,” she added. “It’s been a journey making this record, so, to get to share it now is such a beautiful feeling.”

In breaking down each song on In Search of the Antidote, FLETCHER shares some perspective on what she’s learned since breaking out with her 2019 single, “Undrunk.”

“You start realizing, I put all my eggs in one basket, but there’s so many baskets of my life,” the singer reflected. “It’s not just one thing. The peace is in finding this realization that you don’t have to keep chasing something. There’s flow in the chaos, there’s beauty in the chaos. This present moment is perfect.”

See what FLETCHER had to say about her new album — track by track — below:

“Maybe I Am”   

“I released a song called ‘Becky’s So Hot,’ which, you know, did a lot on the internet, and I remembered in that time I was reading so much about myself online and comments and opinions and what people were saying about me and I really wanted to write from the perspective of like, OK, what would it feel like if I did believe what everybody said about me was true? What if all those things were true? Like, what if I felt those things in my body? What would it feel like? And this song came out of it that’s like, maybe I am — maybe I am all those things and sort of just this commentary on like, what if we believed everything that the world had to say about us? It’s just about being able to take everything with a grain of salt and be able to receive feedback — while also having a strong center of gravity and knowing yourself and who you really are.”

“Doing Better”   

“This album for me has really been a weaving of like, who Cari is as the human, and who FLETCHER is, and the integration of the two?… I think it’s funny — my barometer for a good FLETCHER song has always been if I play it for my mom and she gasps. If she clutches her pearls… All of the songs that have gone out into the world or viral or whatever, have been the ones that she’s like ‘Cari Fletcher! I did not raise you like this!’ And I’m like, ‘Bitch, you did, Mom!'”

“Ego Talking”   

“I went to the studio and I was just sitting in like this big feeling of like jealous — I was experiencing jealousy. And I think a big thing throughout this record for me was just being able to give the microphone to all the different parts of me, whether that be like, anger or rage or lust or joy or excitement or happiness. And when I went to the studio that day, I just was like, whoa, my ego needs the mic, you know? This is not something that the happiest, healthiest, highest version of myself wouldn’t say.”

“The healed part of me knows that I want love for like everybody in my life, everybody that I’ve been with like, I want everybody’s utmost happiness. But when you go through those human emotions of like, oh, I’m feeling jealous right now. I’m feeling insecure about you potentially moving on to somebody else… I was like, oh, my ego needs the mic today. So that song was my ego talking.”

“Lead Me On”

“I just felt sonically like ‘Lead Me On’ was such an amazing foundation for what the record sounds like. There’s a lot of pop rock influence and sort of ’90s singer-songwriter [influence], and I really just wanted to share sort of like the sonic palette. I think for me, this album, all the songs were kind of written on multiple levels and so at one listen you can hear ‘Lead Me On’ and think that it’s about taking bread crumbs from somebody who’s like, leading you on in a relationship.”

“It could also be about a song that’s a future, better version of myself — following like my intuition and all the ways that she leads me on — just that kind of inner knowing.. It’s like that’s the complete freeest version of myself, and how she’s left littlee seeds of intuition throughout my life to kind of follow that path.”

“Two Things Can Be True”   

“It’s about this classic like, pining over a straight girl, you know? We’ve all been there… romanticizing a friendship, and having this vision in your head of what something is or could be.”

“My thing is I like, I’d go to a coffee shop and there’d be a sexy barista and I’m like, I see the vision. I see the light, I see the wedding, I see the life… It’s delusion, is what it is, babes. Purely delusion.”

“Eras of Us”

“I mean, this started this new era, right? And I was inspired by running to a certain someone at [Taylor Swift’s] Eras tour… I was lucky enough to go see Taylor at the Eras Tour, and I bumped into an ex there and [we] had no idea each other was going to be there. Once I started feeling all these feelings and realizing that we were both at this concert like scream-singing the lyrics to an artist that has narrated so much of my journey, of my falling in love, of my breakups and both of us [were] there in agonizing pain, yelling these songs at this artist that is just so incredible, it kind of hit me in such a way.”

“I went to the studio the next day and I was like this has to be a song. You don’t run into your ex-girlfriend at a Taylor Swift concert and not turn it into a damn lyric… It came from a reflection and a positive light and also just a way for me to close a chapter. It felt like this sort of like full-circle moment of like, OK, I just want to sing my final piece here.”

“Attached To You”   

“It’s for my avoidant attachment girlies. It’s for people who are healing from their attachment.. It’s about like, a deep sort of intrinsic fear of getting hurt and lost which, ultimately, is not something that we can escape as human beings because to be able to experience these like, high highs and these big loves and these intense joys and emotions, there also has to be the flip side of it, to experience loss.”

“That one’s just about being terrified. I’d rather walk on glass than give someone the opportunity to hurt me. I’d run like hell and sabotage a good thing because I’m so afraid it could be perfect.”

“Crush”   

“As I’ve been on this sort of healing journey and healing my relationships to love and relationships and unlearning toxic behaviors and patterns and that like, intense passion of love, I have sometimes found myself missing that intensity. So, the song ‘Crush’ is sort of about romanticizing like, remembering all the ways that intense passion used to feel.”

“It’s about this fine line where pain meets pleasure and how we would romanticize that, and have this idea of what love is supposed to be like and supposed to feel like. I think finding healthy love — whether that be with yourself or with another — it looks different than the movies, you know? We’ve been fed this narrative that everything has to be this crazy, fiery burning — and that can totally be there. But, you know, also being mindful of like, is this unhinged and hurtful to myself?”

“Pretending”   

“This is a very real, really personal record and this is a really personal song too. It’s just that song for me — I wrote from a place of I think just feeling this wondering [about] that one person that you have in the back of your mind where you’re like, is it gonna be us? Are we going to be the ones that end up together? And are we just kind of playing, you know, pretending in life until that moment? And so just sitting with the realization, sitting with all of that and what that brings up and those feelings — that’s what that song is about.”

“Joyride”   

“I wanted something that just felt like a vintage car driving down the PCH in California, with the convertible down, wind in the hair and that feeling of just like, crushing new love… It’s funny, like, the details in that are just so specific about somebody eating like, peaches and peanut butter. And then thinking about how I’m like, ‘Oh, why do these things taste so good together?’ Like, that was a thought that I really had… [Now it] instantly drops me back to a moment. We’re giving an immersive experience, babe.”

“Antidote”

“I went through a really intense journey last year. I got quite sick and was diagnosed with Lyme disease and I was really forced to kind of like, pull everything back, and I disappeared from social media and I kind of went into this little cocoon of mine for some deep healing. So much got so quiet for me. But other things got really loud, like all the ways that I felt like, unworthy, or still was just dealing with things that I hadn’t dealt with from childhood or like, unresolved feelings and emotions and realizing how much of that affects your health, and affects your sense of self and the way you view yourself.”

“And so when, in the past, the antidote has been fans and stages and bottles of tequila and all these things, it had now become something totally different. It was like, deep, really getting in touch with myself and my feelings and healing my heart and body. And so that’s what the search for the antidote has been, and it has led me to my greatest music yet, that I am just so excited to share.”

“It’s overwhelming in some ways and it’s so beautiful in other ways, because to know that music has the ability to touch so many people and to unite so many people, not just mine, but just music as a whole you know of how many artists have like saved me and taught me things about myself…that’s success to me,” FLETCHER reflected on making her new album. “I think that’s the job of the artist, just to go deep dive and pull out all the crazy shit and just like put it into a song.”

In Search of the Antidote is out now.

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