After success of ‘Fight Song’, Rachel Platten looks inward for inspiration

Rachel Platten captured a pop culture moment in 2015 when her emphatic and inspirational anthem “Fight Song” landed in the Billboard top 10 and became ubiquitous on commercials and at sporting events and Hillary Clinton rallies.

“I’d spent years traveling in vans, selling CDs out of my suitcase, hustling and building an indie tour base,” Platten said in a recent interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Then there was this explosion with ‘Fight Song’ beyond anything anyone can prepare for. My entire world flipped upside down.”

But she faced the dilemma many artists face when sudden success happens after years of struggle: how to maintain or build on that surprise momentum. She said she got confused.

“Authenticity is what got me here,” said Platten, who performs Tuesday at the Masquerade at Underground Atlanta. (Tickets are available at $30 apiece.) “You get messages from your label and your team to be a certain way. What type of music should I make?

“I wasn’t listening to my heart.”

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Credit: AP

Credit: AP

Her follow-up album, “Waves,” didn’t make any waves. And after having two kids, postpartum depression hit her hard, exacerbated by the pandemic.

“It as really shocking,” she said. “It was horrible. It was scary. I felt like I was done. I couldn’t do this. It hurt too much.”

Now 42, the Los Angeles resident said she found an outlet that helped get her out of that pit: creating music again. The result was her new, independently released album “I am Rachel Platten,” which came out last year and tackles her mental health issues head-on.

“I decided to just write these songs for me,” she said. “That’s when I think I do my best work. I turn inward and listen to my higher power that loves me. This whole ride has been a wild experience.”

Some of the songs are bracingly dark, like her singles “Mercy” and “Bad Thoughts,” but she opted for some light as well in songs like “First Day” and “I’ll Be Her.”

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Touring, too, has has been reinvigorating.

“It’s been pretty amazing and wildly fun,” Platten said. “I feel like I’m rediscovering a part of me that never went away. I’d been home doing (kid) pickups and making lunch and mom stuff. But now I love being on the road again, seeing my people, seeing my fans and seeing how these new songs are moving them.”

It helps that she has a support system in Kevin Lazan, her husband of 15 years: “He does it all. He watches the kids at home. He packs lunch while making big decisions for our company. He flies out to see us on tour. I’m so in love!”

Not that being independent is easy, she noted. “We don’t have the promotion and machine behind us that Columbia gave us,” she said. “But shows are selling out and people are buying the merch. I’m seeing this star grow again on its own terms. This music is from my artist’s heart.”

She even got to work with Michael Bolton on a song “Caroline” before he began fighting glioblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer.

“I was still going through my postpartum depression and he was so patient,” she told the AJC before news of Bolton’s cancer came out. “He was super sweet, and the song was super fun to write. He sounded the same. Blew me way. We edited me more than him.”

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The concert in Atlanta will be intimate: just Platten, her cellist and backup vocalist Tiger and her long-time drummer and occasional songwriting partner Craig Meyer.

“Craig and I have this connection that is beyond words,” she said. “People love his smile. It’s so huge.”

She said she isn’t performing to make people feel better about the economy or politics. Rather, “I’m here to help you escape for the night. It’s not an escape in a naive way. My music addresses the pain. It doesn’t bypass it.

“Let’s fuel our feelings. Come as you are. I should get sponsored by a tissue company because everyone cries at my show. … Then we shake it out and dance together. We get to ‘Fight Song” and it’s incredibly empowering.”