Rachel Platten, 36, wants to be a uniter, not a divider. Although you may know her from her smash hit, “Fight Song,” (Hillary Clinton’s campaign anthem), the mission of her music isn’t to appeal to just one party—she’d rather bring them together. “When music can make us understand that we’re all similar, that’s the most powerful thing in the world,” Platten says. And her commitment to that goes beyond music: It’s also the aim of her new social media campaign #WomenCreatingWaves. “Even though we put on these fronts on social media and pretend our lives are so perfect, we’re actually all hurting and we’re all uncomfortable and we all have fears,” Platten continues. It’s the same philosophy she brings to her sophomore album, Waves (out October 27), which is the rawest and most vulnerable we’ve ever seen her. Here, Platten opens up about everything from drinking tequila in her onesie to why she stands by Taylor Swift and all women using their platform to speak out.
You just launched your #WomenCreatingWaves Instagram campaign. What made you want to start it?
Rachel Platten: I’ve been working with a lot of girl power organizations this year. I just launched Day of the Girl with the Girl Scouts. Also, “Broken Glass,” my first single, was all about breaking down barriers that we think women have. I have so many incredible women in my life that I’m supported by and I wanted to shine a light on them and encourage other women and girls to do the same. We’re often encouraged by the media to compete with one another, to bring each other down, or to feel small when seeing the success of someone else, and I just wanted to flip that script and challenge us to do the opposite. Instead, feel inspired and ignited by someone else’s success.
Who are some of the women your followers have been posting as their #WCWs?
RP: They’re doing a lot of their own friends and family members, which is perfect. We all look up to these strong women that we see in magazines and on TV, but it’s even more empowering to realize that change comes at the smallest level. It starts with us. It starts with me and my best friend, who I’m out on a walk with today, hearing about the amazing things she’s doing for her kid’s school. It can be everyday heroes and everyday women who work 9 to 5 and have kids and still balance a healthy social life. Or, it can just be your best friend from school, who stands up and makes a difference and runs for student council and wants to make change in our community.
You mentioned your single “Broken Glass,” which I know was inspired by your experience at the Women’s March, but also what it means to be a woman in 2017. Can you tell me more about what this year has been like for you, and why you felt compelled to write about it?
RP: Going back to last summer, when “Fight Song” was used by Hillary Clinton, it was inspiring—but I also got a lot of hate from it. [I received] hate mail and death threats on Twitter. It was terrifying. I understand that politics can divide, but I want my music to unite. So even having that small taste of getting attacked like that opened my eyes to how other women must feel who aren’t just singing top songs, but who are really inciting change around the world and standing up for something and speaking out. It opened my eyes to the fact that we have a long way to go in [terms of] equal rights. “Broken Glass” is inspired by all of that. The emotion of the year, what I was seeing, what I was feeling. Also, the Women’s March was so cool. It was electric. It was the first time in my lifetime that I felt that the world was shining a light on girl power and saying it was finally a cool thing for women to speak up and say, “we demand change,” “we deserve better than this.”
You also just released the song “Perfect for You”. What can you tell me about its message?
RP: When I released “Broken Glass” I realized I had to look at the world and say, ‘Hey, what do you think?’ It was this horrible awakening that I was going to go right back into this place of getting judged. I wasn’t ready for it. The song came out, and I was terrified. Instead of feeling glad and psyched, I was feeling insecure. Three days before the record was due in September I wrote “Perfect for You,” and the chorus is basically a fuck you to the world, to everything and everyone that I ever felt I had to be better than I am for. It’s basically saying, “I’m enough as I am, I’m good as I am, I can’t be perfect for you.” It feels so good to sing, and I want girls to hear that you don’t have to worry about what people think of you because then you can move mountains.
Waves is more of a cathartic album than Wildfire was. So I’m curious, what sort of things were you grappling with and working through on this album?
RP: I was responding to the emotion of the world, but I also had a lot of personal stuff I was working through. When I finished my two years of being on the road, I realized I hadn’t been writing songs, which is how I process my emotions. I was just trying to keep my head above water, catching up to the success of “Stand By You,” which was also brand new for me, all of that kind of stuff. So when I finally got to start writing again, it was like this faucet turned on. I quickly was able to let whatever music needed to come through come. I didn’t judge it. If it was me feeling angry at a friend because I had some experiences that were painful this year, I wrote about it. If it was about me feeling totally in love with my husband and kind of sexy, which I never really talk about or acknowledge, I wrote about that. If it was me making everyone in the studio wear onesies and drink tequila, we wrote a party song. If it was me waking up in the middle of the night crying at 3 a.m. asking for answers because I didn’t recognize the person, I wrote about that too. I was really honest and vulnerable on the album, and it was a blast to write. It made me feel how I used to feel before I cared what anybody thought. I was just creating for creation’s sake.
Going back to the beginning of your journey, one of the first big moments for you was when you performed “Fight Song” on Taylor Swift’s 1989 tour. This year, when Taylor took her assaulter to court, you were really active on Twitter supporting her. What has Taylor taught you about strength?
RP: I think that she was really brave to speak up; she got a lot of shit she shouldn’t have. She was using her voice and calling attention to something that’s terrifying, no matter how successful you are. To say that you have been touched or assaulted, it brings shame to you. It’s what happens to the person who’s been abused, we think that it’s our fault. It doesn’t matter who you are or how successful you are, that feeling doesn’t go away. I was really inspired by her speaking up, but even more so about the women speaking up in the past couple days about Harvey Weinstein. Those are such small examples we get to hear about because those people are famous. But can you imagine how many experiences happen around the world that women don’t feel they have the power to call attention to? Because they’re terrified for their lives and their reputations. It’s really important that when we do have a microphone and a platform that we set an example for girls who don’t have access to money or people believing us. So I’m proud of Taylor, I’m proud of the women who have come forward lately, and I’m proud of every woman who speaks up about something they’re terrified about.
In Hillary Clinton’s new memoir, What Happened, she talks about how she can’t hear “Fight Song” now without crying. I was wondering if it has a similar impact on you, or if you still hear the positive message in it?
RP: Oh my god, that’s really sweet, and it touched me, but we don’t feel at all the same on it. For me, that song was never anymore Hillary’s song than it was the little kids who used the song while fighting cancer’s song, or the US women’s soccer team’s song. It’s amazing that all these people embrace that message, but I wrote it over the course of a year and a half in all these different stages: in my bedroom by myself and in thousands of journals with so many different verses and thousands of combinations. That song was my release, my affirmation that I was going to believe in myself no matter what. That doesn’t change when I play it today, even if I play it to thousands of people now in an arena. I’m still brought back to the same feeling of determination and also the pain I felt when no one believed in me. Honestly, I don’t think that will ever change. No matter how successful I get, or how many times I sing it, [I don’t think] that it will ever change for because it’s just so deeply personal and healing for me.
Rachel is urging her fans to help uplift other women by uploading a photo of someone in their lives who is creating waves using #WomenCreatingWaves on social.
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