Rachel Chinoriri on how sobriety and self-actualization inspired her sophomore album 'I think I spoke too soon': 'It was like an autopsy on me'

When she began work on her second album, I Think I Spoke Too Soon, Rachel Chinoriri reverse-engineered the entire process. The British singer-songwriter, who made waves worldwide with her self-titled debut in 2024, took a large piece of paper and wrote down the themes and experiences that shaped who she is.

When she began work on her second album, I Think I Spoke Too Soon, Rachel Chinoriri reverse-engineered the entire process. The British singer-songwriter, who made waves around the world with her self-titled debut in 2024, has taken to paper and writing themes and experiences that have shaped who she has become over the past few years. "We had a bunch of song titles, but no songs," he tells Variety via Zoom just days before the album's release. "I saw a picture, but it was blurry. I was wearing glasses with the wrong prescription. And it looked like I could see it, but I was like, why can't I see this thing right? It would be really nice to put it all together." RELATED STORIES Ray Gunn, Brad Bird's Toy Story 5, and Roger Deakins' Toy Story 5 take center stage as AI debate takes center stage Netflix scores exclusive 2030 FIFA World Cup rights to Spain and Andorra in landmark deal

Chinoriri eventually ended up making I Think I Spoke Too Soon (out today), a concept album filtered through a dark night on the town. It's a record that wrestles with uncertainty and the challenges of deciding who you're going to become, largely replacing the thrashing guitars of "Events" with more synthetic tracks. It makes sense that the first song he wrote was "The Good War," a dreamy, percussive finale to the album in which he sings about being with friends you hate so much and drinking yourself into a stupor. The lonely "Do you love the way you can't remember yesterday?" "Or do I like the taste of bile and a sore stomach?" he sings. Popular in Variety

The 27-year-old is as honest as she gets on the album, discussing how she approached it creatively. "It was like an autopsy of myself while I was doing it," he says. Writing "The Good Fight" made him realize that he needed to be sober, and led him to examine the self-destructive and toxic cycle of his alcoholism. On "Broken Chair," the album's passionate track, he looks back on how dire things have become when he returns home after his last call. "She's gonna be thrown in a gutter, she's gonna be real hard to love," he sings. "I gotta be carefree, there's people looking at me / I wonder what they see."

"[I] was dissecting a version of myself that was before 26, between 22 and 26, and like, who was he?" he says I hate throwing up. The times I've sat on the floor throwing up in the streets of London... there's no record of me, thank God. But what was I doing? It's not even who I am by any means, but I was doing it for fun. "It made me feel bad for myself."

Despite the album's darkness, "I Think I Spoke Too Soon," inspired by the likes of Madonna and Donna Summer, has a musical freshness that makes for a club weeper. For example, lead single "A Song Far From Crying" is an '80s bop synth that shines like light from a disco ball, where Chinoriri feels the walls closing in on him: "I've never looked better and I've never felt worse." he sings

"I come from a family that, as immigrants in the UK, went through a lot of survival, dealing with very deep and sad things through laughter or music or whatever made them feel happy," she says. "So that's reflected in my music where I'm at, we're going to dance through it, but I'm going to tell you the saddest things in three minutes."

Over the past few years, Chinoriri has developed a growing fan base that identifies with his songwriting and confessional persona. During last year's Los Angeles stop on The Events tour, she had the crowd in the palm of her hand, encouraging them to tell the person next to them that they love them, or to close their eyes and picture a quiet place. Connecting with his fans is part of the Chinoriri experience, so anyone who approaches him for a photo is treated to a genuine conversation.

"I try to normalize myself with my fans as much as possible, because as someone who was a fan girl on Twitter before I became a singer and even when I became a singer, I didn't think I would go that far," says Chinoriri, who shares that she once had a Coldplay fan account. That sense of online trolling continues to this day: earlier this month, he called out an X user for posting a video where they tore down one of his posters simply because it was next to an Adela poster.

"If I'm walking down the street and I see someone tearing something down, not just a poster, if I see someone tearing up and damaging property, I'm like, 'You're not a good person,'" he says. "It's just an ugly thing. So instead of ignoring it and letting people almost cyber-bully me, I'm acknowledging it and being like, yeah, I've seen it. And it makes me feel really sad. I put a lot of money and effort into this and it's not good. And I'm glad my fans can always tell me that in a human way. Don't say anything, ignore it, but I think it does. That I'm separated from my fans, maybe they'll change my mind when I say this, but I just enjoy having an online friendship with my fans and them knowing they can see me in public.

For the past few years, Chinoriri has been hitting his fans and has been tirelessly ensnaring the world. He opened for Sabrina Carpenter's UK and European 'Short n' Sweet' tour and Florence + the Machine's 'Everybody Scream' tour last spring, headlining between performances at Governor's Ball and Bonnaroo. In late August, she was the only British act to perform at Olivia Rodrigo's Daisy Chain Fields festival in Irvine, California, which Rodrigo described as a "great day" for the work she chose to do. Next, he will open for Gracie Abrams on his tour in December.

For now, Chinoriri has his fans at the front of his mind as he counts down the days to the release of "I Think I Spoke Too Soon" and how the record's message will come across. "My fans have grown up, I've grown up a lot with my fans, and I want my fans to recognize my evolution, but maybe [also] recognize their own evolution," he says. "I hope if they're having a hard time, [that] they learn to forgive themselves. Self-forgiveness is one of the biggest things I've learned through this album. I've done and said and been so many versions of myself in the past that I hate and someone will perceive me as that for the rest of my life. It used to give me anxiety because I don't know what for? It's something that's not normalized in society anymore.