How Cassadee Pope returned to her roots

Born and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida in the 90s, Pope was brought up on country music. Her vocal teacher was a “very Southern woman” who coached her with songs from the country canon, while her mum’s side of the family were devout fans of the genre. It was only her dad who brought a little rock to the household, often found playing along to Boston songs on his drum kit. “I grew up hearing ‘More Than a Feeling’ over and over and over again,” she laughs.

It wasn’t until Pope started high school that she began to develop her own musical tastes, listening to bands like Yellowcard and Fall Out Boy. Her local venue, Rays Downtown Blues, was a small and intimate space that hosted underplays for many bands from the burgeoning scene. “I got to see so many cool bands and it showed me what the community was like and the camaraderie of everybody that’s on tour together. That was when it started becoming really appealing to me and I wanted to make the leap to being in a band,” she smiles.

Forming the band Hey Monday in 2008, they were almost instantly picked up by Columbia Records, signing a joint deal with Decaydance, the imprint founded by Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz. Subsequent global tours supporting their label bosses, among others, followed. “It was the craziest trajectory and something I now know was very abnormal,” says Pope. “It was just wild. I wasn’t really absorbing any of it because it seemed so crazy and so surreal.”

But without the foundations of a local scene or hard won fanbase, by 2011 Pope felt as though interest in the band was waning, including from their label. “I kept being asked if I would ever go solo, which is a very bad sign,” she says. “We took off so fast, we didn’t really do the building from the ground up phase. We had great fans, but it wasn’t the kind of thing where we had come up for five, ten years and had these loyal fans that would stick with us no matter what.”

Forming the band Hey Monday in 2008, they were almost instantly picked up by Columbia Records, signing a joint deal with Decaydance, the imprint founded by Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz. Subsequent global tours supporting their label bosses, among others, followed. “It was the craziest trajectory and something I now know was very abnormal,” says Pope. “It was just wild. I wasn’t really absorbing any of it because it seemed so crazy and so surreal.”

But without the foundations of a local scene or hard won fanbase, by 2011 Pope felt as though interest in the band was waning, including from their label. “I kept being asked if I would ever go solo, which is a very bad sign,” she says. “We took off so fast, we didn’t really do the building from the ground up phase. We had great fans, but it wasn’t the kind of thing where we had come up for five, ten years and had these loyal fans that would stick with us no matter what.”

Hey Monday went on indefinite hiatus and Pope moved to LA to pursue a solo career. Around the same time she was approached by producers from The Voice. Having previously declined the show, this time the opportunity felt right and she auditioned for season three, eventually winning the series.

After auditioning with a version of Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”, her song choices for the show were pragmatic, a mix of country and pop-rock, unsure of what direction she wanted to take next. She knew that she would be signed to Universal, and at the time Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine label was flying high in Nashville with artists like Florida Georgia Line, The Band Perry and of course, Taylor Swift.

Pope opted to sign with Republic Nashville and released her debut country album Frame by Frame in 2013. While her success on The Voice brought a considerable boost to her solo career, the switch from pop-punk to country still came with a period of adjustment. “My first tour was with Rascal Flatts and I remember running out on the stage about to start rocking out and jumping around and no one got up,” she laughs. “Everyone was just sitting, drinking their drink and bopping their heads. I was like, this is different.”

Since her solo debut, Pope has released two further albums, received a Grammy nomination for “Think of You,” her duet with Chris Young, and been Platinum-certified. Two years ago “Wasting All These Tears”, a gem of country-leaning soft-rock from her debut album, had a TikTok moment, amassing millions of streams and inspiring a cover from Austin Snell. “The cool thing about the Gen Z culture is they’re so much more open to listening to older music. It just seems like they’re embracing the past. I love that,” she smiles.

Despite all her success, Pope felt the desire to progress while staying as authentic as possible. Coming up in country music, she’d worked hard to prove that it was in her blood. But comparing that to how accepting pop-punk was, of both her and her politics, things began to fall in place. “I just had this relaxing feeling come over me,” she says. “I’ve definitely gotten more vocal about my stance on social injustice and LGBTQIA+ rights. If you’re not a big name in country music it is harder to say those things and be embraced and still be able to have mainstream success. I’m not that big and I knew speaking out, especially in 2020 where everything was so charged, I knew that it would draw this line in the sand for me.”

On her 2021 album Thrive, she tested the waters mixing country narrative with pop-punk attitude. “Thrive was my attempt to do a pop-punk country record and carve out my own lane in country music and they weren’t ready for that. They weren’t ready for a woman to do that,” she explains. “I had to learn the hard way because I had this hope for country music to embrace me in a way where I wouldn’t have to compromise my sound and when it didn’t happen it was like, I tried that, it didn’t work.”

Pope felt like it was time for a change. Travelling back and forth to LA for most of last year, her network of friends set her up in songwriting sessions and with producers who understood the direction her music needed. Returning with “People That I Love Leave” earlier this year, it’s an instant and bombastic air-punch of power-pop that balances nostalgic genre tropes with an experienced sentiment.

Releasing new single “Almost There” this month, Pope again combines her practised talent for storytelling with substance against instant early-00s pop-punk production. “Obviously I want everything to feel current but I also want people to hear the influence that I have and I’m a sucker for an explosive chorus with tons of guitars and drums that sound like they could be from an arena show,” she smiles. “I love the big impact that choruses have.”

Not only is Pope feeling headstrong about the changes she’s made, her return to the embrace of pop-punk has been rewarding in every sense. “I’ve not really had any bouts of anxiety, which is abnormal for me,” she explains. “Before a release I’m always crying and having a week of being in a bad mood. I’m just always nervous and these releases have felt like actual releases for me, as a human. I’ve just been very fulfilled.”