“Over the last 15 years, CASSADEE POPE has been a lot of things to a lot of people: leader of seminal pop-punk band Hey Monday. Season 3 winner of The Voice. Platinum-selling (“Wasting All These Tears”), GRAMMY-nominated ("Think of You,” a duet with Chris Young) country singer/songwriter. Ally and activist pushing for social change and a brighter future in a backward world.
But through it all – the Warped Tour parking lots, tours with Fall Out Boy and Yellowcard, CMT Awards and chart-topping singles – she’s always remained fearlessly, unapologetically herself. Now, after a few singles in (“People That I Love Leave” “Almost There” “Coma” and “Wasting All These Tears (Cassadee’s Version”) Pope returns with her most joyously authentic statement yet, effortlessly sliding into the ebullient pop-punk sound that defined the late ’00s with unbridled energy, sugar pill melodies and away message-ready wordplay. These songs kick off a brand-new era for Pope, a transition back to the sound that launched her career and made her an inspiration for a new wave of women in underground rock. All it took was a trip to visit an old friend.

“Ali Tamposi and I grew up together and went to school together,” Pope explains. “We’ve been attached at the hip throughout our lives. I was out seeing her in LA, and we wrote a song called ‘More To Me’ that felt very pop-punk and in my wheelhouse. Ali looked at me and said ‘Dude, this is what you should be doing.’ The more I sat with it, the more I felt in my gut that this song was the catalyst for me.”

Before long, the Nashville-via-Florida-based Pope was overnighting in LA between weekend runs of solo shows, crashing at Airbnbs and borrowing her country pal Mickey Guyton’s car for sessions with pop-rock writers and producers like Mike Pepe (Taking Back Sunday), Nick Furlong (blink-182, 5 Seconds of Summer), and Christina Galligan (gnash). Exhuming a rock-influenced musical self she’d long thought was buried, she found a comfort in the past but also a new approach informed by her days in Nashville.

“Back in Hey Monday, I was worried about everything being hyper-literal, the exact thing I was going through,” she says. “I never wanted to embellish anything in terms of the lyrics. But country music is rooted in storytelling, conversational lyrics that are universal and can span across all genres. With that experience under my belt, I’m able to combine that style of writing with a type of music I love more than anything.”

“Throughout this process, I had to step back and ask myself, ‘Why am I having so much more fun with this project?’ she continues. “I think it’s because I’m not putting any limitations on what I can write about or how the songs can sound.” She points to the prominent octave guitars that give “People That I Love Leave” its driving energy and sweat-soaked sheen. “Hey Monday was always getting compared to Paramore, so we didn’t do a ton of octave guitars. This time around, I just said ‘Screw it, I’m doing what I want.’”

Thus, the next era of Cassadee Pope: unafraid to wade into new waters with an unmistakable voice, unflinching optimism, and unbreaking confidence. Now, with a tremendous sense of freedom guiding her and a forthcoming album set to once again amplify her confessional writing and redefine her place as a pop-punk mainstay, the future’s open wide in ways she previously thought impossible – leaving no doubt she’s exactly where she’s meant to be.

“I grew up singing country music,” she says. “It’ll always be a part of me, but this just feels so right. When all the boundaries were removed, I found out I had so much to share in this next chapter. It feels like I’ve been let out of my cage.”