Let's Get Reckless - Your source for everything Hey Monday. As the band is currently on a break, we'll keep you updated on all the members of Hey Monday, including past members. Cassadee’s Interview with ‘A Teen View’!
You may be familiar with the name, but the sound might be a bit different. That’s right, Hey Monday’s Cassadee Pope embarking on her first solo acoustic tour to kick off her solo project. Now, you will have the opportunity to hear the stripped version of her voice and get a taste of what’s to come later this year. We caught up a few days before tour to chat about what can be expected, the solo project, her involvement with different organizations and her love of vampire shows. Visit the link below to find a list of tour dates because this is one you will not want to miss.
Arin: What are you most looking forward to with the solo tour?
Cassadee: Definitely playing shows again, I did a little show, I didn’t really promote it or anything, I just kind of did it because I wanted to play out and it was at this little place here in LA and it was just having that feeling of being on stage and closing my eyes and really getting into it, I really missed it and we’ve always been on tour, like tour after tour and we would have like week breaks but most of the time we were on the road, so not being on tour for this long has been kind of difficult and I’m just really excited to get back out there. I’ve kept in touch with a lot of the hardcore fans that come to every Hey Monday show so they’re gonna come out and I’m really excited to see them as well.
A: Since this tour is more of an acoustic/intimate tour, how is that different than what you are used to playing?
C: Um, it is going to be intimate and I think that’s what makes it different than any of the shows we’ve ever done. We’ve done acoustic sets and it’s a lot different than the full band and stuff just because I’m sitting there and I’m focusing on singing the songs and really just like singing from the heart and a lot of the time with full bands, sometimes I just forget what I’m singing and I get really into it and I’m just rocking out and jumping around and going kind of crazy, but this one I’m just sitting there singing to the fans and I feel like I’m going to feel a lot closer to them because I’m going to be able to hear every little sound they say and sing and everything because I usually wear in-ear monitors and this time I’m just going to have floor monitors so it’s going to be a lot easier to hear what they want us to play. I said before I’m totally open to requests and its going to be kind of a fly by the seat of your pants kind of thing, like we have a set list but its totally flexible and I’m down to just play whatever they want all night. It’ll be really, really fun and easy.
A: Your cover of ‘Torn’ was just released the other day, when can people expect to hear more of your own music come out?
C: Well ‘Torn’ was just a really last minute thing and I want to be very strategic with how I release my own stuff and I want it to sound amazing and I want the genre and the production and everything to be very apparent. Like I don’t want people to listen to this and say well what is it and that’s what they would say if they heard the demos that I have, it’s like all very still in the beginning stages and I didn’t wanna release just anything to let people know this is going to be a very up close and personal thing that I’m going to do and ‘Torn’ was just kind of like, I know it’s a cover and its not an original song and its weird that I released a cover before my actual music, but I just wanted people to get a taste of what is about to come. In my perfect world I would release an album before the end of this year, I know with making an album and everything it takes a while so realistically I would love for it to be at the end of this year but if its before then, then that’s even more amazing, but I would love to keep everyone in the loop with the process and maybe release some, kind of like what I did with the song ‘Lunatic’ I released a verse and a chorus of me and my friend Justin Young, who I’m taking out on tour, we were just jammin’ out and wrote this cool song called ‘Lunatic’ and we put that up on my YouTube channel so I think every once in a while I’ll definitely do that stuff just to kind of let everyone know what’s going on and keep everyone interested, kind of include everyone in this journey of mine, but yeah I would really love to release an album this year, that would be amazing.
A: How have you been using social networks to keep in touch with old and new fans?
C: I’ve been pretty relentless with it, I feel bad for people that follow me that are just my friends or people in other bands know me and follow me, because I’ve been really just honing in on this tour and promoting it and really trying to keep the fans engaged and I’m usually, I’m really kind of average with social networking, I’m not that great with it, but recently I’ve really just honed in on it and have done my best to spread the word and do everything I can to get everyone to hear about the tour and I feel like its like consuming my life, but at the same time it’s what I have to do if I want this to work out and the fans to know about it. Some fans still don’t know that I’m going solo, every once in a while I’ll see a comment on my twitter or on my Facebook like ‘wait you’re going on tour? What just happened with Hey Monday?’ and it’s just crazy because I feel like you have to say things a million times, I get people to notice so I’ve learned that and I’m just trying to keep informing people about what’s going on and I really try to use Twitter and Facebook to my advantage and it seems to be working. I know it can be a little annoying because that’s all I talk about on my Twitter now, but it’s something that I just have to do if I want people to know about what I’m doing.
A: You may have done some with Hey Monday, but are you planning on doing any charity or nonprofit work as a solo artist?
C: Yeah, definitely. We did stuff with Invisible Children and we’ve taken them out on tour and we’ve been on the same tours as them and I just love everyone at Invisible Children and I love the organization itself, I think not focusing on things here and expanding out to another place and Uganda and really being selfless in that matter I really think it’s incredible and I’ve always been a part of Invisible Children since we first started being Hey Monday. So I’ll always support them and I’ve also been doing stuff with an organization called Natural High and its basically teaching kids in schools and teenagers that you don’t need to do drugs, or drink or party all the time to be happy and to be successful and I did a video with them and they made a DVD and I’m in it, Lauren Conrad’s in it, a few other professional skateboarders are in it all those people don’t do drugs and they’re basically saying ‘look at me I’m successful and I’ not doing drugs so don’t be stupid and ruin our life with drugs and not get anywhere.’ So I did that and there’s this thing called Downtime and its actually kind of funny, our old A&R from Columbia Records, he’s starting it, and its a really cool idea, it’s for artists and bands on tour who have a lot of downtime because when you get to the venue after sound check and everything, you have a good four or five hours until the show to do absolutely nothing, so I have an organization called Kids Rock, or something I need to look at it again, but I decided I wanted to do something with music in schools and I decided I was going to help them, but this was a few months ago before I decided I was going on tour, so I need to look back and see what the actual name is, but it’s basically where people donate used instruments and bring them into underprivileged schools and they can have music classes and I feel like music in schools is dwindling down to nothing and its not a top priority anymore and I think that’s really wrong so I’ll definitely be supporting that as well.
A: What is your biggest goal this year with the solo project and trying to get that to take off?
C: I would love to release an album, in my mind it would be best for me to release it on a major label just because judging from this tour and not having a major label to promote it and everything, it’s really hard and I feel like release it on a label would get it to a lot more people than I would on my own so that’s a goal of mine. Also I would love to go on like a big pop tour as just an opener, I would love to open for Katy Perry, or P!nk or Bruno Mars or artists like that because the biggest tour we ever did was with Fall Out Boy and it was incredible and that’s how we got most of our fans so I think that would be really awesome and really helpful to my career and expanding my fan base and maybe I would really love to get ‘Torn’ in like a movie or something. I feel like its been so long since Natalie Imbruglia’s version came out and its kind of like a rebirth for the song and its such an amazing, beautiful song and the approach I took is a little more slower and a lot more sad than her version so I could definitely see that being in a movie or even a TV show, but yeah I think those three things are on the top of my list for this year.
A: If you had to pick a TV show to get a song on, do you have one that would make you dance around the room if you heard your song?
C: I mean I love True Blood but I know that would not at all go with the show, they always pick these old kind of Americana, old, southern, rock songs and that’s not at all when that [my music] is although they did have Taylor Swift in an episode so there’s hope, but if that happened I would definitely probably run around screaming and probably cry and all that stuff because I’m obsessed, and if, I know I’m sticking with the vampire theme, was in maybe the new Twilight movie I would definitely freak out, that would be a huge moment for me because I’m a huge fan of the books and everything because I’m a huge Twilight nerd so that would be cool.
A: Is there a specific artist, producer or songwriter you have always wanted to work with?
C: Yeah, I mean all the songwriters that I’ve really, really wanted to work with or I didn’t know about until I worked with them, I’ve been really lucky to have had the chance to work with a lot of amazing songwriters. I work really well with this woman, Liz Rose and I worked one time with Butch Walker where I was actually in his studio and we wrote together and it turned out amazing so I would love to get back in with him. I would be really stoked if I could work with Ryan Tedder, that would be really crazy, but I feel like his waiting list is probably extremely long, writing with Bruno Mars would be incredible because he’s a great songwriter. I’ve always wanted to write with Michelle Branch so hopefully that happens, I know she knew about me wanting to write with her and her whole schedule is really crazy because she’s got a kid and its just like balancing her music with that is crazy so it’s waiting for the right moment to discuss getting in there and just do it. I’ve been working with the producer names Jessie Owen Astin and he’s really good, he’s been amazing with getting these Liz Rose demo’s set up with me, and him and I work really well together. He actually worked on the ‘Torn’ cover with me and he produced that and recorded that, so there’s a lot of opportunities here in LA and I’m trying to meet as many people as I can and get in the studio with as many people as I can and a lot of the time, things pop up day of and I’m just really happy that I’m here so I can jump on them and really take advantage of the opportunity.
[source: a teen view]
