About Cassadee Pope
The Beginning
Cassadee Blake Pope was born in August 28, 1989. She is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and used to be the lead vocalist of the pop rock band Hey Monday, which is currently on hiatus as of December 2011. With the band she released one studio album and 3 EPs. Cassadee decided to go solo releasing her debut solo EP and taking part in the third season of NBC’s The Voice. This is her incredible story…
She began as a singer in the award-winning St. Ann School Jazz Band while in middle school in West Palm Beach. While in Wellington High School in Wellington, Florida, Pope formed the band Blake (titled after her middle name) with good friend Mike Gentile. The project disbanded before being signed.
In 2008, she and Gentile along with Alex Lipshaw, Michael “Jersey” Moriarty, and Elliot James founded the pop punk band Hey Monday, an American rock band from West Palm Beach, Florida. Hey Monday was formed in March 2008 after Cassadee Pope and Mike Gentile’s former band Blake broke up. Pope and Gentile wanted to continue playing music and began holding auditions for a new band around their local Florida music scene. Pope and Gentile quickly joined forces with drummer Elliot James who then recruited rhythm guitarist Alex Lipshaw. Soon afterward they enlisted bassist Michael “Jersey” Moriarty and Hey Monday was formed.
They were discovered when Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz heard one of their demos while he was in the Crush Management office. Wentz wanted to sign them to his label, Decaydance, but Columbia Records was also interested so the band ended up signing a joint deal with both labels. They recorded their debut album, Hold On Tight, throughout the summer of 2008 and it released later that fall on October 7 to very minor commercial success; it charted on Billboard Heatseekers albums. Soon after their debut album dropped, Hey Monday began extensive touring with a big amount of bands as a support act and headlining a couple of tours.
Following the band’s first headlining tour overseas in the UK, Elliot announced that he would be leaving Hey Monday.
Hey Monday spent the beginning of 2010 finishing the writing and recording of Beneath It All, which was originally going to be their second full-length studio album but on July 23, Cassadee Pope announced that Beneath It All would be released as a 6 song EP rather than a full-length album. The band performed two songs from Beneath It All on Jimmy Kimmel live on September 22, 2010.
Following the band’s performance at Warped Tour, the group announced that Jersey would be leaving the band.
On February 8, 2011, Hey Monday re-released their second EP, Candles. In the fall of 2011, Hey Monday departed from the record labels Decaydance and Columbia. The band self-released The Christmas EP digitally on December 6, 2011 to iTunes and other digital outlets; it peaked in the top 10 of iTunes’ Albums.
On December 16, vocalist Cassadee Pope and guitarist Mike Gentile announced the band is over via their personal profiles on the social networking sites Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Pope also announced that she will be embarking on a solo acoustic tour of the United States in January and February 2012 in hopes of jumpstarting her solo career.
Shortly after the hiatus was announced, she played an acoustic tour in the U.S. and then releases her debut solo EP.
Cassadee Pope Goes Solo
The Cassadee Pope EP as released digitally on Google Play May 22, 2012, and was later released on iTunes with a digital booklet. For the album, Rian Dawson (of All Time Low) played the drums, Keith Ruddell played the bass, Andrew Dixon and Jason Gavi handling the production duties.
Cassadee says, “This EP represents everything I am, everything I’ve worked for, and everything I’m working towards. I’m so proud of this work, and feel so close to it. I’ve always been a writer and put my heart into every lyric. But this for some reason really hits home. I’ve had some of these songs for a year, and some I’ve written just recently. I hope the passion and love that went into them shines through. Enjoy my first ever solo release!”
The album featured four songs; ‘Original Love’, ‘Secondhand’, ‘I Guess We’re Cool’ and ‘Told You So’.
Cassadee then auditioned for season 3 of the popular singing competition, The Voice, which aired on NBC on Tuesday, September 25, 2012. Her audition was controversial as she already had some professional experience. She sang “Torn” and had all four coaches offer her a place on their teams. She ultimately picked Blake Shelton to be her coach.
Pope won her battle round singing “Not Over You” by Gavin DeGraw against Ryan Jirovec and then won her knockout round singing “Payphone” by Maroon 5 against Suzanna Choffel. She performed “My Happy Ending” by Avril Lavigne for her first live performance and was voted through to the next round by the viewers. Pope sang “Behind These Hazel Eyes” by Kelly Clarkson for her second live performance and was voted through by the viewers. The next round, Pope performed a heartfelt song, “Over You”, co-written by Blake Shelton about his older brother who had died in a car accident. The song reached number one on the iTunes chart, knocking PSY’s “Gangnam Style” down to number two.
In the Top 8, Pope sang “Are You Happy Now?” by Michelle Branch and was again voted through. For the Top 6 round, Pope sang “Stand” by Rascal Flatts (as chosen by her coach, Blake Shelton) and “I’m with You” by Avril Lavigne (her own pick). She was voted through again and was the only female contestant to advance to the Top 4 round. In the Top 4 round she performed “Stupid Boy” by Keith Urban, which also reached number one on iTunes. Based upon America’s votes, she advanced to The Voice finals, which aired on December 17, 2012 winning the title on the live finale results day on December 18, 2012 with other Team Blake contestant Terry McDermott finishing as runner-up.
Cassadee Pope worked with many writers and producers on her upcoming album Frame By Frame set to be released October 8th, 2013. She toured this summer with country artists Rascal Flatts and The Band Perry. She also got the chance to perform CMA Fest, The Grand Ole Opry, America's Got Talent, The Voice Season 4 and many more.
Keep checking back for new updates on Cassadee Pope.
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