Cassadee Pope

I love 'Ocean Avenue' by Yellowcard. That's always been one of my favorites.

I went the more pop-rock route when I was around my teenage years, actually around 13 years old. I think Avril Lavigne really jump-started that. I heard 'Complicated,' and I fell in love, and I've loved her ever since.

I love when people cover songs that are familiar but have been kind of forgotten about.

I have ventured out and written about real-life experiences that I haven't gone through myself, but I've known people to go through them. In the past, I've always written about my experiences and people related to that, but there's a lot of other things that I've never written about that people have gone through.

I feel like Nashville has really embraced me with open arms. I was a little worried at first; you know, everybody knows about my immediate past, which is rock music. But everyone is coming to find out that I've been singing country music my whole life.

For 'Hey Monday,' there were songs that I co-wrote with songwriters or producers, but our last EP, the whole band did everything together. I've had a lot of experience with co-writes, which is basically what I'm doing now. I am writing things on my own, but I really believe co-writing makes you a better writer.

We're all complex creatures, and we shouldn't have to pick one thing to be passionate about. Life isn't black and white, so we shouldn't live that way.

I went through all these different phases in my life. And now, I'm finally in a place where I know who I am; I just needed that extra push. I feel really, really good in the position I'm in right now, and I don't feel like I completely neglected my pop-rock sound: I was able to bring it in with my country roots.

I do feel grateful, and I love what I'm doing, and I'm happy, and I'm living in the moment, but I also have my eye on the long game and the big prize, and that is just to make this a life-long career. To make a big enough impact on everybody to stick around for a long time.

I grew up singing a lot of Martina McBride, Shania and LeAnn Rimes, and because of my age, those were my main influences.

I think you can only prepare yourself as much as you can, but no matter what, there will be curve balls. I had no idea I'd be taking a flight, landing, and heading straight to a radio station. I thought I might have time to curl my hair, have something to eat. No! You go right into things.

I always want to pick songs that are really crazy rangy, and sometimes those low notes aren't there. But I started taking it way more seriously after a certain point, and I started doing vocal warm-ups every day, even when I wasn't singing, sometimes twice a day.