{"id":1305240,"date":"2019-03-11T10:20:38","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T16:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1803770"},"modified":"2019-03-11T10:20:38","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T16:20:38","slug":"the-eight-stages-that-influenced-cassadee-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/music-news\/the-eight-stages-that-influenced-cassadee-pope\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eight Stages That Influenced Cassadee Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:ao:image:cmt.com:663168?width=1200&amp;height=675&amp;.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"byline\">by <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/author\/bonaguroa\/\" title=\"Posts by Alison Bonaguro\" rel=\"author\">Alison Bonaguro<\/a><\/span> <span class=\"date\">10m ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>When <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/artists\/cassadee-pope\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Cassadee Pope<\/a> released her second album <em>stages<\/em> in early February, I wondered what she meant by the title. Was it going to be about all the stages she\u2019d gone through to land here? Or about all the stages she\u2019d performed on throughout her life.<\/p>\n<p>The answer is yes. It\u2019s about everything that led Pope to who she is as an artist now, in 2019. She\u2019s no longer the front girl of a pop punk band, and she\u2019s no longer just a winner of <em>The Voice<\/em>. She is the artist behind songs that are so worth the nearly six-year wait between albums.<\/p>\n<p>I caught up with Pope before her set on the first night of Maren Morris\u2019 tour on Saturday (March 9), and we talked about all the literal stages she\u2019d graced over the years. Here they are, in semi-chronological order.<\/p>\n<p>1. <strong>The first stage she ever sang on:<\/strong> \u201cEven before I started singing in church, when I was about five years old, I\u2019d sing at the South Florida Fair or Sun Fest in West Palm Beach. My voice coach got me out on stage at a really early age.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>2. <strong>The stage that scared her the most:<\/strong> \u201c<em>The Voice<\/em>. That one freaked me the hell out. And round after round got more and more nerve wracking. It was a whole other beast, every night. The blind audition was the worst. It was horrifying. Because they don\u2019t introduce you, you just walk up to the stage, and you can hear your heels clicking on the floor. You could hear a pin drop. And I wanted to win, but I also want not to trip.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"deferred_content\">Embedded from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KS4L7d8Cx90?feature=oembed\">www.youtube.com<\/a>. <noscript class=\"deferred_content\" data-deferred-info=\"{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;iframe&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KS4L7d8Cx90?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/noscript><\/div>\n<p>3. <strong>The stage that is the biggest deal:<\/strong><br \/>It will be the Ryman stage when I play a full show. I\u2019ve done a song or two for charity events there, but I\u2019ve never been on a bill there, so that will be so special when it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>4. <strong>The first stage she got comfortable on:<\/strong> When my old band <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mtv.com\/artists\/hey-monday\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Hey Monday<\/a> did a headlining tour in the UK, we sold it out. They were small club stages, and it was so comfortable for me. Because I was performing to <em>my<\/em> crowd, and they knew all the words to our songs. That gave me so much confidence to change things up and not be so formulaic.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"deferred_content\">Embedded from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FU0fQIezoK0?feature=oembed\">www.youtube.com<\/a>. <noscript class=\"deferred_content\" data-deferred-info=\"{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;iframe&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FU0fQIezoK0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/noscript><\/div>\n<p>5. <strong>The headlining stage she\u2019s prepping for next:<\/strong> \u201cI finish this Maren tour in March, then in April I\u2019ll go out for my headlining tour. I might throw in a cover song, or I might play a song or two from my old band. And I\u2019ll be able to bring Clare Dunn on stage to sing with me, and Hannah Ellis too. Hannah wrote \u2019If My Heart Had a Heart,\u2019 so I\u2019d love to bring her on stage to sing harmony on that. I want to give them both their own moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"deferred_content\">Embedded from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kENnhSfweeM?feature=oembed\">www.youtube.com<\/a>. <noscript class=\"deferred_content\" data-deferred-info=\"{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;iframe&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kENnhSfweeM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/noscript><\/div>\n<p>6. <strong>The worst stage she\u2019s ever played:<\/strong> It was in Bakersfield, and there were only three people there. Three. It was awful. It was after I\u2019d left Hey Monday but before <em>The Voice<\/em>, when I\u2019d moved to LA and was trying to make it as an independent artist. I did this acoustic tour of the West Coast. I was in these really small, small clubs. There were six of us in a van. I was getting by, putting food on the table, but after that tour I didn\u2019t have any money left. I was almost ready to go back to West Palm to live with my mom. It was not good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>7. <strong>The stage she shared with someone she admired:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019ve done it too many times to narrow it down to just one. And I am so happy I\u2019ve had so many of those moments. Tim McGraw had me come out for his \u2019Down on the Farm,\u2019 Rascal Flatts invited me to sing Natasha Bedingfield\u2019s part on their song \u2019Easy,\u2019 and then last year during CMA Fest, I was singing with the Song Suffragettes and we were covering \u2019Born to Fly,\u2019 and Sara Evans walked on stage to sing that with us.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"deferred_content\">Embedded from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u9Ifq9XiT64?feature=oembed\">www.youtube.com<\/a>. <noscript class=\"deferred_content\" data-deferred-info=\"{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;iframe&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u9Ifq9XiT64?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/noscript><\/div>\n<p>8. <strong>The stages she never had a chance to play:<\/strong> \u201cThe honky-tonks in Nashville. Before <em>The Voice<\/em>, I was thinking about moving to Nashville. And I talked to (country songwriter) Liz Rose about it. She told me that if I did, I\u2019d have to be prepared to play the bars on Lower Broadway for about ten years. I didn\u2019t know then if I had that in me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>(I didn\u2019t asked Pope about the wettest stage she\u2019s ever played, but my guess is, it would be Tucson.)<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Bo7CG1LgluN\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading&amp;utm_campaign=embed_locale_control\" data-instgrm-version=\"12\"><\/blockquote>\n<p>Pope will be on tour with Morris through the end of March, and then she\u2019ll kick off CMT\u2019s 2019 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/cmt-next-women-of-country-tour\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Next Women of Country Tour<\/a> with Dunn and Ellis.<\/p>\n<p>April 11: Tampa, Fla. Orpheum<br \/>April 12: Orlando, Fla. The Plaza Live<br \/>April 18: Atlanta, Ga. at Terminal West<br \/>April 19: Charlotte, N.C. at The Underground<br \/>April 20: Lexington, Ky. at Manchester Music Hall<br \/>April 25: Boston, Mass. at Paradise Lounge<br \/>April 26: New York, N.Y. at Gramercy Theatre<br \/>April 27: Washington, D.C. at U Street Music Hall<br \/>May 2: Evansville, Ind. at K.C.\u2019s Marina Point<br \/>May 3: Des Moines, Iowa at Wooly\u2019s<br \/>May 4: Columbia, Mo. at Blue Note<\/p>\n<div class=\"author\">\n<div class=\"description\">Alison makes her living loving country music. She&#8217;s based in Chicago, but she&#8217;s always leaving her heart in Nashville.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/1803770\/the-eight-stages-that-influenced-cassadee-pope\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: CMT News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Alison Bonaguro 10m ago When Cassadee Pope released her second album stages in early February, I wondered what she meant by the title. Was it going to be about all the stages she\u2019d gone through to land here? Or about all the stages she\u2019d performed on throughout her life. The answer is yes. It\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1305240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 21:35:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1305240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1305240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1305240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1305240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}