Beatweek Magazine issue #82: Goo Goo Dolls interview, Apple Event, Auburn, Hey Monday, Zoe Scott and more

New in the 82nd issue of Beatweek Magazine:

• Goo Goo Dolls cover story interview: Johnny Rzeznik and Robby Takac discuss their new album Something For The Rest Of Us and reflect on twenty-five years of Goo

• a look at Apple’s September 1st media event

• interviews with Auburn, Hey Monday, and Zoe Scott

• reviews of new iPad cases, iPhone docks and more

Read this issue now

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Hey Monday interview

With a top ten album and the current iTunes Single of the Week, singer Cassadee Pope and her South Florida rock band Hey Monday have it all right now – except a bass player, but we’ll get to that in a minute. As Cassadee gets set to celebrate her 21st birthday this week, she fills us in on writing songs about her relationships, and how she feels like she’s still living something of a normal life despite hanging out with the likes of Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson…

Hey Monday seems to be able to get away with breaking all the tried and true rules of rock star success. In an age where bands whose members are a mere twenty years old almost have to be emo to fit in, these guys make music that’s way too upbeat to fit the profile. For their second record they released a six song EP instead of the expected full length album. They’re from South Florida, a region which produces nationally popular musical acts about as often as it produces snowstorms. They’ve not only named themselves after one of the days of the week, they’ve chosen the least popular of the seven.

And to their immense credit, lead singer Cassadee Pope even broken the unspoken rule that says you don’t get on the phone with a music journalist a few hours after one of your fellow band members just announced he was quitting the group. Even with the departure of bassist Jersey Moriarty and the newfound need to find a replacement, Cassadee has plenty to celebrate this week. Not only did the band get away with the short runtime of Beneath It All, its release last Tuesday saw it climb all the way to the number one spot on the Alternative Rock chart in iTunes. “It was kind of a bummer at first,” she says of the fact that the rest of the music from the Beneath It All sessions won’t arrive until March of 2011 in the form of a deluxe re-release. “I guess that’s the way the industry is heading, more products in a shorter amount of time. It’s actually a better thing for the fans because they get more music overall than they were expecting.”

The strong debut apparently got the attention of someone at Apple, as the company tapped the band’s song “I Don’t Wanna Dance” for this week’s free single of the week in iTunes. “That’s something that I actually found out about three days ago. It’s kind of been a whirlwind,” she says of the last minute nature of how things seem to be suddenly coming together for the band commercially, after grinding away at it since they were fresh out of high school.

Of course bands only rise this quickly if the songs are there to make it happen, and that’s left Cassadee parsing over her own personal history – and in one case, that of a friend – for lyrical inspiration. “These are definitely real life experiences for me. Actually there’s one song on the record called Mr. Pushover that’s not actually about me, but it’s about someone that I know. All the other songs on there are relationship based, and they’re from my point of view. It’s definitely something that I’ve been through, and something that I’ve experienced. It’s easy for me to write from my own experiences, and it’s something I have to sing every night, so I feel like I really have to get into it.”

When one of those experiences led to a song whose most obvious choice for a title just happened to be the same title once used by both Pink Floyd and Incubus for different songs in different eras, Hey Monday wasn’t intimidated by the seemingly daunting challenge of releasing a single entitled Wish You Were Here. “We didn’t really go into it thinking that it was going to be this big, timeless song. We just loved the message that it put across. It’s a song about missing people and wishing they were there, and the hook is ‘wish you were here’ so we didn’t want to just kind of ignore that.”

Michael “Jersey” Moriarty was, when the week began, Hey Monday’s bass player. But then, as a sign of the times, he posted a Twitter link to his Tumblr page announcing his departure from the band. As it turns out, he had made up his mind to quit before the band’s Warped Tour stint had even ended, but he’d agreed to finish the tour and the band had decided to keep it quiet. “We didn’t really want to let it out yet,” Cassadee says of the announcement, having initially planned to keep wraps on the news until the completion of their current three-piece acoustic mini-tour, just in case Moriarty changed his mind about leaving.

“We really do wish Jersey the best of luck. This lifestyle isn’t for everyone. The three of us are extremely happy with our lives and what we’re doing. The fans don’t have to worry about the rest of us,” she says of the band’s quickly growing audience, which includes more than three hundred thousand Facebook fans alone. She then goes on to address a topic head-on that hadn’t even been raised in our conversation: “I know some fans are saying it’s leaning towards me becoming a solo artist, and that is not the case at all. If that were the case, then they would hear about me kicking out members, not band members quitting on us. Trust me, I don’t want band members quitting. It’s out of my hands, and we respect his decision.”

With the last of the acoustic dates wrapping up this week, Hey Monday has about two months to find a new bass player before the start of a fall headlining tour which kicks off at the end of October, appropriately enough, in the band’s native Florida. Although there are a few candidates for the job already, “We’re not gonna make anyone a permanent member yet. It’s risky to make someone a permanent member and then touring with them and it not working out, and then having to make another announcement. That’s just something that we don’t need. We’re just gonna take it slow. Mike and I started this band and we’re still in it together, and Alex has been here since the beginning.”

But that doesn’t mean the band won’t officially be a foursome again by the start of the tour: “It’s looking like [touring drummer Patrick MacKenzie] is going to be a permanent member.“

As if there weren’t enough going on this week in Hey Monday’s world, it turns out Cassadee Pope turns twenty-one this Friday. As is so often the case for bands who tour for a living, she’ll be on the road that day, at a shopping mall in Delaware where the band is set to perform its final live acoustic gig. That won’t stop her from flying home to West Palm Beach that night to spend the last two hours of her birthday with her family – but another one full day at home, it’ll be straight back up north to New York City for one last acoustic performance. This time, rather than being an in-person concert, it’s a live-streaming show for Facebook.

It’s not exactly the way most people spend their late teens and early twenties. But having been in bands non-stop since high school, it’s the only form of adult life Cassadee has ever known. Even as some of her old friends are nearing the end of college, a path she never took, she’s on the one she says she’s wanted to be on since she was five years old. “I’ve been working for this my whole life. It would be weird to actually have a normal adult life, I think.”

Despite the decidedly non-rock-star choice of still living with her parents when she’s not on the road, there’s no escaping the small fact Cassadee’s band is signed to a record label run by Fall Out Boy co-founder Pete Wentz, which has put her in close quarters with not only Wentz but his wife Ashlee Simpson. But the starstruck-ness has since worn off, at least with Wentz. “We talk all the time. Whenever I see him it’s exciting because he’s like my brother and he’s an awesome guy, and not because he’s Pete Wentz.”

With the chart topping EP now under their belt and the full album due in the spring, Hey Monday is almost certain to be one of the hottest bands of 2011. But they’re already the most successful rock band of their generation to emerge from South Florida – a scene that a generation ago barely existed. But as the de facto spokesperson of that new scene, Cassadee says “It’s small, but it’s there for sure.”

Learn more at HeyMondayMusic.com • iTunes • Twitter • Facebook