Hey Monday

With their 2008 debut single "Homecoming," West Palm Beach pop/punk/emo quintet Hey Monday charted in Japan and Australia before they charted at home. Their first album, Hold on Tight, peaked at No. 71 Down Under as well. But with "How You Love Me Now" a year later, the band reached the American Top 40. The group had only been around a few years by then, though singer Cassadee Pope -- born just five months shy of the '90s -- had been playing music since her early high school days. Her first rock band to record, Blake, broke up after just one single. But she and guitarist Mike Gentile went on to form Hey Monday, who were discovered while still teens by Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz. He put out Hold on Tight on his Columbia-partnering Decaydence label; Pope showed up in the video for Fall Out Boy's "American Suitehearts," playing a kidnap victim, and she and Wentz both had roles in a Degrassi: The Next Generation TV movie. A second Hey Monday album -- with a new drummer, Patrick McKenzie, replacing Elliot James -- is slated for mid-2010.