We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cassie Ramone a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Cassie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I knew ever since I turned on the radio in the summer of 1994, when I was 8. My family and I had just moved houses, and the radio was the only object not in a box to play with. I was obsessed with this one radio station – 103.9 WFAS-FM, an “adult-contemporary” station – all summer. I heard female pop singers (Mariah Carey, Madonna, Whitney Houston) and their beautiful songs. I knew that is what I wanted to do.

More into my young adult years, I was very blessed. Vivian Girls was formed when I was a junior in art school, and through a combination of stars aligning and lot of hard work, we started getting noticed right around the time I graduated. We embarked on our first full US tour – that we had booked ourselves – the day after my graduation ceremony. Six weeks later, we were back in Brooklyn and by that point it seemed like everyone in the indie world knew who we were, and everything just grew from there. It was extremely fortunate. I graduated college and immediately had my dream career.

Cassie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am Cassie Ramone. Most people know me as a musician, notably from my bands Vivian Girls and The Babies.
I am a singer, songwriter and guitarist. I am also a visual artist. I am also an entrepreneur.

It’s hard to write a great pitch about what sets me apart, because so much of it lies in others’ perceptions, like the perception of the listener. My best guess is something like this:

I’ve always felt lonely and on the outside of things – especially when I was younger but also to this day. In a lot of ways, writing music has been my best way to communicate how I feel, like the gnarliest emotions that would be hard to explain in plain language. The music and the lyrics are two parts of a whole. I typically write both at the same time when I start writing a song.
I write with honesty and purity – not in the most literal sense, because some of the songs have lyrics about things that have never happened to me, and the content is R-rated some of the time – but in the sense that it’s like crying, like big ugly tears are coming out and you can’t hold them back and it’s heartbreaking but also cathartic.
My hope is that people can hear that and relate back to it, and I think a lot of my fans have.

My biggest achievement is, at the end of the day, whenever someone comes up to me and tells me that my music has helped them through a hard time, or that it has inspired them to do something good.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When COVID began, I had somewhat of an identity crisis. As soon as it was apparent the lockdowns would last longer than two weeks – no end date in sight – all of the things I did were (or seemed) either undoable or pointless all of a sudden.

– Playing live, touring: not an option

– DJing: not an option

– Selling art online: I did this for a little while and donated a portion of my earnings to local businesses that had been shut down and needed support. But not long after, it seemed pointless, because, “Who can afford and wants to buy my art right now?”

– Recording/releasing music: I had just done Memory with Vivian Girls and it did not feel like the right time to work on something new. Little did I know that the little demos I was making on my phone would lead to the making of Sweetheart. But that came years in the future.

About six months in, I got a job in an Amazon warehouse. It was in Carteret, NJ, and my shifts started at 4 AM. I would commute from Brooklyn over the Verrazano Bridge. It was a brutal job. But I think I needed to humble myself.

After that, I started working for food delivery apps. I was afraid of “getting recognized,” and that people would think less of me if they saw me in my work clothes (sweatpants, no makeup) hanging them their delivery.

But then I realized how big the city is. That almost no one who I delivered to was in the realm of knowing or caring about my little pocket of indie music. I got to see and meet all kinds of people in all kinds of housing situations – “from the projects to the penthouse.”

And then a little later, I realized I actually didn’t care if I got recognized anymore. I decided to own it. I put it in my press release for Sweetheart. I’m still working for one of these apps in addition to doing everything else I do, because I genuinely love it now.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Note: please don’t take this as a pity party story – I’m sharing this because of the lessons I’ve learned because of it.

I used to think that having a successful solo career would be easy for me (this was a while ago). I thought that because I was the main singer/songwriter in Vivian Girls and also sang and wrote songs in The Babies, and both bands were successful, so why wouldn’t my solo career be successful?

I recorded a solo album in 2010 that never got released. A record label paid for the recording, and my lodging and everything, and when the album was done, I never in a million years expected for it to just not come out, but the label’s owner and a few other music industry people did not like it at all, and communication slowed, and then it was over. That was a big ego hit.

Then when I released The Time Has Come in 2014, I thought maybe that record would do well enough so I could tour and headline shows like I was used to. That never happened. There wasn’t enough demand for it.

I decided to release a Christmas album the following year, as a total curveball. I was able to build a seasonal legacy with the album and play some really great holiday shows year after year. And then I waited a very long time, and then I released Sweetheart.

A lot of really cool things have happened in my solo career, but it hasn’t been anything like my experiences with Vivian Girls and The Babies, and I’m okay with it. Like I stated in my answer above, I needed to learn humility. It’s been a weird twisty path, but I wouldn’t go back in time and change a thing. God has His plan, and the best lesson I’ve learned is from this journey- to release music for its own sake, not expect anything in return, and realize that any blessings you happen to receive are a gift, not an expectation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cassieramone.com
• Instagram: @cassieramone
• Facebook: @cassieramoneVHS
• Youtube: @cassieramoneVHS
• Soundcloud: @cassieramone
• Other: https://substack.com/@cassieramone