Cassadee Pope Says Her 'Body Is Rewarding' Her for Leaving Country Music (Exclusive)

Cassadee Pope feels like she’s back to where she belongs.

While the singer made a name for herself on The Voice and in country music, she recently made the switch back to pop-punk. (She previously played in Hey Monday.) At the time of the switch, it was speculated that Pope, 34, left the country scene because of her outspoken views, but she said it was much simpler than that. 

“I'm not listening to it much anymore,” Pope told PEOPLE of the genre as she attended Keep Memory Alive’s 27th Annual Power of Love Gala in Las Vegas to honor her Voice coach Blake Shelton on Friday, May 10.

“My style keeps changing. I'm evolving. I was wanting to do rock again, just sonically. So there's a lot more than just the political aspect and being opinionated," she added. "But it feels really good, and it feels like I have more support than negativity.”

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Pope will release her pop-punk album Hereditary in July. She credits her rock roots with better health and says the switch was good for her “mentally" as well.

“I feel like my body is rewarding me," the artist explained. "Sometimes when you're pretending for so long, and you don't realize it, the body kind of starts to shut down and let you know in weird ways. You get sick or things happen, and you're just like, ‘Why am I all of a sudden shutting down?' and I just feel healthy [now]."

“I feel good. I feel clarity. I feel like I really can just be authentically me across the board, style, opinions, lyrics, everything," she added.

Still, Pope celebrated her country history as she honored Shelton, 47, her mentor on The Voice, which she won in December 2012.

Pope, who performed during the event, told PEOPLE that she wants to collaborate on a pop-punk song with Shelton.

“I tried to bring it a little bit into country,” she said of her harder sound. “I never quite did the super, super country honky-tonk stuff, so I always felt like I had that rock edge."