Cassie Lee and Jessica McKay discuss creating their new characters.
After being released from WWE in April 2021, the former Billie Kay and Peyton Royce went searching for inspiration and in the process, they found their voices and became The IInspiration.
Now, they are the IMPACT Wrestling Knockouts Tag Team Champions following a Bound For Glory debut which has them so excited, they're signing their own praises.
On the season 2 premiere of the Off Her Chops podcast, Cass and Jess discussed how excited they are to have creative freedom and what it was like crafting this new take on their in-ring personas.
"Absolutely. I do feel like a whole new person. I'm just so proud of us. I've loved this process of creating The IInspiration. and being able to make the decisions for ourselves. We sat down and really thought about this, I pitched this to you. I was like, 'I want to do 1990s/2000s pop stars,' and we had ideas and we've always bounced off each other so well. Yeah. So I am incredibly proud of us. [At Bound For Glory], all that hard work of the past few months paid off, so we're fuckin' awesome," Jess said.
The IInspiration also has a new theme song sung by Harley Cameron. In the music video, the girls embrace the spirit of a TRL-era pop smash hit music video. Cass and Jess both express how much they had to leave their comfort zone for the video shoot and talk about being played to the ring at Bound For Glory.
Jess recalled, "The other exciting thing was our entrance for Bound For Glory. We had our beautiful friend, Danni/Harley Cameron, and she performed our entrance song live, and we had our music video as our Tron. This is the other thing that we've been working on for the past couple of months. I remember recording the song in the studio and it was so cool to see the setup and the people that we were able to work with. [They are] just insanely talented. Top-tier people [that] knew exactly what they were doing. So professional. Got shit done. We loved the song. Then, she asked, 'Do you want to do a music video?' So we had to try to schedule that in and then worked with an incredible, incredible team on that project as well. So even though that was separate [to their other blossoming projects], it was very much such a huge group effort across all boards, so we just want to send out a big thank you to everyone involved."
Cass added, "Literally we couldn't have had — [Bound For Glory] wouldn't have been as special as it was without that team... [Thanks to] everyone that worked on the song. Harley, oh my gosh, she's so talented and we're so thankful to have her."
Jess noted that she was happy to see the music video drew comparisons to legendary pop stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
"Thank you guys, if you've watched it on YouTube, if you've, you know, tweeted about it, or tagged us in whatever, like, we just want to appreciate the support because we put a lot of effort into this. I love how everyone's like, 'Oh, I'm getting Britney 2000 vibes and Christina 'Dirty' [vibes],' because that's exactly what we were going for. So I love that comparison to them. Yeah, we're just having fun. Loving the hustle and just being able to say booked and busy," said the former Billie Kay.
Cass and Jess were also grateful that IMPACT has been very supportive of their new direction as well.
Cassie Lee stated, "We've just got a team that believes in us and trusts our opinions, trusts our decisions, and fully supports us. That's the first time I felt like this in, probably, my whole adult life."
Jess added, "Yeah, and being at IMPACT, nothing but love. Very grateful for them accepting us totally, completely, and embracing this new evolution of Love that for us."
Fightful will have more on the latest for The IInspiration as they debut on IMPACT Wrestling. Fightful will have live coverage of IMPACT on AXS TV beginning Thursday at 8 p.m. eastern.
If you want to hear more from Harley Cameron, she, Shotzi Blackheart, and Scarlett debuted a new song earlier this year called "Indestructible." Learn more here.
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