homewood, alabama isn't any place to write home about. in fact, it is easily forgotten and often overlooked. the most interesting piece of gossip to float around the town is tales of those who managed to leave. the only reason that cassius rollins grew up there at all was because it was the most affordable town situated closest to where his father still remains incarcerated. just in case you haven't caught on, this story is not a fairytale. from as early as he can remember he was the man of the house. though his mother had men in and out of the house that seemed eager to fill the position, the fact was that none of them stayed around long enough to ever be taken seriously for the job. their family saw its fair share of troubles but cash didn't see himself as some sort of statistic or tragedy. still, he was smoking much younger than any of his classmates from the butt of his mother's cigarettes and drinking the remains of her bottles before climbing onto the roof and often falling asleep there only to be awoken in the morning running late for school covered in bug bites and still wearing what he wore the day before.

in school his report cards all stated the same things. he was a bright student in things that he applied himself to like music and art and english and history but his conduct was an issue as well as his attendance and he had so much potential but he just didn't do a damn thing with it. to be bold, cash never really felt a reason to. he was sure he would end up working some manual labor job with an alcohol problem like his mother or incarcerated like his father. why try any harder if kids like him didn't ever escape from towns like these? he chased his rushes and excitement and didn't give a shit about the legality of it and because of that was no stranger to the juvenile court system. much like he had predicted for himself he was on the fast track to going absolutely nowhere at all.

cash visited his pot dealer at home with the purpose of not exchanging knitting patterns, but purchasing premium product when he found him passing a joint around a bunch of guys who had seemingly come together to combine their love of playing music and smoking marijuana. cash sat down for the pot and stayed for the music that was being created by kids who couldn't have been much older than him. a few runs for his new dealing bestie landed him a playable guitar of his own and the moment his fingers moved across the strings he figured out a way out of not only homewood but alabama altogether. though he still remained passionate about smoking weed and doing assorted hood rat things with his friends he became singularly obsessed with playing his second tier worn out guitar until the strings sang and his fingertips bled. if he could be good enough he was sure this would be his ticket out of town. he was addicted and as his track history proves, for cash addictions are easy to come by and hard to break.

he soon realized that after lying about his age he could enter into open mic and talent competitions and with winning those came cash prizes. half of his money went to buying whatever drugs he could get easiest and the other went to entering in the next contest and whatever was left went to buying the car would be his ticket out of there. however, junkies are not known to be reliable with their finances so more often than not his prize winnings went in his veins or up his nose or in his lungs as he prepared new songs to play in order to repeat the cycle over again. it was once he started doing these competitions at the statewide level that someone took notice of him. perhaps his manager had been fond of stray dogs or good at seeing a diamond in the very rough. being a signed artist came with only two rules: don't get arrested and don't show up to the studio fucked up. the high school drop out managed to uphold the first rule but broke the second in his very first week.

with undeniable musical talent and earnest lyrics it wasn't long before cash rollins became somewhat of a household name and his substance abuse only worsened as people began to take notice of him, ask him questions, and shine cameras in his face. it was a world unlike he ever knew and a world he had no interest in getting to know. his addiction of choice became pills became he figured that was an addiction only for rich people but he worked steadily, pulling himself together long enough to go to the studio, perform onstage, and sign autographs. it was the interviews where he became unhinged, filling his body with whatever he could to most escape from the situation and led to interviews that to this day still haunt him. he wanted to curb his embarrassment, make his friends laugh, and wanted to give the reporters the soundbite they were so desperately looking for so that he could kindly kick them out of his home

cash nearly dropped off the face of the earth in early 2010 when all of his problems came to a head and he was faced with the choice of rehab, jail, or death. there was already one cassius rollins in jail and he was far to narcissistic to die so what started as a voluntary one month stay ended up being six months of intensive therapy. all tours had been cancelled and album plans scraped and the plan was just to take the time he needed to reintegrate into society just a few demons lighter. this clean living and new life understanding lasted all of another five or so weeks. though he doesn't touch pills anymore he drinks and enjoys doing so, smokes weed and nicotine and generally is still seen as the self destructive party boy that he had been when he first emerged onto the scene as a voice for disenfranchised teens over a decade before.