Bailee Madison Launches Music Career with Song Reflecting on Her Child Actor Roots: 'A Hug to My Younger Self' (Exclusive)

The star’s debut single "Kinda Fun" is about "holding onto your roots and holding onto your inner child," she tells PEOPLE

Before moving into the next stage of her career, Bailee Madison had to take a trip down memory lane.

During last year’s SAG-AFTRA strike, the 24-year-old actress stepped away from the craft she has devoted her life to since she still had a full set of baby teeth.

“It was really a weird thing for me because it was the first time that I was really told that I couldn't do the one thing that I've known since I was a little girl,” she tells PEOPLE.

To fill the void, Madison — who made her big screen debut at age 6 in the 2006 crime drama Lonely Hearts — decided to tackle a daunting, long-procrastinated task: deep-cleaning her garage.

While rifling through bin after bin, she unearthed a bounty of scripts, call sheets and set photos from her early roles — from Bridge to Terabithia to Just Go with It — and what started as a dusty blast from her past quickly became the catalyst for her first entry into pop music, “Kinda Fun.”

“I think a lot of that was kind of the icing on the cake of the kind of mental and quiet work that I had been doing in my own heart and in my own brain,” she tells PEOPLE. "Which was trying to really tap into little Bailee in a sense, and bring her back."

Related: ​Bailee Madison on Living in 'Cabins in the Woods' While Filming 'Pretty Little Liars' : 'Original Sin'

Shortly after the three-day purge, Madison embarked on a wine-fueled songwriting session with her boyfriend, New Hope Club singer Blake Richardson — and “Kinda Fun” was born.

“We went to sleep and woke up and we were like, 'Let's see if we still like it, or maybe I just had one too many glasses of white wine,' ” Madison recalls. “Then I listened to it and we were like, ‘It just felt really honest and it felt truthful.’ ”

"The only solution is self-evolution," Madison croons in the pop track, a cathartic expression of how far she has come — and the “F-it attitude” that paved the way for her current happiness.

“It's kind of a hug to my younger self, and then kind of a pat on the back I would give to my current self to bring the fun back into everything again,” she says. “And it feels really good. This is probably the happiest I've ever been in my life.”

The song is also about “holding onto your roots and holding onto your inner child,” Madison says, adding that she "was so fearless" as a kid.

Related: Bailee Madison Makes ‘Hardy Boys’ Debut as Mysterious Drew Darrow in Twisted Season 3 Trailer (Exclusive)

The Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin star — who took her vocal chops for a test drive in Netflix musical A Week Away in 2021 — is channeling that fearlessness now more than ever.

It is nerve-wracking to release music, period. But it is nail-bitingly scary to break into a new industry after spending nearly two decades — almost her entire life — cementing herself as a different kind of artist.

But, if “there's a chance that people might be able to find themselves” in the song — or frolic around to it with their friends in a TikTok — the anxiety will be utterly worth it, Madison says.

“I've been saved by music so many times, and if by any chance I'm able to have that connection with people, that would be such a treat,” she adds.

And, regardless of how "Kinda Fun" is received, the screen is Madison’s first love — and a chapter she doesn’t plan on closing anytime soon.

“Acting is my whole heart,” she says. “I could not picture my life without that.”

“I love saying other people's words that are so talented and so gifted and stepping into different characters and pushing myself in that world. But it's also equally as nerve-wracking to speak your own words in a sense, and tell your own stories,” she says.

“And I feel like music gives you that chance.”

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