Passion. Dedication. Fortitude. Leigh Kakaty is the embodiment of these three qualities, and for good measure, too. For two decades, he has needed to mine the deepest of reserves in order to drag Pop Evil up from the blue-collar grassroots of the band’s local Michigan scene to stand proud at the top of the modern rock game. Soaring successes, bitter defeats… Leigh Kakaty has stood face-to-face with it all along the way. Leigh Kakaty has survived it all.
What Remains, the band’s eighth full-length album, is the culmination and story of this journey with Pop Evil, laid bare like never before. Continuing in the recent vein of 2023’s acclaimed Skeletons album, What Remains is both sonically and thematically Pop Evil’s heaviest ever offering; a thundering collection of arena-ready modern rock and metal hits in which Kakaty opens heart, mind and soul – pulling no punches and taking no prisoners in doing so. “There are a lot of issues and things that I’ve dealt with in this journey of Pop Evil that I’ve buried for a long time,” the frontman explains of this document of resilience, perseverance and accountability.
Pop Evil was born in North Muskegon, Michigan in 2001, Kakaty drawing on the lessons of a youth first shaped not by music, but by high school basketball – leadership, team work, the drive to improve in the lonely hours put in at the gym at 5am, the will to win suppressing any fear of defeat – in order to fight tooth and nail for their break-out moment.
“I was hustling and learning every day to make my dreams come true,” Kakaty recalls of his time playing local bars and slinging early EPs out of the back of his truck. “Studying never interested me. Neither did getting a regular job. A knee injury wrecked my shot at playing sports. Music was all I wanted to do from that moment, and I didn’t give myself a backup plan. Pop Evil gave me a purpose, and a reason to get up every day. It became a crusade.”
Lipstick On The Mirror, their 2008 debut, and its follow-up War Of Angels brought acclaim and global attention; 2013’s Onyx delivered the first of the band’s nine No.1 singles and six RIAA-certified gold and platinum plaques, but also a period of darkness brought on by the grief of Kakaty losing his father. “I was completely lost … I had just missed the last five years with my dad, chasing this dream when I could have been with him. I didn’t know if I wanted or could do Pop Evil any more,” Kakaty admits today. The band’s 2017 self-titled album, opened by the smash-hit “Waking Lions”, was written “pretty much to save my life” – but in turn “reminded me of the fire I have inside, and that God put me here to make music that could help people.”
It’s a mission statement enshrined in Pop Evil to this day – and which provided the spark for the genesis of What Remains.
“You’re always chasing that one song that can connect with that one person,” Kakaty says. “And that process has to start with yourself. There’s a lot of personal healing on this record, a lot of things I wanted to get out for my own mental well-being. I’m finally at a place where I can confront my demons.”
For Kakaty, that one song is What Remains’ title track. Produced by Wage War’s Cody Quistad, the track began life with the chorus’ opening words: “I never meant to hurt you / violence, my only virtue”. “I was writing those lyrics to everyone that has been a part of the Pop Evil journey, inside and around the band, but also to myself,” Kakaty says. “It felt like an enormous weight was lifting, and those two lines led to some powerful and personal healing. When we had that song, the vision for the album came into focus immediately. It’s an introspective collection of chapters in my journey, and what I’ve been through to reach where I and Pop Evil is today. It’s everything I’ve never known how or felt able to say – until now.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that What Remains runs the full gamut of emotions. Opener “When Bullets Miss” is a defiant war cry aimed at those who have sought to take their pound of flesh – or worse – across the past two decades. “Knife For The Butcher” and “Wishful Thinking” take a hard look at how the source of trauma and the road to recovery often begins within. “Side Effects” ruminates on how “sometimes the best things in life are hard to attain until you rid yourself of things weighing you down”. “Criminal”, meanwhile, is an ode to trusting your own instincts and “following your own path” – regardless of outside opinion.