POP EVIL // Music In Movement

Feb 14, 2018 / WORDS Anna Rose / Bending And Breaking

In releasing a self-titled fifth studio album, US modern rockers Pop Evil are making a statement, sending a message. It’s as though this release solidifies them as a band, as musicians, declaring, ‘We’re here, this is what we’re about and this has been our journey.’ For vocalist Leigh Kakaty, he hopes everybody takes away from his music, that sentiment exactly.

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It’s been a wild ride for Pop Evil. Over their more than ten-year career their music has documented life’s trials and tribulations, largely mirroring the personal experiences of the band’s frontman, with grotesquely real lyrics written to keep you on the crazy Pop Evil rollercoaster with them. In order to understand the new reflections in the self-titled new album, Kakaty says we have to look back. “You have to go back to Onyx [2013]–that and our last record Up [2015] were selfishly written for me.

“I lost my dad, I wrote that angry, pissed off and in tears. After that album, even with three number ones and all the success we wanted in the US, I wasn’t happy. I had given up five years of my life selfishly chasing a dream–I could have spent that time with my dad. Would that have meant more to me than all this stuff I thought I wanted my whole life? I couldn’t answer that question.

“I was sick of being dark, I was sick of being mad, I wanted to write a fun record again. I just wanna have smiles with good people. When we prepared to do this album, this wasn’t about me or any other band member, this was about us collectively going, we’re writing this record for our fans. We’re gonna make sure we don’t neglect the evil in Pop Evil.”

We want to have a musical responsibility to send a positive message to our fans around the world, remind them to stand united rather than stand divided.
[ Leigh Kakaty ]

It’s imperative for Kakaty that the fans get as much out of Pop Evil as he experienced putting into, and he encourages people listening to the album to look not only within themselves but at the world around them. “We wanna maximise our opportunities to make people think,” he says. “When they come into the Pop Evil world we want them to be constantly thinking, how to be better people, to be better human beings, to be able to smile again. It’s about what you relate to–do you respond to a guy talking aggressively or listening to something in your car and subliminally connecting to the music?

“We wanted to not only show our identity but show we’re not afraid to tackle topics going on around us. We want to have a musical responsibility to send a positive message to our fans around the world, remind them to stand united rather than stand divided. There are a lot of issues we’re thinking about that we weren’t before–our perspective is different. “

It was more than personal growth that helped turn Kakaty’s perspective around. The addition of English drummer Hayley Cramer to the band in 2016, changed up the group’s understanding of not only a person from a different country, but of a woman too–and Cramer certainly changed up Pop Evil’s sound, too. “Musically, we’re just better musicians,” says Kakaty, “I mean hands down, five albums in you better be better or that’s on you–things we let slide on our previous albums we don’t let slide anymore.

“We take chances sonically and hate when they don’t translate to the live stage, it’s one of our pet peeves. We wanted to put together a collaboration of work that is entertaining for us, that keeps us healthy. As great as some of these songs may be, we don’t want 11 of them. We want growth, we want to be able to give you peaks and valleys and entertain you–hopefully you deal with different emotions when you come to a pop evil show, and that’s one thing we’re most proud of our catalogue is that we have a lot of emotional songs that take you places

“Music is about energy, about almost fighting with your producer because you’re like ‘Wow, my vocal track on the demo was so much better,’ and actually that’s when the idea was born, in fighting him back and forth–that’s the energy you chase, that excitement when you birth an idea or melody, it’s like, ‘Oh my God,’ and that’s what Pop Evil was for me.”