In a new interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station, vocalist Leigh Kakaty of Michigan rockers POP EVIL spoke about the band’s upcoming eighth album, “What Remains”, due on March 21 via MNRK. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We feel like it’s one of our favorite albums that we’ve released to date. A lot of personal healing for me, with just stuff I buried, I think, with my career and where we’ve been all these years. So finally listening to my soul, letting that healing come out on this record, it’s just special. And just kind of wanting to challenge people to be positive.”When you think about the darkest time in someone’s life, you have a choice — you wanna stay depressed, you wanna stay in that dark place or you wanna walk forward and try to be better every day?” he continued. “So this album comes from a dark place. But certainly trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel, trying to still be positive and inspire people to be better, starting with ourselves, is definitely [something] that rings prominent on this album. So [I’m] definitely excited about getting it out there and finally an opportunity for our fans to start making it their own. So I’m stoked about it.”Asked what makes this album lyrically different from the previous POP EVIL records, Leigh said: “Yeah, I think this album has more of my personal struggle in it. I think I’ve touched on it, just unknowingly, on previous albums, a little bit of me here and there, but this one — it was funny. I wanna say we got two or three songs into the record, and I got the call from George, our manager, and he’s, like, ‘Do you realize what you’re talking about on this album?’ And I’m, like, ‘No, I haven’t really thought about it.’ He goes, ‘Don’t listen to music. Just read your lyrics.’ And so I did. I called him back and he’s, like, ‘I didn’t know you had this much darkness going on. It seems like every song’s about you, stuff you’ve gone through.’ And I was, like, ‘Wow, I didn’t even realize it.’ I was just sitting down here and just shutting my eyes and what came out came out. But you think about the rally cries on previous albums. There’s a lot of writing in someone else’s shoes and gathering gathering people together and getting us to fight — we, we, we, we — but this album is a lot of ‘I’s, a lot of I in [songs like] ‘What Remains’, ‘Deathwalk’, ‘Wishful Thinking’. A lot of personal healing on this record, dealing with my own mental health that in some ways I didn’t even realize I had. So, really, when we finished this album, a big release, a lot of the anxiety kind of went away, and it just really felt like personally, it was a lot of healing that needed to happen and I felt like a better person, man. And I felt like it was just an important time for me to just really be more grateful about the things and the opportunities in life rather than be so pissed off or what I felt I deserved or what I felt I needed. It was just a huge awakening for me on this album. So that’s where it would be different for me.”For two decades, Kataky has needed to mine the deepest of reserves in order to drag POP EVIL up from the blue-collar grassroots of his local Michigan scene to stand proud at the top of the modern rock game. Soaring successes, bitter defeats… Kakaty has survived it all.”What Remains” 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”, the new opus 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.”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 explained of this document of resilience, perseverance, and accountability.POP EVIL were 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 5 a.m., the will to win suppressing any fear — 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 recalled 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”, POP EVIL’s 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 anymore,” he says. 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 said. “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.”Sonically, the album is a riotous explosion of life-affirming noise; a vortex of scything riffs and gut-punch drum beats that regularly give way to POP EVIL’s hallmark anthemic choruses.”We set out to push boundaries,” Kakaty said. “Metal has always been a part of our DNA, but we’ve never made it such a focal point before. A lot of writing on this record has been about listening to what my soul is saying and letting the songs find their own path, rather than chasing a sound that might fit in on the radio. I think you can really hear the mood and emotion of the album’s themes in the music.””What Remains” track listing:01. The Bullet That Missed02. Deathwalk03. What Remains04. Wishful Thinking05. Side Effects06. Criminal07. Enough Is Enough08. Zero To None09. Knife For The Butcher10. Overkill[embedded content][embedded content][embedded content][embedded content]