Shut Up & Rock with Pop Evil & I-Rock 93.5
Pop Evil
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.
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.”
“No matter how difficult the hard times you face are, what remains when you make it to the other side is who you are, and it’s your story,” Kakaty says. “It’s not always going to be written the way you want it to be, and it won’t always be pretty, but you hold the power to define the next chapter.”