Credit: Amber ParedesLast week, Pop Evil revealed the title of their upcoming new album: Versatile. It’s a fitting name, given that the Michigan rockers are tinkering with their sound on the record, as evidenced by the experimental lead single, “Work.”
As frontman Leigh Kakaty tells ABC Audio, one major difference between Versatile and past Pop Evil records is that the band is using “all different producers.”
“I’m over the days of just getting with one guy and having to recreate these demos,” Kakaty says. “I feel like the energy is always in the original demo that you play for somebody.”
With “Work,” for example, the verses you hear are from Kakaty’s original vocal takes.
“[We’re] really taking that harnessed, infectious first ideas and really trying to polish that, rather than trying to recreate something that might not be there,” Kakaty explains. “There’s always something special, for me, anyways, when a song is a born, and we wanted our fans to experience that the same way we do.”
No matter the experimentation, though, Kakaty says the songs on Versatile stay true to the original spirit of Pop Evil.
“We’re not trying to put out every song like this, experimental,” Kakaty says. “We have plenty of metal-influenced, heavy songs that we’re doing on this record as well.”
“That’s always been the Pop Evil way, man,” he adds. “We’re the yin and yang of the genre, there’s not many bands that do it the way we do it, and the kind of tie that binds has always been my melodic voice. So how we bring those hooks together musically, I think we really take to another level on this album.”
Versatile is due out in 2021.
By Josh Johnson
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