POP EVIL Is About To Start Writing Material For Ninth Studio Album: 'We're Excited', Says LEIGH KAKATY

At this weekend's Sonic Temple festival in Columbus, Ohio, POP EVIL frontman Leigh Kakaty was asked by Ronni Hunter of the 99.7 The Blitz radio station if he and his bandmates have commenced work on material for the follow-up to 2025's "What Remains" album. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We've been kind of putting everything on the back burner. This way that bands release music now is totally different than, obviously, when we started. It feels like we just released this record, but we start actually writing here in the next few weeks. So we're excited. Obviously, with Joey ['Chicago' Walser, POP EVIL bassist] and Blake [Allison, POP EVIL drummer], even before they joined the band, we had had a discussion — I think this is around 2018 — and I was, like… 'Cause I've done most of the writing my whole career, and I'm really excited to... You can only write the same kind of melodies for so long, and you're, like, 'Hey, I want some new energy.' And sometimes when you work with other producers, they're not touring guys. They produce. But when we'd have those conversations, it was, like, 'Joey and Blake, let's get together and do some writing.' So we had talked about it in years past. We were kind of teeing it up, and then, of course, we had some band member changes, and next thing you know, they're a part of the band. But things happened so fast, we dabbled a bit in the writing together the past couple records, but not the way that we're really planning. Now is the right time for the band."

Leigh continued: "The last album was a little more personal for me. I had to get some of the personal stuff out to move forward. And it's rare, but sometimes the music is more about you than the fans. And this album... We're about to do the ninth. So the eighth album was more about me. So I'm excited that's behind me. I wore a lot of weight for a lot of years here in this project. And the way the rest of the band embraced me and just said, 'Look, you need to do this. Let's get this out and roll from there.' But now it's time to kind of… For the first time in a long time, I really don't know what we're gonna write this record. And that's exciting. 'Cause we don't wanna have any preconceived plan. We wanna just kind of dive in and see where it goes. And having Joey and Blake — [he's] been in the band now for almost five years here, for Blake now — it feels like now we can talk about with this lineup. We really feel like this is the best lineup POP EVIL's ever had, and we're in the best space, certainly the healthiest space, we've ever been in. And I think only then, especially in this environment that is rock and metal, it's very competitive, it's very tough, that you need to be solid internally. So I think that we have the best shot to grow and to move forward and to put out the best version of ourselves in whatever this next chapter is for POP EVIL. And we're here for it, man. We're excited."

To mark the first anniversary of "What Remains", POP EVIL released "What Remains (Midnight Edition)" this past March. "What Remains (Midnight Edition)" expanded the album's powerful legacy with new material, including "The Decay" and a studio-refined reimagining of the iconic 1980s anthem "Don't You (Forget About Me)", reimagined through POP EVIL's unmistakable modern-rock lens.

Originally released as POP EVIL's most uncompromising and emotionally exposed body of work to date, "What Remains" stands as both a sonic reckoning and a personal confession. Heavier, darker, and more direct than anything the band has released before, the album channels arena-ready modern rock and metal into a deeply introspective narrative, with Kakaty laying bare the truths, scars, and battles that shaped his life.

With "What Remains (Midnight Edition)", POP EVIL completed a full creative arc, stripping away armor, confronting the past, and standing firmly in the present. It is a reckoning with who Kakaty was, who he is now, and who he's determined to become. More than an anniversary release, the "Midnight Edition" solidified "What Remains" as the definitive POP EVIL statement, unflinching, unapologetic, and impossible to ignore.

Photo credit: Nick Fancher