POP EVIL Shares Music Video For 'Side Effects' From 'What Remains' Album

Modern rock powerhouse POP EVIL — vocalist Leigh Kakaty, guitarists Dave Grahs and Nick Fuelling, bassist Joey "Chicago" Walser and drummer Blake Allison — has just released its eighth album, "What Remains", via MNRK. The band has also shared the video for "Side Effects". The performance clip for the ferocious track, which is loaded with explosive riffs and a tectonic plate-shifting breakdown, can be seen below.

"Side Effects" is an arena-ready juggernaut and boasts rueful lines such as "The world I built you tried to tear apart" and "Why did I try so hard to prove / What's killing you is killing me too," serving a powerful, unshielded message for anyone who has found themselves in a toxic situation and seeks the strength to break free for their own happiness and growth.

"Every action causes a reaction, a side effect," says Kakaty. "Toxicity is a virus that spreads and kills, but liberation and healing lies in an antidote you already possess. And now is the time to take it."

POP EVIL will hit the road on a massive spring 2025 headline tour. They will launch the trek on April 8 in Tulsa and wrap it up on May 18 in Bloomington, Indiana. DEVOUR THE DAY (which features members of POP EVIL),RETURN TO DUST and ONI will serve as support.

For two decades, Kataky has needed to mine the deepest of reserves in order to drag the band 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 explains 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 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."

"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 says. "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," nods Kakaty. "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 Missed
02. Deathwalk
03. What Remains
04. Wishful Thinking
05. Side Effects
06. Criminal
07. Enough Is Enough
08. Zero To None
09. Knife For The Butcher
10. Overkill