With two No. 1 active rock singles from its “Onyx” album, the hard-rocking, hard-touring West Michigan band plays a homecoming show at The Intersection Friday with special guest Michael Crittenden.
Leigh Kakaty and Pop Evil come home this week, riding high after a banner year.
For singer Leigh Kakaty, it’s all about that blue-collar, West Michigan upbringing.
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He’s convinced that Pop Evil’s growing success as a nationally recognized rock act can be traced directly to a hard-working mentality that even permeates the single, “Trenches,” from the band’s most recent studio album, “Onyx.”
That song about battling to survive and prevailing not only hit No. 1 on the active rock chart earlier this year, but Billboard magazine this week cited the Pop Evil single as 2013’s No. 1 mainstream rock track in its year-end rankings, giving a nod to the “Michigan heavy rockers” in the same story that listed hot acts Imagine Dragons, Mumford & Sons and Three Days Grace.
Pop Evil, “Onyx”
“It’s been a pretty overwhelming year for us,” Kakaty told Local Spins in a phone interview this week from an East Coast tour stop. “It’s been exciting to see the hard work paying off. It’s been a grind: all the road trips and all the traveling and now to finally be on the cusp of breaking out and becoming more of a mainstay at the rock format is definitely humbling.”
That growing audience and burgeoning radio airplay – a second single from the album, “Deal With the Devil” just hit No. 1 on the active rock chart – are a product of the band’s Michigan-bred, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-bust-your-butt attitude.
“It’s very reminiscent of how we grew up with our friends and family, working as hard as they can in Michigan, West Michigan especially,” Kakaty insisted, noting the band has weathered lineup changes and record label obstacles along the way. “As we tour more and see the passion that our fans have, we understand that passion for being a blue-collar rock ‘n’ roll grinder. … The honesty that comes from the lyrics and the passion, I think that can be directly related to where we come from.”
ONCE AGAIN: SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR THE HOMETOWN FANS
After months of rigorous touring and crisscrossing the country, Pop Evil — Kakaty, guitarists Davey Grahs and Nick Fuelling, drummer Chachi Riot and bassist Matt DiRito — comes home Friday, playing another one of its holiday shows at The Intersection. And as usual, the band has something special planned for its adoring hometown fans.
Michael Crittenden (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
Troll for Trout frontman and recording studio owner Michael Crittenden of Grand Rapids will join the band on stage for an as-yet-to-be-finalized acoustic segment during Pop Evil shows this weekend in Grand Rapids, Bay City and Covington, Ky. (near Cincinnati).
“He recorded the very first Pop Evil record. He’s the guy who kind of believed in us,” Kakaty says of Crittenden, who also helped record acoustic renditions of three Pop Evil singles in his Mackinaw Harvest Music studios .”He just acted like our big brother, our father, our mentor. He’s part of the Pop Evil story.”
For his part, Crittenden is excited about hitting the road with the band for the first time after helping craft acoustic versions of Pop Evil’s “Somebody Like You,” “100 in a 55” and “Beautiful.”
“In the middle of the show, they’re going to bring me out and I’m going to play the piano. … They’ll get out acoustic guitars,” Crittenden said. “For a little holiday spectacular, it’ll be fun.”
It’s part of the band’s tradition of doing something special for its homecoming concert, doing things “a little different that we don’t do normally” as a treat for Michigan fans.
HARD WORK PAYS OFF: ‘THEY’VE GOTTEN REALLY GOOD AT WHAT THEY DO’
For Kakaty, who grew up in North Muskegon, going acoustic again reminds him of summers growing up near Lake Michigan. “It just reminds me of writing on the Great Lakes with nothing but dreams ahead,” he said.
Pop Evil Photo/Andrew Johnson)
Doors open at 7 p.m. for Friday’s show at The Intersection in downtown Grand Rapids, with Young Guns, Era 9, Girl on Fire and Deadwood Stone also on the bill. Advance tickets, $15, are available online here. Tickets are $20 the day of the show.
After a short holiday break, Pop Evil – which also is offering a special “expanded deluxe edition” of “Onyx,” with details on its website – goes back on the road in January for dates stretching from California to New York.
The band’s work ethic has paid off, Crittenden agreed. “They’ve gotten really good at what they do. They do it well and they’ve got a big following now,” he said. “They’ve worked hard. They seem to be really consistent with touring, which helps. That’s the only way to survive these days.”
And it all started in Muskegon and Grand Rapids.
“We wanted to get out of Michigan all of our lives only to understand that we can’t wait to get back,” Kakaty joked. “It’s home for us whether we were in L.A., Paris or New York. Hometown is hometown. It’s about being prideful about where you come from.
“The struggles we dealt with in West Michigan helped build a passion and helped build that work ethic. We were never afraid to be criticized. I think growing up, we were never Detroit enough, never New York enough. We said, ‘Look man, we don’t care: We’re from Grand Rapids, we’re from Muskegon, we’re from West Michigan. We have a voice over here.’ ”
— John Sinkevics for Local Spins
Email John Sinkevics at jsinkevics@gmail.com.
Copyright 2013, Spins on Music
