Leigh Kakaty, lead singer of the rock band Pop Evil, said success didn’t come overnight. In fact, he learned along the way that paying your dues can take years of hard work and perseverance.

It was 2001, and the Michigan-based garage band emulated its idols like Kid Rock, Eminem, Pearl Jam, Metallica, and Guns N’ Roses. They learned pretty quickly, however, that they couldn’t survive by trying to go into nightclubs performing only their original material. They cut a deal with the clubs: they’d do two sets a night – two sets of cover songs in exchange for one set of originals.

Seven years later, Pop Evil is releasing a new record called “Lipstick on the Mirror”. When we spoke to Kakaty, it was No. 1 on Sirius radio. It contains rock riffs, cool alternative tracks and some ballads.

In addition to Kakaty, Pop Evil includes guitarists Dave Grahs and Tony Greve, bassist Matt DiRito, and Dylan Allison on drums.

Pop Evil doesn’t want to become a household name for some breakthrough pop ballad that becomes the only song fans want to hear.

“You’ve got to do like Three Doors Down and Nickelback have done, which is to keep coming with hit after hit. At the end of the day, it all comes back to your writing. The real goal is to be able to keep doing music for a living. I’d love for our song ‘Hero’ to break big on rock radio. I’d love for a couple of rock songs to build the foundation before we start putting out ballads as singles,” he said.

“We did a record in 2004 to get our name out there and get enough cover shows to afford a real producer. That year, I had a girlfriend pass away and it was kind of a pivotal time for the band. We were a four-piece at the time and we decided if we were going to do this, it had to go somewhere. Grand Rapids, Mich. is not really known for its music community.”

Instead of doing a full album, they did a three song EP called “Ready or Not”. Kakaty’s brother, an entertainment attorney, got the EP into the hands of Producer Al Sutton, who has worked with Kid Rock.

“In early 2005, we met with (Sutton) and he changed our outlook on things. It was kind of unrealistic to think that people would listen to 10 of our songs so we pushed this song called ‘Somebody Like You’ that dealt with my girlfriend passing. It ended up blowing up and we shot the music video for it in 2006. We used those songs to build a buzz for the group so we could create a need and a want for more original material. That kind of evolved into this new album,” Kakaty said.

While it has been a long road to their current success, Kakaty said there’s a certain pride in knowing they paved that road with hard work.

“The one cool thing about being around for eight years is we really had no breaks. Everything we did, we did by ourselves. People we met, we had to go about it the hard way. We couldn’t do anything without radio play, so we got three songs No. 1 on our local station and that wasn’t good enough. We did a music video that was among the top 10 played on MTV. Any kind of national TV exposure is important for branding, but it wasn’t enough. It seems like the music business is in such turmoil these days that nothing is ever good enough unless it is a guarantee – and there are no guarantees. We’ve just been running our own race and little by little winning people over.”

If he were starting over, he said he would have connected with someone like Sutton sooner.

“I would have gotten a nationally respected producer right off the bat. I would have put aside my ego and said, ‘Hey I don’t have any platinum on my wall.’ It would have been great if someone like Al could have been my mentor earlier in the game. But, you know what? I wouldn’t change anything because it has led us to be the people we are today. If I were giving another bad advice, I’d say don’t waste time in the basement because there is so much competition out there. At the end of the day, the quality of the songs is what matters because no amount of money in the world can make people buy your album. Money can get you a lot of things, it can get you on the radio and on TV, but it cannot make the masses like your music. The earlier a musician can have a great producer helping them to think outside of the box, the more chances they’ll get,” he said.

Kakaty carries a video recorder with him at all times, as the ideas for melodies or lyrics happen constantly.

“There is no separation from my life and my music,” states Leigh. “Pop Evil is lifestyle; leading instead of following and having your opinions matter. It is about being heard when no one wants to listen to you. It is about trying to fit in when no one has room for you. It is about overcoming obstacle after obstacle and knowing how to reward yourself for the little things when there are no rewards from your peers. Pop Evil is about making the world BELIEVE.”

“Lipstick on the Mirror” represents the band’s own vision for its sound.

“We had creative control over the whole process. We wanted to challenge people with everything from our name to our look to our sound. We want you to know that you’re going to get a show when you come see us live. It’s a throwback to Guns N’ Roses’s ‘Appetite for Destruction’, how they were just rock stars and what you saw was what you got. The lipstick on the mirror is a metaphor for leaving your mark on your fans.

“I don’t want to go see a band that’s just on stage playing their instruments. I wanna see that band perform in a way that’s raw and grimy and not the same from city to city. I want to be so mesmerized at a show that I’m not thinking about anything else. I want to be compelled. That’s what we try to do when we write songs and do our shows. The more involved your fans are at shows, the more they’ll want to take a piece of that show home with them. Their ticket stub is a symbol of that day, that moment,” he said.

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On the Web:

http://www.popevil.com/