Sabaton Collaborates with Pop Evil's Leigh Kakaty

Continuing a banner year, the Swedish masters of heavy metal Sabaton re-up their 2025 hit ‘Templars‘ with a brand-new version featuring Leigh Kakaty of Platinum-certified, chart-topping rock powerhouse Pop Evil. The song is now available on all DSPs and digital download providers via Better Noise Music.

Listen to ‘Templars‘ (Feat. Pop Evil) – here.

It’s a collision of two different genres of hard rock that feels completely seamless.

Yesterday, Sabaton welcomed Pop Evil frontman Leigh Kakaty to the stage during their set at Louder Than Life in Louisville, KY. Surprising tens of thousands of fans, they debuted this version together, leading to one of the standout moments of the massive fest. Kakaty infuses the track with a rush of fresh energy and fire. Between blasts of distortion and thunderous drums, his soaring vocals take flight. All of this momentum culminates on the chantable chorus: “Templars on the march, charge from the temple.”

Regarding the new version, Sabaton vocalist Joakim Brodén says, “‘Templars‘ was a hit with our fans when we dropped it last year to introduce our 11th studio album, ‘Legends‘ (review here). This year, we wanted to do something a little different with it, and teaming up with our North American tourmates, Pop Evil, just made perfect sense. Having a fantastic vocalist put his own stamp on the track adds a whole new layer and gives the song a fresh energy that we’re really excited for everyone to hear. It’s also a great way to get everyone fired up for our upcoming tour in North America. It’s going to be a blast touring with Pop Evil, and we hope our fans enjoy this new take on the song.“

Bassist Pär Sundström added, “We’ve always enjoyed finding new ways to revisit our music, and ‘Templars‘ felt like the perfect song to experiment with. When the opportunity came to collaborate with Pop Evil due to them joining us on our upcoming North American tour, it was an easy decision. Leigh’s take on the track brings a different attitude. It’s exciting to see one of our songs evolve like this.“

“When Sabaton approached me about contributing to ‘Templars‘, I was immediately intrigued,” says Kakaty. “I’ve always appreciated the band’s ability to bring history to life and this song stood to that power. The track gave us the opportunity to explore loyalty, purpose, and the challenges that come with standing by what you believe in. ‘Templars‘ captures the triumph and diversity — the kind of energy and emotion that we all look for in music. Collaborating on a song with such strong storytelling was a real privilege. Heading out on tour together in the fall makes the track feel even more special for me.“

The new single arrives on the heels of ‘Yamato‘, in which they partnered with the popular online video game World of Warships and its developer Wargaming. Since releasing in March, the single continues to buzz with north of 7.5 million Spotify streams, while the music video has tallied 4.6 million views alone, landing looks at Blabbermouth, Metal Injection, NME, and more. Meanwhile, Louder raved, “‘Yamato‘ is yet another stirring, oh-so-epic tune to be added to their arsenal.”

The band had previously partnered with World Of Warships and Wargaming for ‘Bismarck‘ in 2019. Among the most popular tunes in Sabaton‘s catalog, the latter has garnered more than 124 million Spotify streams to date, while the gripping music video has tallied over 111 million views and counting. Landing plugs from Metal Insider, Blabbermouth, Ghost Cult Magazine, and more, Revolver Magazine praised, “Sabaton has made a career by writing kickass hooks about extremely specific moments of military history, and between Wargaming’s world-class attention to detail and the band’s artillery nerdom, this was a match made in heaven.“

Sabaton also released their latest full-length offering ‘Legends‘ at the end of 2025. Beyond racking up nearly 200 million total streams, it incited the applause of Kerrang! who rated it “4-out-of-5 stars” and raved, “Sabaton do one thing, and after 11 albums there doesn’t appear to be an off switch. But by Odin, they do that one thing better than anyone else.” Louder marveled at how “it does stretch their battlefield into something closer to a cinematic universe, with them still marching at the front of power metal’s ranks.” And our own Jason Hopper wrote “Power metal does not get much better than this. A contender for album of the year.”

Sabaton will embark on the ‘Legends On Tour‘ trek across North America this month. The tour kicks off on September 23 in Halifax, Nova Scotia and wraps on December 12^th in Fort Lauderdale. Pop Evil and Wings of Steel will serve as support. All dates are below.

Tour Dates:

9/23 — Halifax, NS — Scotiabank Centre
9/25 — Laval, QC — Place Bell
9/26 — Ottawa, ON — History Ottawa
9/27 — Toronto, ON — Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto
9/29 — Thunder Bay, ON — Thunder Bay Community Auditorium
10/1 — Winnipeg, MB — Burton Cummings Theatre
10/2 — Winnipeg, MB — Burton Cummings Theatre
10/4 — Edmonton, AB — Edmonton Convention Centre
10/5 — Calgary, AB — Grey Eagle Event Centre
10/8 — Vancouver, BC — PNE Forum
11/6 — Dallas, TX — South Side Ballroom
11/7 — Houston, TX — 713 Music Hall
11/8 — San Antonio, TX — Boeing Center at Tech Port
11/11 — Phoenix, AZ — Arizona Financial Theatre
11/12 — Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Palladium
11/14 — Wheatland, CA — Hard Rock Live
11/17 — Salt Lake City, UT — The Union Event Center
11/18 — Loveland, CO — Blue FCU Arena
11/20 — Omaha, NE — Steelhouse Omaha
11/21 — Milwaukee, WI — Landmark Credit Union Live
11/22 — Minneapolis, MN — The Armory
11/24 — Chicago, IL — The Salt Shed
11/25 — Des Moines, IA — Vibrant Music Hall
11/27 — St. Louis, MO — The Factory
11/28 — Cincinnati, OH — The Andrew J. Brady Music Center
11/29 — Detroit, MI — The Fillmore Detroit
12/1 — Boston, MA — MGM Music Hall at Fenway
12/2 — Philadelphia, PA — The Met
12/3 — Pittsburgh, PA — Citizens Live at the Wylie
12/5 — Virginia Beach, VA — The Dome by Rutter Mills
12/6 — National Harbor, MD — The Theater at MGM National Harbor
12/8 — Atlanta, GA — Coca-Cola Roxy
12/9 — Nashville, TN — The Truth
12/11 — Orlando, FL — Hard Rock Live
12/12 — Fort Lauderdale, FL — War Memorial Auditorium

About Sabaton:

In more than two decades since the band’s launch, Sabaton has headlined major festivals, sold-out arena concerts worldwide and gained a legion of loyal fans by carving out a reputation for being one of the hardest working bands in the business. Since their 2005 debut album, they’ve earned Gold, Platinum, and multi-Platinum certifications in territories around the world with their eleven studio albums. They’ve also had eight albums score Top 10 international chart status, and six claim the Top 5. The band has earned eight Metal Hammer/Golden Gods Awards nominations, taking home the award for ‘Breakthrough Artist’ in 2011 and ‘Best Live Band’ in three different years, and a Grammis nomination (Swedish equivalent to the U.S. GRAMMY) as Best Heavy Metal Band.

In 2008, Sabaton hosted the first edition of its annual, three-day music festival, SabatonOpen Air, in Sweden. The year after, the highly popular Sabaton Cruise was introduced, which sails out of Stockholm each year for epic sea adventures and live acts. A pivotal point in the band’s history was the debut of the Sabaton History Channel in 2019, which uses the power of music and storytelling to dive into the stories behind every song with documentary-style videos.

In March 2022, the band’s tenth studio album ‘The War To End All Wars’ was released, revisiting WW1 and featuring eleven songs. To conclude the band’s chapter on the First World War, the quintet released an EP trilogy on 30th September 2022, entitled ‘Echoes Of The Great War‘. The band embarked on The Tour To End All Tours and The Great Swedish Tour in 2022/2023. In April 2023, the band was recognised by the Swedish Skeptics Association with the highly regarded ‘Enlightener of the Year Award’, making Sabaton the first ever rock band to receive such an honour.

In June 2023, Sabaton launched History Rocks, a global museum charity project which revolved around the band’s new animated film, The War To End All Wars – The Movie, which was screened in 140 museums around the world. The film was later released on major video streaming services in May 2025. In 2024, Sabaton celebrated the global premiere of their concert film Sabaton– The Tour To End All Tours. They continued to embark on The Legendary Tour 2025 (review here), before releasing their eleventh studio album ‘Legends‘ in October 2025.

Ultimately, Sabaton the first ever rock band to receive such an honour. refuses to be slotted into a genre. Fans need only know them as Sabaton the first ever rock band to receive such an honour., the heavy metal band that sings of real-life wars and the people who played a part in them; true stories more fantastic than any fiction.