(Photo Credit: Anthony Barlich)
Metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada is currently on the road headlining the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival with the likes of Slayer, King Diamond, and HELLYEAH, and touched base here at the DTE Energy Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan this past weekend. From the time the band hit the stage, they were explosive throughout their set and a great kick off to the main stage.
The Devil Wears Prada is currently ready to release their new newest project, the Space EP, next month on Rise Records. It's a thematic release along the same lines as their 2010 Zombie EP where they really tackle a fictional take on their music, and this time around they undertook a galactic premise for it.
While at the Mayhem Festival, I was able to sit down with lead singer Mike Hranica (pictured above, second to the left) and talk to him about the Space EP along with the sincerity behind everything The Devil Wears Prada tries to do as a band.
The Space EP is fantastic. What was the idea behind it?
We loved doing the Zombie EP. It's cool to be able to put ourselves into a position to really create these identities for songs so specifically, and that was a big part of Space, was creating something very specific to each song and making sure that nothing blended together too much. I think that was something that did happen with the Zombie EP. It feels very fictional to be able to do a thematic EP like this and people still really seem to enjoy the Zombie EP. I remember when we did Mayhem in 2012, a lot of fans just being "I love the Zombie EP!" It's our heavier material, so we play a lot of that. We just did the Zombie 5 Tour, two of them earlier this year and people were stoked on that. It's fun and we enjoy doing it too, so we wanted to do another theme and space was definitely right.
When it comes to the music, there's a dichotomy about it where it's fun and exciting, but also sad and brutal at the same time. Why is that?
I find immense immediacy in sad songs. I find that they contain the most emotion. I think even my favorite pop songs are the sad ones because it portrays more. It translates very immediately. That's what I'm drawn to. That's always been my favorite bands, my favorite records. That's what I try to do with Prada and we have that in common, and we all instill that into the songs.
The Devil Wears Prada has been around for about 10 years now. What are your memories of those early years?
Being in the band was insane. We started in 2005; this is our 10th year coming in October. In 2006, I was still in high school between my junior and senior year, and we went on tour for three months, three tours, and it was our first van. I remember the A/C breaking and everyone just sitting there in their underwear going through Hell Canyon's or whatever it was between Vegas and California. That was a lot of fun. I love the spontaneity of it and I really miss that. It was such notions of authenticity and rawness just going up there and playing a hall show, and just loading in and going! Now, a lot of times it feels so political and often it feels so premeditated in certain ways. It doesn't happen as often as we like, but whenever we can do something a little different, do something that isn't in the rulebook, we try to. Those things were cool. I miss that about being a young band. It's an incredible blessing to be here 10 years later doing new releases and such.
Is it tough to balance that art vs. commerce aspect?
Perhaps. For me, I just can't compromise. I can't wake up and go on tour and go about it as such a job. It feels that way, and it has especially getting older, from time to time being like "Man, this is just like going to a bad day job". When that happens, that's when things need to change and that's when you do a Space EP or take some time to yourself, re-evaluate. Getting older and having bills, a mortgage, and responsibilities; it's a lot stacking up. I come home from tour and there's a stack of envelopes and bills. My family has always done well with money and my dad's very responsibly and had it, but he's always worried about it so much. I love my dad to death, but I never want to be like that. I never want to worry about money. Things have always just come into shape. I have the greatest home, the greatest dog, I get to drink beer, and I buy a lot of guitars and guitars gear. That's all I ever wanted. At the same time, I don't really have to sacrifice. I don't have to put "Fuck" on a bunch of t-shirts to sell to 13 year old kids with pentagrams or something either, which apparently is what it takes to sell. We don't have to do any of that and we never will. Life's too short I guess. Do something you can be passionate about or otherwise it is just working a day job or some corporate bullshit.
Did you ever have that "holy shit!" moment when you realized that this band might just end up working out?
No. I never really considered it. I guess I'm successful now because I'm just ranting now about paying my bills and having a job and being able to be a self-sustaining independent adult financially. It feels so stagnant and complacent to be like "Oh, I'm successful". I'll never ever consider that. I'll never be able to look at myself and be like "I made it. I'm successful". That's just so repulsive for me to think about personally in my own broken set of ethics and morality. You can always do better. You can always help more people. You can always be a better person. You can always do something better for the planet or for the people around you. And with that, you're never successful. You never made it. It's never a standard or a bar I mean to make or achieve.
Are there things you would like to do in the future to better yourself, the planet, society, or whatever?
Yeah, anything. We haven't really done anything charitable in a while, which really sucks. I'm very obsessive person, very organized and what not. A lot of things really bug me, a lot of pet peeves. With that, I'm incredibly not wasteful. I can't waste things. I overeat all the time because if it's on my plate, I need to finish it. I just always been that way. With that, I would love to do better, to be a part of more efforts that do conserve. Living and being in Chicago, quite a liberal city, I get a lot of that. I really appreciate it. I can't say that I'm making a difference or anything, or I'm part of some effort because I'm really not. These are important things to me. These are things I like to keep in mind. I think everyone should, but somehow people are still talking about whether global warming is real and it's mind baffling.
There's a lot of mind baffling shit going on in the world. Do you ever internalize any of that and does it come out in your music?
I'm always been very intentional with not being political. On Roots Above, we have a song called "Wapakalypse". It's our most political song ever. I think it feels pretty relevant to me now and I would love to do a song that dealt with that lyrically on the new record, which we hope to be writing around the end of the this year, early next year, and hopefully record in the spring. I could definitely see that. Gay marriage being passed was really important to all of us. We're all pumped on that. I love it. Food reform I find insane. I hate to be that PETA asshole or something like that, being a vegetarian and seeing our meat standards, what people are doing, how detrimental it is when no one is thinking about it. Why don't we have a conscious understanding of what's really happening, as well as the fact that we're coming to a point where we can't feed the amount of people on this Earth? I think that's very important; it's just swept under the table. It's something that corporations and the media cover up to some extent. I don't think it would be the most interesting song content for a casual listener of The Devil Wears Prada. I do think about a lot of these things. I try not to be too ignorant or apathetic towards the news.
When you are on stage and you look out towards the crowd, what goes through your mind?
Depends. Sometimes I think about what I'm going to eat later, but sometimes it's really invigorating when a moment reignites. The same kind of passion you felt when you wrote that song. With Roots Above, we put that out 6-7 years ago when you could still feel that sort of flame and color in life that lived and was born in that moment of creating something from nothing. That can be really awesome. I guess it was last year, there's a documentary film that came out about Nick Cave, which is my favorite musician ever, my favorite man ever, called 20,000 Days On Earth. They were talking about performing, and when you look at someone in the audience. Everything he does really inspires me and as you can tell, I was looking at someone's face and wondering about that and wondering about entertainment or about what exactly is happening; the ridiculousness of performing anyway. Any of that can happen and I'll consider it, or just creating something wild, something with a lot of energy that often feels it has to be there to match to the music because the music itself feels violent in a way.
What do you want the legacy of The Devil Wears Prada to be?
Just sincerity. I think a lot of bands, flash in the pan type thing, and just getting older and the fact that we're coming up on 10 years, I hope kind of defies that and tries to proves ourselves. I know that's a selfish endeavor, but I'd be dishonest in saying that it didn't exist. I don't know. I think I'll be excited to look back and say we never wrote that song to be able to do this or we never had to make that t-shirt; like what you were talking about, the sort of art vs. commerce. We've made it this far without ever having to consider it and I think it will stay that way, whether that's transparent in what the legacy will be I don't know. I think it's foolish for people to try to define how people think of them; instead I think it's more important to be sincere and honest. If people can actually pick up on that, sense that, then great, I guess that would be what defines a legacy. I've learned this in playing for number of years now, it can be so foolish trying to guide and manipulate exactly how everyone perceives you. Honestly, it's going to be a waste of time.
The Devil Wears Prada's new release, the "Space EP" is due out August 21st on Rise Records. The EP is now available for pre-order. For more information on The Devil Wears Prada, visit tdwpband.com.