The Devil Wears Prada

Tue 11th Oct, 2011 in Features

Six years ago, six friends joined forces to achieve one goal: to create a Christian metalcore band that sang dark and twisted requiems for the disillusioned youth of the world. Now a little older and wiser, The Devil Wears Prada face the new challenge of being an aging band in a young person’s scene. Mike Hranica speaks to Fasterlouder ahead of his Australian tour, promoting the US band’s fourth studio album Dead Throne to chat about being old, being new, being broke and being blue.

“The problem with young crowds is that fans tend to be extremely fickle; whenever there’s a new trend they’ll want to just jump on to that.” Hranica, facing the anarchic gaze of capricious lady Fame, is determined to ensure his band’s survival in a game dominated by superficial youth trends and wavering fan allegiances. “[The fans] have all these young bands with trendy lead singers, and they can just jump to that, it’s a lot easier for them to live off.”

Endeavouring to snatch up some mature fans to counteract this insecurity, Hranica has gone to supporting scene veterans in an attempt to swipe some of their listeners. “Since doing tours with All That Remains and Kill Switch Engage we’ve definitely picked up a little bit more of an older fan base which is something that we’ve always wanted to do because, since the beginning, [our fanbase] has always been so young.”

The change isn’t just in the fans, however. Hranica explains that The Devil Wears Prada’s fourth studio album is a move towards a new and better sound. “I look back at old Devil Wears Prada and I’m like, ‘I do not like this.’” Hranica declared, lionising his newest album. “_Dead Throne_ is a very accurate capturing of what we are live, compared to our other records.” While the album presents a strong anti-idolatry theme, Hranica insists that it is also a raw and unfiltered representation of his personal life. “With all the lyrics that I write for other albums, it’s all entirely sincere and always honest and truthful but a lot of the time I’ll come up with situations to write about. With Dead Throne I really didn’t have to come with a situation to write about because I’ve just been dealing with a lot in my own personal life.”

When asked to explain just what has been going on in his personal life, Hranica becomes evasive. “I like whatever privacy I have in my own life but I think that through the record it’s pretty obvious, the things I’ve been going through.”

Another hot topic for Hranica comes in the form of funding. With the US economy starting to look like the Little Train That Couldn’t, the bite is being felt in the music industry as much as anywhere else. “The record label industry is obviously dying more and more every single week so there’s no surprises there, but we have to deal with some awful, awful budget when trying to make a record or music video. You know that’s understandable but it really is a bummer to go on tours and the money is so much less from what it was years prior.”

Despite the music industry’s current, shambolic state, Hranica is trying to find a silver lining around the very ominous-looking cloud. “America’s greed and consumerism is a horrible, horrible, broken system, I guess our economic failure is inevitable but hopefully it picks up and hopefully our country can get to a little bit more of a stable position because I would definitely love to be able to be as extravagant as possible when putting on a live show and to spend money on production and not have to worry about our poor economic state.”

So it’s looking like next month’s Australian tour might not be as extravagant as previous years but Hranica is quick to assure fans that the energy will be just as intense. “We haven’t toured since warped tour, this past summer and I feel like I’m about to go crazy because I haven’t played a show in so long. I’m really excited just to be playing shows.” Fans will have to wait until next month to find out just how excited Hranica really is.

The Devil Wears Prada, We Came As Romans, Dream On Dreamer tour:

Thursday 20th October – Capitol, Perth
Friday 21st October – Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide
Saturday 22nd October – Billboard, Melbourne
Sunday 23rd October – Billboard, Melbourne
Monday 24th October – Roundhouse, Sydney
Wednesday 26th October – The Hi Fi, Brisbane
Thursday 27th October – The Hi Fi, Brisbane