A Conversation with Mike Hranica from The Devil Wears Prada – HuffPost 11.16.11

Mike Ragogna: We’re talking with Mike Hranica from The Devil Wears Prada, how are you Mike?

Mike Hranica: I’m doing great.

MR: Lets talk about the recent album, Dead Throne. What was the approach creatively this time out?

MH: It was a little different than what we usually do when we write records, but at the same time, it was fundamentally the same in some regards. We wrote it a little bit different. Ever since we did our second record, it was a very confrontational realization that when you do a new record, the expectations are so exponentially higher. We’ve always dealt with that, and that plays a big part in when we write new music, but at the same time, we go into a record pretty loose. We never go into a record saying we need to have this and this, it all comes out pretty natural. The big difference musically was that we did focus on the heavier side of things, that’s what we focused on when we did the Zombie EP last year, and fans really seemed to like it. Writing heavier music is not something that’s unnatural to us, it felt very organic. We leaned in that direction and just went with it.

MR: You have a mobile game that coincides with the Zombie EP, how did that work?

MH: Really, when we did the Zombie EP last year, there’s so much fun stuff you can do with a conceptual record like that. As far as when we put out the record, there was the comic book that you got if you pre-ordered it. It’s just little things like that that give you room to explore when you did something like we did with the Zombie EP. I think the idea was founded by our drummer Daniel who always has creative ideas as far as online and social networking. He had the idea to do the app a long time ago. Unfortunately, through back end changes, we weren’t able to do it. Early this year, it actually came into picture and became a reality. It took a really long time to make, we put out the game not that long ago. There goes a lot to go into coming up with a game like that. There’s a lot of bands with apps, but ours is taking up the most space in my phone as far as apps, because it’s pretty extensive. It is a full-blown iPhone, iPad, and iPod game.

MR: You guys probably know how many downloads of the app there are, it must be doing pretty well.

MH: Yeah, I don’t have the exact number. With a lot of the app stuff, I’ve taken a back seat because there are much bigger app nerds in the band then myself. It has been great, I’ve seen a lot of great things. I’ve looked in the app store at the five star review thing, and last I looked, it was four or four and a half stars. So, I’m stoked and it’s a fun project to do. Obviously, there is a lot more to do with a game like this. It’s been a lot of fun and it’s definitely an interesting market to be moving in as far as in the band world. There’s always new things that come up that bands have to catch onto. The app store and the app world is definitely something to put some concentration into.

MR: And you guys are no stranger to Guitar Hero either.

MH: True.

MR: Do you play those games?

MH: I’ve played Guitar Hero. Again, Daniel our drummer, when we started our band, he was the only one with money because he was the only one with a full time job. The rest of us were in school or in college, and I remember he bought Guitar Hero as soon as it came out. It was sort of this abstract or strange idea for video games, but obviously, it just blew up huge. I remember going to his mom’s house and playing it there years and years ago. I really think that was the last time I played it, but I couldn’t be happier with The Devil Wears Prada on those games. There’s a number of bands that I started listening to back then because I heard it on the game. I actually just saw something on Twitter where it said something like, “I just listened to this band The Devil Wears Prada, thanks Guitar Hero.” It does a world of good, gaming like that.

MR: Now, you’re classified as “metalcore,” right?

MH: Something like that.

MR: It seems like this album is rocking harder than your previous one, With Roots Above And Branches Below. It seems like you guys are getting tougher as you’re progressing as a band.

MH: Definitely. You know, it was weird, when we did With Roots Above…, we kept being called “screamo.” I thought, “We’ve never tried to be a screamo band,” but I play the old records and I guess I could see it be screamo. It was a realization for me when we did With Roots Above…, we’re not trying to be that. The real good, post-hardcore and screamo bands these days are ashamed to call themselves screamo because it’s such a bad stereotype with how many bad screamo bands there are. We did With Roots Above… in 2009. We were never setting out to be screamo, we were focusing more on metalcore. I wanted to put that in focus and put that on track, that was kind of what we did. The thing is that the songs and recordings are heavier now than what they were earlier, but I think a lot of the aggression has always been there, it just took us a few records and years to find how to control that, put that into a song, and record it. Since the beginning, we’ve always thought of ourselves as being aggressive and hard hitting. We’re a six-year-old band now, and it took us to Dead Throne and started with …Roots Above… to find how to record that, and really capture that whole sound.

MR: Are you getting a second glance by the Christian community as you’re getting harder? Is there any kind of backlash?

MH: We might. When we did the Zombie EP, as soon as it came out, we thought we were going to get crap for this. People are going to buy like, “They’re not Christian.” The only thing we can do is laugh at it. To be frank, it’s entirely ignorant. We can’t pay attention to things like that anymore. To me, not trying to put myself above the criticism or judgment of other Christians, I make sure that the discipline I put myself through is all I need as far as making sure that the sound and the lyrics is what it needs to be within a Christian perspective. To answer you honestly, I don’t know, there could be people out there that could be saying, “Death Throne is so heavy and evil, they’re not Christian anymore.” It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest bit, because we take flack from Christians all of the time; “I hear they cuss,” or “I hear this guy drinks beer.” I kind of just turn a deaf ear to people criticizing us for the wrong reasons. The fact of the matter is that whether it’s heavier now or hard hitting, it doesn’t matter because it’s still just as truthful as it was Day One; still just as honest, and we’re still just as sincere as ever about our faith.

MR: So, opinions like that don’t affect or make you adjust your art either.

MH: No, not at all. Honestly, I can only call it a waste of time to be distracted with things like that. It’s really not worth putting the attention into because it really doesn’t change things. You can’t face every critic and ever reviewer and justify yourself to them. I take that same point of view to the overly harsh Christian community.

MR: Mike, your group name “The Devil Wears Prada” is an anti-materialist statement right?

MH: Yeah.

MR: How did you come onto that name and concept?

MH: Way back in the day, actually before I joined the band, it was three guys–Chris, Dan, and James. They started jamming and really couldn’t come up with a name and started jumping around these goofy names, and Chris’s mom was reading the book and he thought it was a clever name, so they picked it. A year or two later, it became a hit best seller and a movie and all of this. It quickly became, “Shoot, we should have named it something else.” It was definitely just a group of kids who were trying to make music and needed a name. We picked out this stupid band name and stupid song titles to the first three albums and everything. The meaning is always very serious behind the band, but we are very comical people and we do joke around incessantly. We just kind of picked out these ways to joke and unfortunately, the band name was one of them. Now, we definitely regret it and say, “It would have been better if we had taken the time to pick a better band name.” It’s too late now, but really, the thing we saw in the band name that we thought was clever was the idea of people taking materialistic ideas way too seriously. It’s not to say that we don’t like materialistic things, because we do; we like television and Apple products. But there’s definitely a line being drawn between letting that go too far and focus on that more than the important things in life, which aren’t the material things, rather, love, hope, grace, and faith.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

MH: It’s really just be honest and express something. Now that I have been here for years and years, I can say that I’ve become more jaded than I’d like to admit. I see these bands and I see their intentions, and it’s absolute garbage. For us, when we started the band, we had something we wanted to say, and we wanted to play every show we could and just get to play the shows, all of the local shows we were already going to, because we loved all of the local bands and (I) have all my favorites. I would see them every weekend…I would drive an hour or two every weekend. We just wanted to play those shows and we wanted to make music too. We did that and it was never about trying to do Warped Tour or have as many Twitter followers as possible or become these empty false celebrities. That’s really what I see in young bands now is that it’s always about taking photos and trying to come up with an internet presence before writing good songs. It’s something very easy to fall into.

I’m not trying to say that we had the most perfect intentions; we made mistakes when we were young. The way I word it is that if you come up with the band and it sells a thousand records and you never get to tour full time, if you can be proud of those songs and you feel that those songs mean something to you and express who you are, then that is way better than selling 50,000 records under lies and music without any purpose, reason, or true content. I try to explain that to young fans and people wanting to picking up guitars or start playing in a band. Just remember that it is music, and music is not a look, it’s expression and it’s art, which is even hard to say nowadays, because I think the music scene has raped all art out of music. But that’s a whole different story and I could rant about this all day.

MR: That could be the topic of our next interview. So, you have a seventeen-year-old fan, Dylan Chenfeld, who’s a pretty talented musician himself, and he has a few burning questions. Can I throw them in?

MH: Yeah, absolutely.

MR: Thanks. What is a “Dead Throne”?

MH: A “Dead Throne” is something that the title track really tries to describe. I had the idea to call the record Dead Idols a long time ago, and the idea of Doing Idols, which doesn’t roll off of the tongue too well, so instead…Dead Throne. It’s precisely the same idea as far as putting idols onto this figurative or metaphorical throne and setting all of this stuff up. The title track tries to describe that and putting all of our carved images and man made objects all up on this throne when, as Christians, the only thing that should be on the throne is God.

MR: What does the upside down triangle logo mean? Does it tie into Dead Throne?

MH: It doesn’t, the big misconception with the triangle is that it’s “Dead Throne,” but the triangle is The Devil Wears Prada. It will be used until we stop making records. We wanted something without letters or words that described the band, the same as Black Flag bars represent Black Flag, like black sheep represents Minor Threat. We wanted something like that and we came up with this triangle. A lot of people have been expecting this really meaningful explanation as to what the logo means. Really, we just worked with a designer and we wanted something that felt thought provoking, geometrically intriguing. We really didn’t have many ideas. Besides that, I liked the idea of a triangle and I can’t say it’s too original because triangles are becoming very hip and trendy right now. I had the idea for a triangle, and the designer had the idea for three lines to represent a pitch fork, obviously, to resemble the devil in The Devil Wears Prada. It really doesn’t have any meaning behind it, it’s something you can see and instantly think The Devil Wears Prada or that brand and band.

MR: Will “Kansas” ever be performed? If yes, will you be playing guitar on it?

MH: I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but we’re performing “Kansas” right now on the Dead Throne tour. I don’t like to give away the production secrets and the setlist for tours we’re on, but we are playing “Kansas.” I’m actually playing guitar on the song and it’s actually my favorite song to play because I very much enjoy playing guitar.

MR: Thank you so much for your time Mike, lets definitely do this again.

MH: Thank you very much, it’s much appreciated and thank you for having me.

Transcribed By Theo Shier