The Devil Wears Prada

Make no mistake, The Devil Wears Prada isn't just a shitty movie about womens fashion, it's also a young and promising metal band from the U.S.

They recently released their most accomplished and mature album to date and will be here for Soundwave 2010 festival.

We caught up with vocalist Mike Hranica to chat about it all...

Can we start with your name and the instrument you play?

My name is Mike, I do vocals for the band.

Your latest album 'With Roots Above and BrancheS Below' was released a couple months back. What's the reception been like? I know it's sold a truckload of copies so that's a pretty good indication... 

Yeah the reception has been great!  There will always be critics, but I think our fans can really get into it.  The band members are happy with how things turned out, too, which is important.

You guys seem to have stepped it up a bit for this album. It's heavier and a lot more solid than previous releases. Why do you think that is? 

Probably just maturing at what we all do.  The more you do something, the better you'll get (usually at least).  We've been working together longer and longer and just growing as dudes, which is what helps us to write better tunes.

The vocals on Branches' are a lot more varied than 2007's 'Plagues', why did you decide to mix it up? 

The more I record, the more comfortable I get.  I had no idea what I was doing for the first couple years with the band, and now I've learned to do what I do most efficiently.  I know a lot of people were confused by my slightly different vocal style, but I think it's beefier and generally better.

How did getting Dan Seagrave to do the artwork come about? That dude is responsible for a hefty slab of album art for the who's who of metal. Entombed, Morbid Angel, Vader etc etc. 

Portland at Ferret brought Dan up as a candidate, and I was familiar with the work he did for Becoming The Archetype.  He's an outstanding artist and I think he did a fantastic job at nailing the idea I had in my head for the album art.  Most certainly my favorite bit of album art for TDWP to date.

You're currently on tour with Enter Shikari in the U.K. What's that experience been like? 

We finished up the Enter Shikari tour a couple weeks ago and now we're finishing up our Europe run with Your Demise.  The Enter Shikari shows were crazy; tons of people and the dudes in the band were all real nice and easy to get along with.  We were very blessed to have the opportunity to do such a sick UK run.

The band will return to Australia for the Soundwave Festival in February 2010. You looking forward to it? 

Yes, we're all stoked for the chance to experience Australia once again.

Any particular bands you are looking forward to watching as a fan on the Soundwave Festival?

Probably just friends' bands that we've had the chance of touring with previously.

Who's your favourirte band to tour with? 

Probably A Day to Remember.  We really get along with Underoath, too, and now we've became buddies with the Your Demise dudes.

Most embarrasing moment on stage? 

Anything I did for the first one to two years within the band haha.

The year 2012, apocalypse or aloadofsh*t? 

I would like to say apocalypse, but God said that the end of days would be completely expected, which sort of rules out 2012.

What tours do you guys have planned for the rest of 2009? 

God willing, after finishing up this Europe run, we're doing a co-headline tour with All That Remains.

The Devil Wears Prada will be here for the 2010 Soundwave music festival. Their new album 'With Roots Above and BrancheS Below' is out now via Stomp. For more info on the band head to their Myspace page.