In a matter of days, The Devil Wears Prada kicks off their first headlining tour since 2019. With support from Stray from the Path and Dying Wish, they’re taking their second Zombie EP, ZII, on the road and throwing in some singles from their seventh full-length release, Color Decay, which comes out in September and is now up for pre-order on the band’s website.
Frontman Mike Hranica is between rehearsals, calm as ever, and still one of the friendliest people I’ve met for someone who is openly not fond of socializing much. Hranica is not a person easily described and his screaming, uncaged stage persona is about the closest thing to an alter ego you will witness, but it’s an example of how, as humans, we are a constantly evolving example of duality. A person can front a metal band that has graced stages over 1,400 times over the years and can also be a self-proclaimed hobbyist, jokingly comparing himself to a grandma with her many crafts. Both things can be and are true, and it’s all of the layers of Hranica that make him one of the greatest artists to interview.
He once said to me that his mind is made of many rooms where he stores the different ventures he delves into, but they all must stay separate. With a new clothing line, a woodworking store on Etsy, more coffee from Dogma, and a podcast with his bandmates, that statement seems as true now as it ever was. But as always, when the music is fresh, his foyer seems to be filled chiefly with Color Decay at the moment, and for good reason.
The band may be entering back into tour life by rote, but there’s nothing routine about the music they’re about to release. Hranica elaborates a bit on the theme, artwork, and inspiration behind the album and which track is the sleeper that no one should dismiss.
I last got to interview you right before The Act was released. At that time, there was a lot going on: People were having babies, you had lineup changes, you changed labels, you changed producers.
And a pandemic.
Yeah! And then the world stopped for a while. It seems like you’ve kept yourself busy since then. You guys have been doing Prada Pod, released ZII, and then you created a brand new full-length album. How are you feeling about Color Decay as far as a separate entity, and how it fits into your discography?
I feel good. I feel like it hit a lot of strides in terms of what we’ve been aiming for as far as trying to bend out of metalcore without being one of those bands that says, “Don’t call us metalcore.” I think it’s better just to make metalcore better (that’s just my perspective).
I think we’ve really hit our stride in terms of John producing the songs and having a huge part in the songwriting itself. We switched things around quite a bit with COVID to keep busy. The podcast was definitely something… Through a few months, it was like, this isn’t something I want to deal with editing and listening through and what not, but it felt good with all the uncertainty and anxiety and loneliness and depression that came along with [the pandemic]. But yeah, just keeping busy.
Photo by Imani Givertz
The podcast is something where it seems like you get to talk shop with other musicians and other people in the business, so that had to help a little bit during that time when you couldn’t be on tour or be around your peers in person.
I’m a rather inward individual. I don’t require much social interaction at all, but I do like to have the world spinning around me — creatively and sort of as an inspiration. So having any bit of contact definitely went a long way during the early quarantine. When things were open enough for us to come together and record ZII, the idea even before COVID was that we were going to try to celebrate 10 years of Zombie with two new songs as a seven-inch, and then it was like, well, this pandemic thing isn’t going away. It’s not difficult, per se, for us to come up with Zombie songs, so it just completely expanded from there.
When we had talked last, you had said, “Album seven will happen when it happens, we don’t want to force it, we’ll get there.” We’re there. I think it’s really cool to compare it to The Act because it is different, it feels like a step forward and it’s got a lot of sonic variety. You hit on a lot of different sounds, different moods, and different feelings. I’m always really interested in cover art and with The Act, it was so intricate and was hand-painted by somebody. With this one, it’s really abstract. It sticks with the whole macabre thing but I was curious how you chose that particular cover.
I honestly can’t speak entirely to it, as the other guys had more say in it this time around where The Act art direction was something I handled. Harry, who we kind of landed on, had done “The Sacrifice” single art (which was obviously the first thing we released) and then we went into “Watchtower” with that. Merch was really booming with his vision and what he was creating. He assembled a huge package of a million assets of different ideas he had for a record cover… I think it stands out pretty well, and I think that it definitely hits the themes we had going with the singles before we announced Color Decay.
“Objectively and looking at how one chooses to handle the decisions we all are forced to make as we get older can very much define whether you are improving yourself, or if you’re accepting the damage to some extent…I think it’s always more interesting to accept the damage from a lyrical, creative songwriting perspective.”
The album itself is thematically kind of interesting. My perception of it is that it’s about the struggles that we have as we advance out of our 20s — that carefree zone — and then we settle into these relationships and responsibilities and complications as we get older. Everything has a little more weight to it. I was wondering if you could tell me about the experiences that may have inspired this, and if those are things that harden us as people or strengthen us, or can both of those things be true?
For me, it’s so much easier to have a record title going into an album rather than writing an album and then coming up with a title to sort of encapsulate everything. This was one of the tough ones where Color Decay came after the songs were done. Just looking across the lyrical package that we had created between John and me, it felt like something to encompass the degradation of something once shiny, or something once glossy or brilliant or beautiful.
To more accurately answer your question, I think it can come with both. Objectively and looking at how one chooses to handle the decisions we all are forced to make as we get older can very much define whether you are improving yourself, or if you’re accepting the damage to some extent. Not to speak too much for John, I think it’s always more interesting to accept the damage from a lyrical, creative songwriting perspective.
As you had mentioned, the world took a little pause there for two years. It was hard for everybody and every corner of humanity has felt some level of death, and hopefully a reawakening or a rebirth. Sometimes, that’s personal — it’s not always on a global scale. “Cancer” was one of those songs that I really felt. But the chorus, I thought was so interesting. That sentiment of hoping someone is lost to illness instead of addiction or self-harm…was such an interesting concept, did you write that?
I did not. I peppered in the verses and I think the bridge, but the chorus itself is one John came up with really off the back with his acoustic guitar. We recorded and did most of the writing at a rental property outside Palm Springs near Joshua Tree. It was very secluded and there was a little pool out there, and one of John’s daily routines was to get the net and remove leaves and things out of the pool and kind of ruminate and relax.
A hero of his had passed away and his instinctual thought was, “I hope he died of an illness rather than suicide or addiction or something like that,” and coming to terms with what a deranged and bizarre thought that is. I think “Cancer” is without a doubt a song people will have to get to and listen through. I think the chorus is just brilliantly written by John and it’s a theme that is certainly more jarring and thought-provoking than maybe more run-of-the-mill material.
It’s this idea of, yes, it’s a compassionate loving reaction because you don’t want them to have suffered, but by the same token you also don’t want that guilt of not being able to have saved them from themselves.
Even more so than anything we’ve written before, I remember Mason was playing bass with us and I was sitting there like, “Can we say this? This seems the most horrible thing you could ever say.” But in that, I think that there’s that sort of unabashed honesty and I think it doesn’t get any more cathartic and honest than what John wrote there.
As a fan and someone who has watched the band for a while, I can confirm that the one consistency with you guys is you are a band of continuous creation. But, I hope you’re having a chance to enjoy the chapter you’re in and the pause… at least for a moment!
I’m constantly anxious, especially if I don’t have my hands moving or something to do. So, I look forward to the Zombie tour we’re about to embark on. We’re playing four new singles from Color Decay that we’ve released, as well as the Zombie EPs. I hope COVID doesn’t clamp down on us or anything, but we can enjoy the fruits of our labor in being able to sell a couple hundred tickets as much as we can and use different rooms, and enjoy the performance side of things, which we’ve all been deprived of for a few years.
Photo by Imani Givertz
Are there any side projects or creative endeavors you’re taking on this next year that you’re looking forward to?
I enjoy woodworking a lot. It’s become a part of my routine when I’m home in Milwaukee. I just got my shop built so I look forward to building these sort of brutalist structures and odds and ends for people’s homes.
And I’ve always loved sports, I grew up with sports from my father and my family and I’ve always loved hockey. It only took me until more recent years for me to really get engaged in the game and playing very often, which led me to a friend that shoots the band photography. We started a hockey apparel brand called Hacksaw. We worked with a charitable organization called Black Girl Hockey Club that introduces scholarships for women of color to get more involved in the game. We have another of those coming out this weekend actually, so I’ve been real busy with that, as well as just offering quality apparel and nothing super cheeseball, which is often associated with the game. So we’re getting a good look off the ice. I really enjoy playing hockey when I’m home and I certainly think that’s going to be continuing through the indefinite years ahead.
It’s great to hear that you’re continuing to expand your creative projects. It seems like you’ve always got something new going on.
Yeah, between writing, Etsy store, coffee, and hockey, I kind of refer to myself as like a grandma with her crafts — just a pure hobbyist. I can only afford to collect so many guitars and play them, so I just keep finding other things to stay busy with other than ride my motorcycle when the weather is warm.
Photo by Imani Givertz
Before I let you go, is there anything you’ve read recently that you think other people would enjoy?
Oh, constantly! I just found earlier this year, a writer — she’s English but she lives in Paris now. Her name’s Rachel Cusk. She has quite the number of titles…I believe the most popular is a three-book series called “Outliers.” There’s a writer by the name of Amor Towles who released one of the best contemporary pieces of fiction a number of years ago, called “A Gentleman in Moscow.” His newest is called “The Lincoln Highway” and it’s also equally brilliant. But in terms of contemporary fiction, I think one of the one that has really blown me away (it’s kind of my go-to for anyone looking for some modern fiction) is a book called “We Run The Tides,” by a writer name Vendela Vida.
Those sound like some great recommendations, I’m going to check those out.
Well, if you hate them, I’ll accept all the blame.
(Laughs) That’s fair.
