Over the last five years few bands have taken the metalcore world by storm the way The Devil Wears Prada has. Outliving the kitsch of their name the Dayton, Ohio band has gone on to release three full-length records as well as continuously touring, conquering for themselves quite a rabid fan base.
Following on the success of their last album With Roots Above And Branches Below, TDWP has returned to unleash their Zombie EP (read our review). Heavy, filled with horror themes and taking a slightly new direction for the band this is a labor of love that pays off for the fans. I sat down with vocalist Mike Hranica to talk all things zombie.
CRAVEONLINE: What inspired the idea for the Zombie EP?
MIKE HRANICA: We were overseas touring and I was reading a lot of Max Brooks (The Zombie Survival Guide) books, and Pride, Prejudice And Zombies plus Zombieland had just come out and I thought it would be really rad to do a zombie song. When I told the band about it everybody got on board and said let’s do an EP.
CRAVEONLINE: Why Zombies and not Vampires or Serial Killers or other monsters?
MIKE HRANICA: I was just on a zombie kick at the time and I think zombies are my favorite horror theme. I was never into Vampires and especially with the whole Twilight crap out right now we’d never do any Vampire stuff. Zombies are something you can follow, it has a nice horror theme to it and you can follow it. We wanted to write about it and I think everybody loves zombies.
CRAVEONLINE: Is the whole EP a concept or story or are these songs just about zombies?
MIKE HRANICA: Each song is concept, I mean obviously it’s a concept EP about Zombies but each song follows a little bit more of an idea. They have serious song titles so you know each lyric is about. Each song does follow a conceptual basis.
CRAVEONLINE: Is it one long story or are each song an individual story?
MIKE HRANICA: The only real story one is the last song, which follows this guy living on a farm. The rest of them follow an idea like running from zombies, being out numbered by zombies, how to cure zombies, and the anatomy of zombies as far as what it is to be a zombie. The songs don’t follow one into the other.
CRAVEONLINE: What’s the story about the guy on the farm?
MIKE HRANICA: That’s Survivor and that’s about a guy who lives on a farm, his wife was killed by zombies and now he kills zombies as they get to him. His main problem is being extremely lonely and having nobody there with him.
CRAVEONLINE: The Zombie EP is a little heavier than the normal sound you guys have. Did you set out to do that?
MIKE HRANICA: I think song writing wise it was really Chris (Rubey, lead guitar) who wrote all of them and then everybody added their crap on top of it. As far as the style of the music it was really meant to be sinister. Lyrically it follows zombies but we wanted it sound wise to really go with something evil. It’s such an easy way to write evil songs and that’s how we wanted it to come off.
CRAVEONLINE: Why do an EP instead of jumping into a full length?
MIKE HRANICA: Our first two albums came out pretty close to the same time and with the next record we wanted to wait it out a little bit more. This was just a cool idea and fit it well with our touring plans and gives the fans something new. It’s new Prada material without a full length because a full length is taken a lot more seriously with the music and lyrics. This is just meant to be something fun for the fans. It’s sweet, I think fans will really enjoy it.
CRAVEONLINE: Was it difficult to write about zombies and still keep the songs and material serious as opposed to funny of cheesy?
MIKE HRANICA: It was challenging. I was a little bit worried going into it because I didn’t want to write anything cheesy but I did want it zombie themed. It was a little tougher than I thought it would but I’m really happy with everything I came up with. It follows what zombies are about and, not to sound arrogant, I think I did a pretty good job of avoiding any zombie clichés and trying to be creative with what makes a zombie a zombie.
With the artwork we wanted it to be really serious. Nothing cheesy or cartoony like cartoon drawings, we’re leaving that to our comic book and the t-shirts and everything. We wanted this to come off really tough.
CRAVEONLINE: Tell me about the comic book.
MIKE HRANICA: It’s a full-fledged comic book, fourteen pages full color. It’s really meant to be like a normal comic, nothing scaled down or anything. The intentions of it were to go full-blown and that’s what we did, we’re really excited about it. It’s something the fans will enjoy as well and it’s funny to see us all drawn up as zombie murderers and killing all the undead.
CRAVEONLINE: Who were the artists behind the comic?
MIKE HRANICA: Dale Born wrote it and he’s a writer. Kevin Mellon is doing all of the illustrations.
CRAVEONLINE: Have you read any of the Walking Dead series?
MIKE HRANICA: I haven’t seen it, I’ve heard about it. I’m really not a comic geek by any means, I’ve never collected or anything. From what I’m told it’s nothing at all like ours.
CRAVEONLINE: Will you do any kind of conceptual video for the Zombie EP?
MIKE HRANICA: Yeah it’d be awesome to do a music video. We haven’t really discussed it at all. The EP was something that we just managed to fit into our contract it wasn’t anything we were supposed to do. Our label really had to dish out a lot of money for this idea of ours between the artwork and the comic illustrations. At some point or another I’d like to do a music video and if we do it I’d like it to be with somebody who is really zombie active rather than taking a normal director and tell him to make it zombie. I’d rather take a zombie director and have him go with what he knows. It’ll be something to work on once the EP is already out.
CRAVEONLINE: Why do you think zombies continue to be so inspirational for music, comics, and pop culture?
MIKE HRANICA: It’s like what I was saying earlier; it’s a horror theme that’s easy to identify. I know I’ve always wanted to friggin hunt zombies with guns, it’s something so appealing to me more than Vampires or whatever. It’s always been zombies for me and the rest of the band relates to that and a lot of fans relate to that. It’s evil and sinister, which is what we wanted for the sound of the EP. Plus there’s so many marketing opportunities, which is why we did the comic and everything.
CRAVEONLINE: What is the Back To Roots tour?
MIKE HRANICA: It’s our underplay tour. We play a lot of rooms that are a fraction of what we normally do so instead of doing the 3000 cap rooms we’ve been doing for while we go back and do the smaller rooms like we used to do before. It’s shows that we don’t normally do and the reaction has been great because it’s something meant for the fans in that it’s really personal and really in your face.
CRAVEONLINE: What do you take away from smaller shows that you don’t from larger ones?
MIKE HRANICA: It’s just totally different. When you do these big shows you’re like high on stage away from the audience with a barrier and everything. These are people in your face, falling on stage, you can hand them the mic really easily so it’s personal vibe. I enjoy doing the big rooms because you get to see the band with great sound and big light package but a lot of bands do those and forget where they came from. So the fans get the chance to be right there.
CRAVEONLINE: You’ve had a lot of success in a short time, why do you keep going with such furious intensity?
MIKE HRANICA: It comes natural, it’s what we feel we should be doing, everybody in the band and our manager. The fact that so much as come in five years we feel is a big part God showing us that this is what he wants us doing. It’s nice to be home and relax but when a band spends t0o much time at home people forget about them. The market is so oversaturated with young bands. We don’t want people to forget about us.
CRAVEONLINE: Top five desert island records?
MIKE HRANICA:
Jimmy Eat World: Futures
Converge: You Fail Me
Betrayed: Addiction EP
Against Me: Original Cowboy
Minor Threat: Out Of Step
CRAVEONLINE: What’s the next year look like for you?
MIKE HRANICA: We’re trying to get studio time and work on our next full length and tour on that. It’s difficult to say because we don’t have everything booked up just yet. Primarily it’s all about coming up with a new full length.
For more on The Devil Wears Prada check out:
