Meet the Devil Wears Prada

How do describe your sound?
We're a Christian metal band that tries to bring a lot of melodic elements to a really heavy sound.

Who do you cite as your influences?
I'd say anybody from Underoath, As I Lay Dying and bands like that, but also stuff like Judas Priest, Motley Crue and metal like that.

You guys have been a band for five years and haven't gone through any major lineup changes, which is a pretty big feat these days. Take us through your history.
When the band started it was called something else, but there were never any shows played, it was just jamming at people's houses. By the time we played our first show it was the same current lineup as we have now, and since we've been touring we haven't changed [it].

But this lineup didn't name the band?
No, we didn't. I thought it was a really cool name when I joined the band, I didn't even know about the book -- that's how small the book was at the time. When I joined, I was Googling, like, "What is this name? Where'd they get it?" And then right after we got signed, it got huge and they were like, "Oh, we're gonna put a movie out," and we were like, "Oh, that sucks!" [Laughs]

Tell us about your rise from the underground, from Dear Love: A Beautiful Discord to With Roots Above and Branches Below.
Well it's definitely all really unexpected; I mean none of us were really thinking we'd be doing this for as long as we have or at any level [such as] what we have. But once we got some songs online it started catching on on MySpace, and then we went on tour after we made a record ... but it was kind of like a small, self-booked, crappy tour. And then we got our booking agent and our manager, and we started getting on bigger tours. We've toured with bands like Shadows Fall and GWAR on [the] Sounds of the Underground [tour], but then we've also done a lot of tours with bands like Silverstein and Underoath and Chiodos and that whole side of things, and we've also played shows with As I Lay Dying and stuff. Between that and the Warped Tour and everything, I think we've really been trying to find our niche over the last couple of years, and I think we found it, but at the same time we're not really ready to be stuck in a rut. We're doing pretty well in the whole, I don't know, "mallcore" scene or whatever, but it's not like we ever planned to be in there; we just try to make metal/heavy music and it just ended up that way, I guess. But I think with this record we really tried to do a lot heavier sound, and just wanted to make it so that somebody that's heard a bunch of crap about the band could listen to it and be like, "Oh, this isn't at all what I heard about them, I guess maybe I should give it a chance." Obviously we're young guys and we're small guys and we wear tight pants, but we can make some really heavy music.

A lot of times critics latch onto a scene having immovable parameters, but how do you work to defy that?
I don't know; obviously it kind of sucks. When we first started playing shows, we were playing with straight-edge hardcore bands and stuff like that, and that was just how it went. We were a local band; we played shows with bands like that -- those were our friends. And then somehow -- maybe just because of the tours we went on or the kids that got into us -- we turned into this "Hot Topic band," but I really don't want to be limited to that. I think we have a lot to offer musically that other metal bands might not have or other emo bands don't have, and so I hope with the new record we can just have a broader appeal. I'd hate for someone to not check the band out just because of whatever scene it's labeled as.

Do you think you're achieving just that with the response you have been getting on this album?
Yeah, I'm definitely really surprised. I've been looking around in some of the forums, and people have been telling me stuff, and one of the biggest things I've been hearing is, "Wow, I thought this was gonna suck, and it actually doesn't suck!" And I'll take that. [Laughs] I'm really stoked that a lot of people have been saying that.

Do you already see the influence you've had on other bands? And do you hope for them to follow your lead and find their own sound?
Yeah, it's weird. When we started playing, the closest thing to us was Still Remains or Underoath, and that was probably our biggest influence. There were bands that were doing keyboards, but they weren't really doing the metal thing -- there was Bleeding Through but that's a whole different thing. But a lot of younger bands, Attack Attack and a lot of bands like that, I don't know -- it's kind of weird. What we tried to do with this record is do something that at least the music can appeal. I know people are gonna look at us like, "Eh," but hopefully the music can speak for itself.

How have you guys been reacting to having that impact on bands like Attack Attack, though?
We've tried to keep our heads way under the clouds as far as a band goes, and being a Christian band, that's something that we've always told each other: to humble ourselves, and that everything that we have is a blessing and something that we got from God. I don't know how secular bands handle that stuff, but that's just something that we've always done. Also, one of the things that sucks is that [success] really doesn't happen [a lot]. My mom was always telling me, "You need to go to college, you're not gonna be able to make it playing guitar," and she's right -- 99% of the time [that's what happens]. And if there's something I could un-influence that we do, it's that I think a lot of bands think that if they go out and start playing this kind of music, that they're gonna have a long career. And it's like, so many of my friends that I would consider having successful careers can't even pay their rent. It doesn't really happen like that, so even for us, it's not gonna last forever, but I don't know -- we're just gonna have fun while it does and hopefully bring a positive message and see what happens. [Laughs]

How important is Christianity to your band and your musical output?
I'd say 100% lyrically, probably not musically at all. It's not like we're sitting here going, "Ok, how can we talk about the crucifixion during this metal riff?" [Laughs] Musically, we just write what we think sounds cool. We try to make the band that we would want to listen to, and then Mike [Hranica] comes in. It was different on this record, because before he always had these poems and lyrics that he would just fit around the music, and with this record, he was there every day at practice. He was sitting there writing to what we were doing, so I think he went along with what was happening with the music rather than make [the lyrics] try to fit. It was just a really cool experience. And at the same time, as far as my singing goes, on the last two records we kind of just took these really long sentences and I had to condense them into singing parts, whereas on this record, because he wrote stuff to us, he wrote lyrics that would fit within where the singing parts would go. So him and I could work really hard together on making the vocals as good and catchy as possible, so that was a big help for me.

What does the title With Roots Above and Branches Below mean?
As far as the title goes, we played around with a bunch of different things, but Mike was really into that, and he had this idea of "and its branches were broken" -- he really liked this tree theme. And I thought it was really awesome. Everybody else wasn't really on the same page with that name, but they really liked that theme, and so we kind of played around with different things within that, and eventually Mike just came in one day and was like, "I got it, I know what it's gonna be. And it's keeping your roots -- the things that are core to you -- on the surface, and the really complicated branches, that mess of things, down under the surface." And I thought that was a really cool idea, like your simple core things up and that's what you focus on. And that kind of turned into the album artwork, and actually we had a couple people that were gonna do it for us, and they didn't really work out, and we were right at the last minute, and I just remember getting this sketch back and it was just like, that is perfect! That is exactly the style of artwork we wanted to have. We always end up with Photoshop copy-and-pasted-together stuff, so this one we really wanted something hand-painted, and that's what we got, so I think it really is a cool record.

How important is the graphic-design aspect? I know you guys offer limited edition T-shirt designs and things like that ...
I think definitely within our whole scene of things, there's a lot of emphasis on T-shirt designs because that's how people see what your band is, so we always try to make fun ones or funny ones. Like on this next tour we have one that's got Dwight from The Office, and we have this shirt with Reptar on it, just crazy funny stuff, and that to me is just what we are. Yeah, we're a really heavy band, and the music should be taken seriously, but we're goofy dudes and we like having fun, and I think all our shirts are goofy and fun, but then the album artwork is really serious, really dark stuff.

And your lyrical messages work the same way: you guys have funny song titles but they're about serious stuff.
Yeah, we kind of got stuck doing that. We kind of just started naming them joke titles just 'cause we thought of real ones and they just sounded kind of cheesy so we were like, "Eh, let's just make them jokes," and we kind of never stopped doing that. [Laughs] But like, people would be pissed if we started having serious ones, so we'll just keep doing jokes.

What do you want people to know about you guys that doesn't come up a lot?
I don't know. I think everyone looks at us like we're rock stars, but we're really not. We just like to play Xbox and hang out with kids at the merch table. Yeah, we have a tour bus, but literally, we hook up two Xboxes -- one in the front lounge, one in the back lounge with a network cable, so we can play eight-person Halo, and we eat macaroni and cheese out of the microwave. I think that's the biggest thing -- we try not to limit that distance between us and our fans, because [we] want people to be able to identify with everybody in our band and we try to do as many videos and DVDs and goofy stuff online for people. It sucks to go to a show and meet somebody [in a band] and they're a jerk -- it's like, I can't listen to this band, it's ruined for me -- so I hope that people can listen to our stuff and be like, you know, those dudes are funny, fun dudes, you know?

Has your success so far changed your goals as a band?
It's definitely been unexpected, that's for sure. It sounds so cocky to say we're doing really well within the scene, but we are. [I want] to see us branch out to other scenes, and especially on the heavier side of things. I hope that if we did a tour with Limp Bizkit or something like that, that would be awesome. [Laughs] No, just a sweet metal band -- I hope we can explore that side of things. We definitely want to keep pushing. We just filmed a music video, and it's definitely one of the coolest things we've done so far with the band. That's our biggest goal: just keep doing cooler stuff. Bring out cooler lights on tour and make it the best show we possibly can. It's like, the more money we get, the more money we can pump into making the show bigger. We're entertainers, that's what we're here to do. We've always been a live band, that's still how we look at ourselves, and I just want the live show to be as crazy as possible. I have some ideas for our next headlining tour, but Warped Tour should be really fun. We're just playing a bunch of new songs, and we've got some cool stuff planned for that. So far we haven't played a single show since the new record came out, so nobody has really seen those songs, and maybe we'll have some other surprises.