Flowers? For spring? Groundbreaking.
When a novel is popular enough, it often inspires other creatives to adapt the book into a movie or a TV series… or a metalcore band. It’s not entirely uncommon for heavy bands to choose a name from classic literature, such as Of Mice & Men or As I Lay Dying. But it is rare for the musicians to get to the novel name before the screen comes calling.
And while most people know The Devil Wears Prada as an Oscar-nominated 2006 Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway flick, based on Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 book of the same name, the Dayton, Ohio, metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada got to it first, starting to perform under the moniker in 2005.
Like most metalcore music, each The Devil Wears Prada track is complete with throat-ripping vocals juxtaposed with clean singing, catchy riffs and melodies, and lyrics that openly address personal struggles with mental illness. The group released its first full album, Dear Love: A Beautiful Discord, in 2006 and in the years to follow, it was a perennial fixture on Warped Tour stages and the national touring scene.
Today, lead scream singer Mike Hranica and rhythm guitarist/clean vocalist Jeremy DePoyster are the only remaining original band members. Jonathan Gering took over on the keys, synth and backing vocals in 2012, Kyle Sipress started his gig as lead guitarist in 2015, and Giuseppe Capolupo assumed drumming duties in 2016.
Although change is common in band lineups, the past year has been quite tumultuous for The Devil Wears Prada. In May 2025, the group’s founding drummer and former member Daniel Williams died in a plane crash. “We owe you everything,” the group wrote in a statement in the wake of that tragedy. Then in July, bassist Mason Nagy announced on social media that he had left the band.
Yet, like a dahlia, The Devil Wears Prada bloomed in late summer with the release of two singles — “Where the Flowers Never Grow” and “Wave” — off its ninth studio album, Flowers. The LP came out by November, and since then the group has been gearing up for its first tour in support of the album.
“We haven’t headlined anything with Flowers, so that’s priority one,” Hranica says. “We really extended the cycle for Color Decay, and it felt like we got into a nice routine with the setlist that we were playing. It’s nice to be rewriting it.”
We caught up with Hranica ahead of the band’s March 24 stop at the Knitting Factory to talk about Flowers, turning negative feedback into song inspiration and how it feels seeing trailers for The Devil Wears Prada 2.
INLANDER: Since Flowers was released in November, what has the fan response been like? Is that something you pay attention to?
HRANICA: I don’t, but it will find you in different ways I’ve come to learn. We were expecting some negative feedback in terms of how poppy the album is, but at the same time, we’re streaming better than we ever have. We’re selling more tickets than we ever have, and you just try to make sure that the negative stuff doesn’t cut you down. For me, personally, it’s like I can read 20 nice things said about me, and then you see one bad thing, and it resets everything by tenfold. So reading the comments is certainly not my means of positive reinforcement.
In a November interview with The Aquarian you mentioned songs like “All Out” and “Where the Flowers Never Grow” are a lot like the band’s pre-2010 riff-heavy tracks. However, in January you re-released the album with a single song, “Play the Old Shit,” added. Was that released in response to the expected negative feedback?
We’ve been sitting on [“Play the Old Shit”] as long as we’ve been sitting on the whole album. It’s automatic knowing that you’re gonna receive negative feedback, or people wanting to cut you down.
We’ve been playing as a band for 21 years now, as of 2026, and we’ve heard [people say] “Play the old shit!” for long enough it almost just writes itself. It’s not always fruitful to give a middle finger back at those giving you a middle finger, but that’s what that track is — it serves as a middle finger back.
What themes were you hoping listeners tapped into on Flowers?
I think The Devil Wears Prada really works to zoom into an issue or something you’re facing. So we don’t write happy songs. Our means of uplifting is by kind of addressing things and saying ‘It’s OK to not be OK.’ And I think with the way that the band has gotten older and aged from Color Decay to Flowers, we just generally embrace that sort of ethos.
As a scene kid who grew up in the mid-2010s that thought process certainly tracks. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say something like “this song or this band saved my life.” Is that something that the band strives for?
I have heard those sort of sentiments before, and it’s very flattering, but I never really received that as like, “Wow, how great am I to have done that?” I think it speaks to the community more so, and I think it speaks to the importance of music and creative culture in the arts. Whether you need to be validated, or if you need to be kept in check, I think that’s a lot of what music can do. It’s a wonderful thing that we keep ourselves very tied to the fundamentals that The Devil Wears Prada is not just me. It’s not Jeremy or Jon. It’s not Kyle. It’s not Giuseppe. It’s an entity that we all serve, and I think it’s that entity that deserves all the credit for playing a positive part in someone’s life.
With an ongoing tour and a cinematic sequel to The Devil Wears Prada coming out, is it a good year for the band? Is that coming out this year?
Yes, in May.
Honestly, the fact that I just asked you if it’s this year is kind of a good thing, because I don’t really give two shits. But at the same time, if it does drive more website traffic for us or maybe cause a thoroughly confused divorcee to buy The Devil Wears Prada band T-shirt on accident, I’m not gonna say no to 30 bucks. Everything used to be a chip on my shoulder, and I regret it, and there’s nothing I can do to take it back now, and I also recognize that. I took myself so seriously with a lot of these things, and I’m happy that even as a 37-year-old grown-ass man that I can have the piss taken out of it in terms of having such a silly, immature band name. ν
The Devil Wears Prada, Four Year Strong, Split Chain, I Promised the World • Tue, March 24 at 7 pm • $47-$96 •
All ages • Knitting Factory • 919 W. Sprague Ave. • sp.knittingfactory.com
