“We have this compulsive addiction of continually reinventing the band,” says the Devil Wears Prada’s Jeremy DePoyster.
The band’s founding guitarist and clean vocalist is talking about the celebrated metalcore crew’s highly anticipated ninth album, Flowers — but he could just as easily be describing the arc of their entire career.
He’s telling us this while enjoying a rare moment of downtime at home having just returned from a successful run on the Summer of Loud tour, which saw the band playing some of the largest amphitheaters of their career alongside scene heavy hitters Killswitch Engage, Beartooth, Parkway Drive and more. In just a few days, the Devil Wears Prada will be back at it again — this time making the trek to Latin America — continuing a whirlwind year of near non-stop touring as they gear up for the release of Flowers.
This year also marks a major milestone: 2025 is the 20th anniversary of the Devil Wears Prada’s formation in the quiet suburbs of Dayton, Ohio. DePoyster jokes that those early days — when most of the band’s members were just 16 or 17 — could be summed up as teenagers who were “really bad at writing Underoath songs.”
But it didn’t take long for the Devil Wears Prada to evolve from playing VFW halls to commanding the mainstages of Warped Tour. Within just a few years, legions of fans gravitated towards TDWP’s chaotic, yet musically groundbreaking blend of metalcore — a sound that folded in synth-driven atmospherics, post-hardcore melodies and a raw spiritual edge.
Much to the band’s surprise, their approach helped spark a critical new wave of heavy music in the late 2000s and early 2010s, influencing bands from Beartooth and Wage War to I Prevail, Of Mice & Men and beyond. At the time, though, none of them expected it to last.
“My grandmother tells this story [about] when I got in the van at 17 years old and my family was worried about me,” says the band’s founding unclean vocalist, Mike Hranica — charismatic and commanding as ever, sitting in the living room of his Wisconsin home. “Apparently, I told her, ‘Don’t worry, bands in this genre don’t have a long shelf life.’”
He laughs, flashing an infectious silver-toothed smile. “It was never the intention [to do this for 20 years]. I thought I would go to college eventually and study creative writing.”
“We all thought we’d do this band for a summer and get on with whatever the rest of our lives would be,” adds DePoyster. “There was no blueprint.”
So, they made one up. Then ripped it up. Then made a new one. Over and over again. That restless creative vision hasn’t just kept fans guessing — it’s kept the band invigorated, pushing forward, and, somehow, still ascending. It’s a story not just of reinvention, but of grief, growth and learning how to carry the weight of everything the last two decades have brought with them.
And now, 20 years in, TDWP are in the midst of what might be the biggest second-act glow-up in metalcore history. Their new material is out-streaming a vast majority of their back catalog. They’re playing the largest shows of their career. And “For You,” the emotionally charged first single from Flowers, just became their first-ever song to make it on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. But getting there wasn’t easy — or guaranteed.
The path started in 2006 when TDWP dropped their debut LP, Dear Love: A Beautiful Discord, a chaotic metalcore statement that immediately put them on the map. What followed were two decades of releases that spanned styles, eras and expectations. Hranica refers to their late-2000s output as the band’s “Drop-D era,” which includes Plagues (2007), With Roots Above and Branches Below (2009) and the fan-favorite Zombie EP (2010) — records that further cemented the young band as one of the most sought-after acts in heavy music.
But even as they were being touted as the poster boys of the Myspace metalcore movement — and faced mounting pressure to keep flying the flag for the scene — the Devil Wears Prada made a sharp pivot. They rejected complacency and leaned fully into reinvention. The guys began pushing into heavier, more experimental territory, adopting an art-first mentality that defined records like Dead Throne (2011), 8:18 (2013) and Transit Blues (2016). Though sonically ambitious and critically praised, this period also marked a commercial dip — as fickle fans pleaded for a return to the sound that first drew them in.
“We had reached as high as you could get on the Warped Tour mountain with the biggest crowds — but our solution was to go and try to tap into the actual metal world, which set our career into a spiral for a little bit,” says DePoyster. “Yeah, I could just go remake Plagues, With Roots or Zombie, but how can you go to someone who has continually reinvented what a genre is and tell them they can’t keep doing that?”
This steadfast commitment to evolving not just sonically, but thematically — tackling darker, more introspective subject matter with each release — has come with its peaks and valleys. But today, the Devil Wears Prada — which consists of sole remaining original members Hranica and DePoyster, alongside guitarist Kyle Sipress, drummer Giuseppe Capolupo and keyboardist turned producer-songwriter extraordinaire Jonathan Gering — find themselves in a rare position for a veteran band: experiencing a massive resurgence in popularity.
So how is the Devil Wears Prada suddenly at their most vital and relevant? The answer lies in one of the band’s longest-standing core tenets: reinvention.
Across 2019’s The Act, and 2022’s Color Decay, TDWP continued to evolve. They doubled down on melody, brought DePoyster’s impressive clean vocals to the forefront and focused on what makes a song truly great — rather than just stringing together riffs and, in Hranica’s words, letting “the chorus be an afterthought.”
Flowers is the culmination of that shift. The album offers their most hook-driven material to date, filled with stunning vocal performances, sharp lyricism and genre-bending production. It’s a fresh and universal sound, one poised to expand their mainstream reach — all without compromising artistic integrity.
On past records, Hranica’s voice largely dominated the band’s heavier material, with DePoyster stepping in mostly for brief melodic intermissions. On Flowers, the latter takes center stage — delivering soaring hooks across tracks like “For You” and anchoring the emotional weight of heavier songs such as “All Out.”
That’s not to say that Hranica’s voice is absent from the record — far from it. The dynamic frontman sounds as visceral and pissed off as ever on “All Out,” “So Low” and “Play the Old Shit,” a trio of songs that just might contain the strongest performances of his career. Hranica’s vocals may not hit you over the head at every turn on Flowers, but when it is time for him to step up to the plate, he makes it count — holding back just enough to hit harder when it matters most. That approach mirrors how the frontman operates in general, according to DePoyster, who describes his longtime bandmate as “calculated, thoughtful and studied.”
“When Mike speaks, you listen,” the guitarist says with admiration. “Because he doesn’t do it very often.”
Hranica, for his part, isn’t shy when praising DePoyster’s performance on Flowers. “With all of the evolution we’ve been experiencing recently, it has just lent more to Jeremy’s voice,” Hranica says.
“Mike and I are both very secure people,” DePoyster adds. “We don’t mind taking a backseat to the other when it’s necessary. From the outside, I can see why that’s hard for people to understand, but to us, we don’t care. It’s whatever serves the song the best.”
When it comes to serving the songs, few people are more integral to the Devil Wears Prada’s recent evolution than Jonathan Gering — the keyboardist and producer who has been a driving creative force since 2019’s The Act. Both Hranica and DePoyster call him a “musical genius,” and it’s easy to see why: Gering has seemingly cracked the code on what TDWP should sound like in 2025. His dual role as player and producer brings a unique perspective to the writing process — one that DePoyster doesn’t take for granted.
“Having your producer be a songwriter and player in your band is a very rare thing,” he says. “The only other person I can think of like that is Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park.”
Much of Flowers’ writing and recording arose from sporadic trips to Los Angeles during the band’s downtime. DePoyster estimates that 90 percent of the music originated there — written in low-pressure sessions with a few close collaborators.
“As that started to happen, we were trying to reckon with this feeling that all these milestones that we set for ourselves of getting our career back, playing bigger shows and restoring the integrity of our legacy, [actually] happened,” DePoyster reflects. “However, once that finally happened, I still realized I’m a messed-up person inside and there’s a lot of trauma there to unpack, which guided the songwriting, lyrically.”
That reckoning helped shape Flowers into the Devil Wears Prada’s most lyrically direct album yet. Gone are what Hranica calls the “flowery lyricism” of past records, replaced by something that hits you right in the feels — and reminds you it’s OK to not be OK.
“It’s impossible for Prada to write a happy song,” he says with a laugh. “A lot of what makes up the album is so bare bones and vulnerable. It’s not these ultra-futuristic themes. It’s not fighting these epic wars [like] what so much [of] metalcore is today. Not to bad-mouth that, but there is no mask. We’re not building out space-age, fantasy imagery.”
“I’ve had so many conversations with people at shows who thank us for these songs and say they needed someone to tell them it’s OK to feel this way,” adds DePoyster. “I need that a lot, too. I like straightforward lyrics and want to feel authenticated in my feelings.”
DePoyster wastes no time baring his soul on Flowers. On the arena-ready rock anthem that opens the album, “Where the Flowers Never Grow,” he sings about the disconnect between the high of performing onstage and the quiet, lingering darkness that creeps in late at night when he’s alone in his tour bus bunk.
“My whole philosophy is that I’m not sober and struggle with mental health,” he says. “I don’t do drugs, but I drink quite often. I know it can feel isolating to be alive sometimes, and it just felt important to speak about this — not on a pulpit, but just being real, sitting on a barstool next to someone, talking authentically.”
That spirit of emotional honesty carries throughout Flowers. On the stripped-back and melancholic “Wave,” DePoyster rejects the toxic positivity he clung to in his youth and instead focuses on taking control of what he can. He doesn’t shy away from personal relationships, either — not even the one closest to him.
At the time of this interview, he’s just months away from tying the knot with his longtime partner Emma Boster, vocalist of the Portland, Oregon metalcore outfit Dying Wish. Their relationship takes center stage on the atmospheric metal ripper “When You’re Gone,” written during a particularly difficult stretch when their conflicting tour schedules kept them apart for more than six weeks. DePoyster wrote the song as a promise — a reminder that he will always “be there for her no matter what.”
Hranica then makes one of his boldest lyrical statements on the pummeling track, “Play the Old Shit” — a tongue-in-cheek middle finger to fans who’ve long resisted the band’s sonic evolution. Musically, it plays the part: down-tuned guitars, heavy breakdowns, guttural growls — everything the naysayers might crave. But beneath the sonic throwback is something deeper and more personal. The song pushes back against the way people project their own assumptions onto Hranica, as if they know who he is or what he should be.
On the synth-metal juggernaut, “Eyes,” Hranica also subtly tackles another charged subject: the band’s gradual departure from their early Christian identity. “Obviously, Prada has our history where we don’t land where we used to in terms of God,” he says. “Still, I think it’s so jejune to write a song about rejecting God after having a relationship after all of these years.”
He pauses, then adds: “However, I think ‘Eyes’ leans that way and hints at that subject matter without being like, ‘Hey, I hate that I once believed in this,’ or just a diss track towards God.”
“There’s a lot of coming of age with Flowers,” Hranica continues. The singer stresses that while the band members may be in their mid-30s, TDWP are careful not to frame the record as something only meant for that stage of life. Their hope is that listeners of all ages — no matter what chapter they’re in — can find solace in its themes.
But just as the band looked ahead to what might be their most creatively fulfilling chapter yet, they were blindsided by unimaginable tragedy. On May 22nd, the Devil Wears Prada received devastating news: Their former drummer and founding member Daniel Williams, their longtime booking agent and mentor Dave Shapiro, and several close friends and colleagues were killed in a plane crash in San Diego. The loss sent shockwaves through the band — and through the entire heavy-music community.
“Daniel started this band,” says DePoyster. “He was also older than us and was always the band dad. He had a credit card, knew how to buy a van and knew how to book tours on Myspace. He’s the reason I’m even here.”
“It’s still goosebumps for me,” adds Hranica. “I was just so glad that he was happy and doing so well post-Prada. Even though we weren’t close when he left the band and we were fighting, everyone close to him said he only had the best regards for what Prada was doing post-his departure.”
Though the band have seen their share of member departures over the last 20 years, DePoyster says it was Daniel Williams who left the deepest imprint — not just on the lineup, but on the spirit of TDWP itself.
“Daniel would always say, ‘There’s no person who is the Devil Wears Prada. It’s a thing, it’s an entity, and if you’re serving that idea, then you don’t need to be insecure at all,’” DePoyster reflects. “I’m devastated that I’ll never be able to see him again, but it’s nice to see that his legacy is so beautiful and pure… He was a truly great person.”
As the Devil Wears Prada continue to navigate their grief, they remain united in their purpose: honoring the legacy of the band, sharing Flowers with the world and setting the stage for the next 20 years.
“We’ve always had a ‘We’re never going to break up’ mentality,” says DePoyster. “This feels like a new beginning, and the greatest gift our past selves gave us is that we have a legacy and a catalog we can pull from while still playing the best songs we’ve ever written with the new stuff.”
“I’ve written songs about not knowing if I want to do this band anymore,” Hranica admits. “But I keep doing it and realize this is where I want to be — and I think Flowers ultimately reflects that.”