Interview with The Devil Wears Prada guitarist and singer Jeremy DePoyster

A few things come to mind when you hear the words “The Devil Wears Prada” and generally it’s one of three things… shitty movie, great book or awesome band. Of course I am talking about the band in this case. Album after album, The Devil Wears Prada has been exploding for the past few years; they got immense success after the release of their Zombie EP, a concept album about the zombie apocalypse. I had a chance to sit down with singer and guitarist Jeremy while on a stop in Toronto during their headlining tour for their new record, Dead Throne.

How’s the tour going so far?
Jeremy: Great! We only have a few shows in the States left and it will be finished.

Any memorable moments happen for you guys on tour?
Jeremy: The New York show was pretty awesome and we did a DVD shoot a few days ago in Boston at the Playdium which was pretty monumental to us. We all love that venue and have played there for years and years and it was great to shoot there. Overall though the whole tour has been great, we got to hand pick all the bands for this one and it seemed to work out with everyone’s scheduling. We pretty much just said which bands we wanted and it all worked out. A lot of the time people will say “oh you should tour with these guys, they are really hot right now” but we reply with yea, but the band sucks, so if you put someone on your tour who you don’t personally like the music of you are telling your fans to check them out and everything.

So you guys released Dead Throne not too long ago and it was produced by the great Adam D. Why did you choose him to work with?
Jeremy: Well personally I don’t like a lot of the “metalcore” producers or even a lot of the rock producers that are doing stuff right now. I feel they are trying to make it sound too much like a rock record and that takes a lot of the power away or it’s just too sterile and computer-based which is what we have run into in the past. We have done every record with Joey and we love Joey, he does awesome stuff but I love Killswitch Engage and I love what Adam did with the Parkway Drive record Horizons and even him growing from the old Norma Jean stuff and the old As I Lay Dying stuff to what he has now I really like it. He really understands music and sound, he just knows how to make rad stuff you know.

So basically we did a tour with Killswitch and jokingly told Adam we wanted him to do our next record and he was like “ya okay”. We weren’t sure if he was sarcastic or not, but we told him we were going to hit him up when it comes time to it, so we did and it all worked out. You never hear anything from Adam that is just meh, you know what he has a hand in creating and it is always great. He is really amazing at just getting right into your songs and cutting out parts you think you need or arranging certain elements in a certain way: blast beat here, breakdown here, speed this up and slow this down, things like that. It’s foolish to think we are such great musicians and writers to think we don’t need critiquing and we have never really had that until now.

Your album topped out at 10 on the billboard charts. It also topped the Billboard Christian Albums and Independent Albums chart, as well as peaking at number 3 on the Rock Albums Chart and #40 on the 2011 Billboard year-end Hard Rock Albums chart. Is your mother proud of you?
Jeremy: [laughs] Yea I guess so, she’s a teacher and a lot of her co-workers’ husbands will get Guitar World and be all excited and say “OH LOOK!! There’s your son’s band”. She teaches 4th grade so a lot of the kids older siblings listen to us so all the kids will talk to her about us which is really funny. So yea, I think she’s proud of me.

So if The Devil Wears Prada, what does God wear?
Jeremy: Ummmmmm… Clouds, like that Katy Perry Video.

I was wondering why did you guys make the switch to Warner?
Jeremy: It wasn’t so much a switch as it was an inner transitional thing. We are still on Ferret which is part of that whole thing, but I believe they always had a huge stake in Ferret so we just kind of moved in that direction. I don’t really pay attention to the inner workings really. It doesn’t matter who we have been working with really, everyone has been really cool with letting us do what we want and put out what we want.

I want touch on the Zombie EP a bit, I understand that the whole conception of it started after reading the survival guide. What would be your weapons of choice during an event like the zombie apocalypse?
Jeremy: I’ve always liked the shotgun over other guns, I feel it is more reliable then an automatic weapon even though the carnage would be greater with it. I also like having the idea of having a big bat with nails on the end of it so I can slaughter any zombie that comes my way.

With the success of a concept EP, would you ever consider writing another one with a different theme?
Jeremy: Ya! Actually a lot of people have asked us if we are going to do a follow up to the Zombie EP and I always reply to them saying we won’t do another one about zombies, but we would love to do one of a different theme. I’m happy that you mentioned this because no one ever seems to think that we can do a different concept. I wish I could tell you some of the ideas we have but a bunch of them are really funny. The Zombie EP just started out as a joke and it grew into us actually just doing it.

So what do you guys have planned after this tour?
Jeremy: We are going to be taking January off for some post-Christmas stuff and then we are going to the U.K in February for a leg of the “Dead Throne Tour”. Then in April we are going to South America with Whitechapel and Architects.

Check out the song “Born To Lose”