NEWS INTERVIEWS CD REVIEWS

First can you state your name and what you do in the band?
I’m Chris and I play guitar for The Devil Wears Prada.
I’m Andy and I play bass in The Devil Wears Prada.

How is this tour going?
This tour is good. All of the shows are selling out. Crowd reaction is great, merch sales are great, everyone is getting along. Good weather. Huge venues, kids going crazy. It’s going really good.

How does it feel to be such a newly recognized band, although you’ve been around for a while, and playing sold out shows?
It’s sweet, but it really doesn’t hit you. I’m never like, whoa this is crazy. But when I get home I’ll go, that was awesome. It never really hits you when you see your cd in stores and kids are wearing your shirts. It’s still at the surreal point. It’s not that I don’t believe it, it’s just that we never though it would get to this point.

Have you been playing You Can't Spell "Crap" Without "C" with Craig?
We actually have not. We wanted to and were going to, but the first half of the tour when it was the b - market tour with Alesana we played it and he didn’t know it and didn’t come out. I’m not bashing on Craig at all. We just can’t throw a different song in every once in a while because it’s so strict time wise. You’re actually the first ones to ask about that. You would think kids would make a big deal out of it. People I guess really don’t care. They’re just stoked to see us and see Chiodos.

Plagues came out earlier this year, how has the response been?
Well the first cd was just like everyone just hearing the band, and obviously with the second one they’re comparing it with the first one. Everyone is saying the second one (Plagues) is a lot better and that it’s their favorite. We got ridiculously good responses from it. It’s all around bigger. We shipped more, and obviously more people know it. Everything is just more magnified. It’s doing really well, not that the first one is doing bad. The sound is different because we wrote it with different intentions. I was 16 when we write the first record, so we did a lot of “It would be funny if we added this”. We were obviously just a local band when we wrote that and there’s nothing wrong with that. We weren’t writing for a national audience and I guess didn’t care as much. The second one we knew we were writing for a specific audience and had certain expectations. We worked a lot harder on Plagues. We also took a lot more time recording it.

Who did the artwork for Plagues?
I did (Chris). If you look in there, it just gives my name and my email. I did that and I did At the Throne of Judgment. I did the new For The Fallen Dreams artwork. They’re a new band on Rise. I’ve done work for this band The Subtle Way, they’re on Negative Progression. I might be doing some work for Recon. Myself and our tour manager are the in house art guys for Rise. I do a lot of t shirts for Rise too. I’ve done around 90% of our designs. Lately I’ve become lazy and payed people to do some work. Every Hot Topic design we have I’ve designed.

You released Dear Love and Plagues within a calendar year of each other and have toured non stop. Any plans on taking a break?
Actually, after this is over we don’t go back out until mid January. We’re taking all of December off and half of January. A much needed break.

What do you plan on doing in that time off?
Hanging out, not listening to music. We’ll be hanging out with our girlfriends. Most of us have girlfriends and off time is girlfriend time.

Have you started writing any new material?
We started talking about what direction we want to go because we obviously don’t want to write the same record. As far as writing new material specifically for a new record, no. Normally I start writing with my computer and then we start, but I just haven’t started yet.

What direction do you plan on going?
Well we have this super secret master plan to take over the world but we can’t tell you.

How did you guys hook up with Rise Records?
We had just recorded so we had a demo so we were just looking around. We didn’t even have a press kit yet when we say Drop Dead, Gorgeous get pretty big so we found out what label they were on. At the time they were like our twin band pretty much. The were successful so we were like, lets copy them and steal their label. Actually it wasn’t anything like that. On Rise’s website it said don’t even bother with a press kit, just send us an email with a link to your myspace. So we were like, easy enough and sent them a link. Like a day later we got sent a contract and it was everything that we had hoped for. We couldn’t have asked for anything better from any other label. So that’s how it happened.

Where do you think the band would be without sites like Myspace and Purevolume?
First, there would be a lot less bands. Myspace makes it so easy to market yourself. We get it a lot that we aren’t respected as much because we’re a “Myspace band”. To be honest, Myspace is the biggest promotional tool there is for any band and it’s free. So how can you not take full advantage of that? We’re touring too. It would be one thing if we weren’t touring and just playing a few shows, but we’re doing the whole touring thing plus Myspace/ So without Myspace, bands would just have to work a lot harder.

If you could play a show with any three artists, past or present, who would they be?
(Andy) David Bowie, The Cure (for Jeremy), and The New York Dolls because they’re sweet.
(Chris) I would like to play with Garth Brooks because he’s sold 123 million records, Jay Z, who’s poster is right behind us, and David Bowie.

What can someone who has never seen you live expect at one of your shows?
We act dumb. We bang our heads a lot. We yell at the crowd a lot. We throw our guitars. We try to max out our headband-o-meters. Sometimes we break stuff. We spit water. We try to be as much like GWAR as possible without the costumes.

You were able to play the Sounds of the Underground this year. What was that like?
It was stressful. There were like 90 bands on it and we were at the bottom of the ladder. We had like 10 hours drives and had to be at the venues at 10am. We got flipped off everyday and had things thrown at us. There was rarely anywhere for us to hang out. All we had was our non air conditioned van and mother nature. We persevered. At least we didn’t get it as bad as Necro.

What are some of the pros/cons of being such a young band?
Well the good part is that people can relate to us. Kids come up and think its crazy we’re the same age. We’re a younger band so we’re always learning more. We don’t have as many bills at home to worry about. We’re healthy. None of us smoke or drink. If we were 40 year old mean with beards playing the music we do, I don’t think kids would dig us as much.

What is the scene like back in Dayton?
It’s sweet. We haven’t been there lately. We can still have strong home town shows. Cincinnati has really strong shows for us too. It’s not a flourishing scene, but it’s not dying.

That’s all. Any last words for the fans and readers?
We’re at Disney World. Support At The Throne of Judgment.