INTERVIEW: Inside The Devil Wears Prada’s Boldest Record Yet, Flowers

The Devil Wears Prada’s Mike Hranica talks embracing change, co-writing and the road to their upcoming album Flowers.

The Devil Wears Prada are no strangers to evolution, but their upcoming album Flowers (out November 14) represents a fresh leap forward. Vocalist Mike Hranica opened up to Blunt ahead of their upcoming Australian shows about how the band stepped outside their comfort zone, working with external songwriters for the first time while still honouring their roots.

“We played with this a bit when we did Color Decay, but with Flowers, this was our first time really going outside the box in terms of working with different songwriters,” Hranica said. Much of the process meant flying to Los Angeles to sit in home studios with producers and collaborators, often starting with nothing more than a blank slate. “We’d sit around and be like: what are we going to do? What do we want to talk about?”

That approach inevitably drew them back to the earliest days of the band, jamming in basements, rehearsal spots and rented spaces across the US. Hranica reflected that this mix of looking backwards while experimenting with new creative methods helped anchor Flowers in something recognisably Prada, even as they ventured into new territory.

A key part of this shift came through reconnecting with old friends. “We got to work with Tyler Smith. We actually grew up with Tyler, he lived with Daniel [Williams] and Chris [Rubey] from [The Devil Wears] Prada way back in the day, and now he writes music with I Prevail and Falling In Reverse, and other huge, huge bands. So it’s awesome not only seeing Tyler thrive and do what he does so well, but we also got to catch up with an Ohio kid that came from the same place we did.”

Alongside Smith, the band also tapped Bobby Lynge, long-time songwriter for Fit For A King and now touring with A Day To Remember. “Bobby really helped out with a number of our new songs, and he’s the most delightful dude, such a pleasure to be around. He certainly played a big hand in helping us construct these songs,” Hranica explained. Many of these sessions happened remotely, with Lynge and bandmate Jonathan Gering collaborating over Zoom, conjuring choruses and structures that surprised even Hranica himself.

Despite this collaborative expansion, Gering’s role remained central. “Jon is the hub or the master/manager/coach who hones it all in and sharpens it,” Hranica said, underscoring the balance between outside input and Prada’s core identity.

That identity is something the band has learned to hold loosely. “Over the last number of years, especially since 2020, it just seems that when we initially make songs that don’t feel at all like ‘The Devil Wears Prada’—once Jon, Jeremy and I work on it, and then Jeremy and I sing over it, Jon and Jeremy are like: ‘…it kinda sounds like The Devil Wears Prada!’ So we just keep going with it and it works for us.”

This trust in process comes with a conscious distance from external pressures. “When it comes to any expectations or reading comments online, I try not to get into that feedback because even the slightest little off-putting comment just ruins my day,” Hranica admitted. Instead, fan interactions in person are what matter: “If people are at the show and buy me a beer, or even just say something nice, then that’s all I need.”

Of course, negativity is inevitable in today’s hyper-connected world. “Villains can be popular, that’s certainly a factor with the feedback side of things,” he noted. “And I’ve come to realise too that when it comes to some of my own favourite albums, I didn’t love a lot of them right off the bat.”

It’s why Hranica doesn’t get rattled by early reactions to The Devil Wears Prada’s new singles like ‘Wave’. “If someone says something negative about a track like ‘Wave’, I’m like: you haven’t heard anything. You might not even know that ‘Ritual’ or ‘For You’ is out in the universe either. There’s stuff on the new album like ‘Eyes’, or if you want something heavier there’s ‘All Out’. And I’ve never heard a song like ‘All Out’ within the metalcore environment.”

The recording process left the band with far more material than the final tracklist could hold. “There’s a tonne of stuff that didn’t make this album. It’s a lengthy album, but there’s certainly a lot that didn’t make it on, I can’t imagine what the hard drives that Jon Gering possesses still contain,” Hranica said. Some of those sketches may resurface in the future, often reworked in unexpected places. “Before we know it, we’ll be somewhere in some rental home, we like to rent Airbnbs and just sit and be detached from our own home lives, and we’ll work on it. But I’m sure some of those songs that didn’t make onto Flowers will pop up.”

Part of what makes Flowers unique is how quickly it followed Color Decay. “In the lead-up to Flowers, we were writing for so long, Jon and Jeremy went to L.A. and started different songwriting sessions. I think it was only a matter of months after Color Decay was released, in fact it almost feels like it was while we were finishing Color Decay that we started the work for Flowers.”

The result from The Devil Wears Prada is a record born from relentless creativity and the willingness to open doors that had previously been closed. As Hranica put it: “There’s certainly quality stuff beyond that ready to get us going again.”