Welcome to In Conversation, a special interview column on the site where we sit down with artists and dive deep into everything music. This week, Max and Dean spoke with Mike Hranica to discuss their latest record Color Decay, in LA, performing new material live and artistic influences.
Max: How is the current tour with Stray From The Path and Dying Wish going?
Mike: Amazing, all the shows have been incredible. We hit it off with Stray From The Path a few years ago so it’s awesome being with them again and it’s great to meet Dying Wish there who are a wonderful band as well.
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Max: How does it feel being two weeks away from Color Decay releasing?
Mike: It feels good, it feels there has been a lot more anticipation around this one than we’ve had for quite a while. The reviews have been amazing and all these compliments I don’t know how to handle that so I’m looking forward to the fans hearing it.
Max: What was the approach to track “Twenty-Five”?
Mike: There’s more than a lot of Prada I’d never care to hear again but “Twenty Five” is one I never wanna hear again. That was a real emotional dump for me, I can usually handle the newer stuff once you get it out there but I laid it out on that one and I hope we never play it live cause I don’t want to have to revisit. I heard the instrumentals for that song come and knew it was a breakup tune and went with it.
Max: What would you say are your favourite and least favourite Prada tracks?
Mike: I hate the earlier recordings, I felt I had a voice live and I didn’t know how to carry that into the studio. Alongside being young and not being able to develop much of a range to what I try to do these days. Hearing my own voices kill me, not through being inauthentic as I’ve always meant the things I’ve said, it just used to blow my voice out in the studio and not sound how I could perform live. On the new stuff I’m pretty good with, even when we did Twitch streams during COVID, I could even go back to 8:18 even though I think it’s overproduced. It’s just the further back stuff that I’m eh, I would have liked to do it a different way. I’ve always tried to develop myself as a vocalist via live and it’s my time to practise. I’ve probably tried stuff that isn’t all that great but that’s the live experience doing something all a bit different.
Max: What new stuff are you looking forward to playing?
Mike: “Trapped” is my favourite song from the record, that might be a stretch for Jeremy so we will see how that looks. “Cancer” is a song that we’ve received a lot of feedback about and that has some preferential bias from me so that would be a fun one to play live. I think that one we will probably do live next year, I love playing guitar and I get to play guitar on some of the new ones including “Salt“. The next music video is another one I get to play guitar on. I think “Exhibition” would be a lot, that is one I don’t think I want to play as when John and I put that this together it was like “Why I am doing this to myself, I don’t have the capacity to go so fast”.
Dean: What about “Hallucinate”?
Mike: That would be fun, I think that would be a good one. It’s another one that is towards the top of my list on the album, I would be excited to give that one a go.
Max: How have to you felt about playing guitar more in studio and live?
Mike: I’ve been playing guitar longer than I’ve ever been a vocalist and it’s something I always wanted to pick up. I’ve played guitar since I was 13 or 14 years old and really I’ve just been really heavy handed to let the band play more live, we have the instrumental track “Kansas” from Dead Throne, that was my introduction to playing live with the band. I consider myself a hobbyist, if I never stood on stage again I would still be the guy in a room full of amps and guitars. Having fun riffing and coming up with stuff so I’m just a passionate guy for guitar and anytime I can do it on stage with Prada is a huge plus for me. It’s selfish but I’m willing to acknowledge that.
Max: Do you write riff work to the album?
Mike: Hardly, I’ve had some ideas very rarely over the years here and there. The closest I’ve come to writing a Prada song was “An Asteroid Towards Earth” where I drove out to Kansas and with John we worked out a song. I can hardly take sole writing responsibility for that as it’s just John orchestrating the riffage I came in with.
Max: On Cancer, there’s the clip and the end, was that the demo version and who is singing?
Mike: That’s John, we were going to re-record is with Jeremy but basically John wrote the song on his acoustic guitar out in Cali where we did most of the record. Once we were tracking the drums later, Sam who mixed the record loved it, we wrote it and pitched it down. It’s tuned to what the song became, and rather than have Jeremy re-do it we just left a very early rendition of guitar and chorus. Just left as archaic as possible you could say.
It carries a lot of weight for sure, I’ve always felt we’ve had a lot of good songs to finish our records but nobody ever seems to get that far. So I’m all giddy that people love a closer for once but I do feel “Cancer” is one of the best songs Prada have ever come up with. John is a visionary.
Max: Do you have plans for a headline tour in support of this record, what are the plans for this record?
Mike: We do have a tour in the spring I can’t talk about. In terms of supports we are aiming to do the European festival route next Spring/Summer, I do love being overseas and can’t wait for the Wage War run. Other than that I don’t have too much to indulge, we are just waiting to see how things unfold in 2023. I do truly love getting out of the United States and playing mainland Europe and the UK. I do look forward to that and we will see what the touring world has for us with the Color Decay and another touring year under our belt.
Max: When was Color Decay finished?
Mike: Not too long, the masters were done in the later winter so early this year. Vinyl is quite the mammoth to handle in terms of the wait time and people want to have it when the record drops. I’m a passionate vinyl collector and I pre-order records that don’t come out on time, it was cool that we were able to make ends meet and we have nothing bad to say about Solid State Records. I know it’s contrasting for a band to get along with their label but we get along so well and they take such good care of us. I guess the last vocal I tracked in December of last year and drums were tracked in January and then there’s mixing and mastering. It’s been a minute but it’s not one where it’s been two years and I can’t remember what the songs are. It’s good, I saw the photos of the records and we will have our awesome fulfilment team pumping those out.
Max: Look forward, what do you think is next for Prada?
Mike: We are in discussion, we couldn’t tour so we were writing a lot of music, hence the quick turnaround from ZII into Color Decay. The momentum was no automatic and natural for us writing those two records that I think it’s going to be pretty natural and continue that momentum forward. After the Wage War tour we have some time off, from there it’s going to be more tunes whatever that looks like. I look forward to what that looks like but I can get pretty exhausted writing songs but I am ready to go right now and we will see what touring looks like in 2023. There will certainly be more Prada material.
Dean: How did you get to where you are as a vocalist?
Mike: It’s difficult, it’s an instrument you can’t change strings or heads on. It’s a fair amount of preparation and mental awareness, there’s something psychological about it. I think we’ve taken on different songs that require different things, that have opened me up to what I’m doing to match Jeremy’s singing or even if he’s behind me. These different contrasts that force me to experiment or force me to kind of be my best and excel and what the song is offering. It’s always fun to try different things live and hear different singers and allow yourself subtle imitations. I’m still hear yelling like a baby.
Dean: Being in TDWP for a long as you have, what lessons have you learnt?
Mike: One thing that COVID taught and maybe a little bit of age, is to be less personal and so offended all the time. I spent a lot time hating bands who were considered our peers over the Warped Tour years. I certainly haven’t grown any more favoured to the electronic metalcore bands that came up around the 2010s but I’ve learned to keep to myself rather than get envious of music that sucks. Just sorted of all the negative connotations that have arisen throughout the scene and focus on staying in my lane. I don’t know if I could have told to do that to myself when I was young, it’s certainly a bit of wisdom that helps me get to sleep these days.
Max: What was it like crossing over with Julien Baker?
Mike: I started hearing her songs, I didn’t know she gave us a shoutout on AudioTree. I have buddy in Chicago who record at Audiotree, I was really flattered and I think she’s a tremendous songwriter and musician. It just popped into my head and seemed a pretty fun thing to do, same as the conceptual EP and the “South of the City” seven inch. Keep off the beaten path and keep off the beaten path rather than just “here’s another 12 songs”. It was really fun and heard it through the grapevine that she found out through her Dad as he has Google Alerts set up for her, which was pretty fun, it was a fun project to take up and record in Hilltop in Chicago. I love recording in different environments and it’s a fun one to play live.
Dean: What went into the creation into the theme of this record?
Mike: As little conceptually went into is a possible, it’s easier to write a record once you have a name and an idea. That doesn’t mean the record is conceptual but you know what the roof is for the songs to exist beneath. This one was harder and John wrote a large portion of the lyrics, so it’s honouring and magnifying his ideas while trying to compliment my ideas and all to sit in synergy with the instrumentals themselves. The degeneration of life and some circumstances as you get old and the experience you go through is kinda the idea behind Color Decay as far as the name itself. The songs for the most part we really tried to go in all different places and early stuff I always paint it with such a thick brush in terms of ideas that you could swap so many lyrics between different songs. These days we try very hard not to do that and to speak to more common frailties and common bits of affliction and tribulation for more people than just ourselves. You get a little bit in your head and get to be a little more fictional with it. Which is something that has been up there with Color Decay and even with The Act and Transit Blues.
Dean: Are there any other artistic influences that influenced Color Decay?
Mike: Literature always informs my work, “Hallucinate” was a song that I got tipped off about brain tumour was the idea behind the song that I learnt about in a piece of fiction. That’s always there. Musically not so much, I think a lot of what I consume builds more into my personality and then my personality goes into what is The Devil Wears Prada. Rather than taking music and move it straight over to Prada. Film I’ve been so out of the loop, I never have the time or will to watch so I’ve been pretty out of the loop on that. Mostly just literature has always been my creative drive whether it’s playing guitar or doing anything lyrically and vocally.
Two writers I came across this year, one a little more contemporary. One is Rachel Cust, she’s written a great number of novels I’ve been catching up on. As well as a German writer named Peter Hanke, his work has been influential and the way he writes is fantastic. I finished all Cormac McCarthy work earlier this year, I finished My Struggle series by Carlo Novsguard last year. Everything Carlo does is huge for me and again “Hallucinate” was based off a situation in The Morning Star that I then contorted into a song. I’d say between those four, they have been quite informative of my work and personality.
Many thanks to Mike Hranica for sitting down and asking our questions about the new album. Make sure to check out our full review of Color Decay. For all things TDWP and metalcore, and the Aussie scene, keep it locked on Boolin Tunes.