thePULSEBand to Mix Small & Sweaty Club Shows with Major Outdoor Festivals on Their Summer Trek
By Rick Garner
With the tour kicking off next week, Rockstar Energy Drink partners with one of the brightest rising stars in the metalcore world, The Devil Wears Prada, who will play the biggest venues of their career, and probably the smallest. Think twenty-five thousand screaming kids one night, then 250 hot and sweaty fans the next. This is a much-anticipated venture for a band that regularly plays to sold-out crowds of 1500-2500.
“We want to go back to our roots, play little hole-in-the-wall places where fans can be right there in front of the stage, where we can hand someone a mic and really have the fans be an active part of the show, not behind a barrier ten feet away,” says TDWP’s Mike Hranica.
Voted 2009’s Band of the Year by the readers of Alternative Press, The Devil Wears Prada ~ vocalist Mike Hranica, guitarist/vocalist Jeremy DePoyster, guitarist Chris Rubey, bassist Andy Trick, keyboardist James Baney, and drummer Daniel Williams ~ are packing their bags for a relentless summer tour, interspersing performances at ten major, outdoor festivals with multiple nights headlining small, intimate clubs.
The “Back to the Roots” club dates will kick off on Saturday, June 19 at The Arbor in Memphis, TN and play 40+ “roots” shows through to the end of August. Joining TDWP on all “Back to the Roots” dates will be Miss May I and Your Demise. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased through The Devil Wears Prada’s website or MySpace page.
“One of the primary elements of the ‘Back to the Roots Tour’,” Hranica explained, “is playing a few Dear Love songs that we have not played in a long time, and probably will not play again or anytime soon. We have not built the precise set list yet, and I know it will not entirely be composed of older Dear Love songs, but there will definitely be more in there than what we usually do.”
The major summer festivals and “Back to the Roots” tour follows the band’s first-ever headline tour of South America which took place May 8-16, and all dates are in support of the band’s most recent album, With Roots Above and Branches Below. Released in May, 2009, the album debuted at #11 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and set off a series of events that lead to a huge break-out year: slots on the Warped Tour Main Stage, the Rockstar Taste of Chaos and Sounds of the Underground festivals, co-headlining the November/December, 27-date Napalm & Noise Tour, main support on the recent Killswitch Engage Tour, and cover features in Outburn, HM, AMP, Revolver and Alternative Press. Live, the six-piece The Devil Wears Prada presents a powerful intensity that many other bands never quite achieve, with savage riffs, sinewy guitar melodies, thunderous beats, manic synths and an assault of abrasive vocals.
Catch TDWP headlining at Harper’s Ferry on August 25 and 26.
