Moshing Grandma’s Pew

Recent interviews with Christian metal-core phenoms The Devil Wears Prada are compelling not for how much they now hate their name or even the frankness of their faith, but for the idea that that is something new.

When, for example, 22-year-old guitarist Jeremy DePoyster (who also handles the melodic, choir boy yin to Mike Hranica’s guttural yang) says the band’s ultimate goal “is to show that being a Christian doesn’t have to mean Grandma sitting in the pew,” he seems charmingly unaware that bands as intense as his – both in sound and belief– have been moshing Grandma’s pews for 15 years.

“We’re not ashamed of who we are as people and who we are as a band,” DePoyster says. “We respect everybody, no matter what, but we always say on stage ‘this is who we are and this is what we believe.’”

Combined with the Old Testament brutality and massive sound of their new record “With Roots Above and Branches Below,” such can-do moxie in a conquered frontier has, in just a few years, earned the Dayton, Ohio sextet mainstream buzz and secular cred the likes of which the persecuted mid-90s pioneers of so-called Spirit-filled Hard Core (like Ferret Records label-mates Zao) would never have thought possible.

They’ve hosted MTV’s Headbangers Ball, mainstage’d Vans’ Warped Tour, showed off their tattoos on the covers of not just HM (Heaven’s Metal) Magazine, but Outburn, AMP, and Alternative Press, which just named them 2009’s “Band of the Year.”
Even the New York Times likes them.

“People always ask, ‘do you think things have happened really quickly for you guys,’ but I don’t know. Our shows are pretty heartfelt and passionate…I guess people can just kind of relate to us,” DePoyster says in explaining the secret of the band’s ecumenical success. “We’re definitely nor your stereotypical youth group Christians.”

At the dawn of a decade that promises even further mainstream excavation of the underground than its predecessor, that might actually be up for debate.
In fact, if The Devil Wears Prada’s popularity says anything about the current state of Christian rock, it’s that if you’ve got the look, the sound, and the snarl, the record companies and publicists will come, regardless of lyrics like “My regret is not writing more for you, Lord.”

And God will work his mysteries. And interviewers will ask their questions. And fans both in and out of church will bang their heads to the driving scripture that DePoyster and Hranica whisper not, nor - amazingly - ever had to route through the Christian market.

“I won’t name names, but there were a lot of bands that really didn’t even get big until they dropped the Christian thing,” DePoyster says. “We’ve had advice like that, that we’d probably go farther in radio and stuff if we dropped the Christian thing and did a more mainstream thing.”

These days? Not necessarily.

Questions and comments: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

If You Go

What: Killswitch Engage, The Devil Wears Prada
Where: The Venue at The Hub
When: Wed, Feb 17, 8 pm
How Much: $26.50