As folks begin to make plans for summer tours and festivals, we thought we'd dust off this exclusive interview with The Devil Wears Prada from the Warped Tour in 2008.  We spoke with Jeremy DePoyster and Andy Trick at the Scranton, PA stop.  Unfortunately a bad sound quality from the press area almost stopped this interview from going to print, but we were able to salvage some good conversation.

inReview: I'll admit, I am not a huge fan of hardcore music, but I like your sound.  Why do you suppose that is?

Jeremy: We don't approach it the same way, I guess, a lot of times ... I guess it all comes back to just trying to be as real as possible or whatever.    

I first encountered this Birmingham, AL, band about a year ago at The Anchor, located in southern New Jersey, a spin-off of the official Anchor Venue in Nashville. They played in the sanctuary of the rather small church, filled with hardcore and scene kids windmill kicking and moshing. With the pews pushed to the sides of the room, I attempted to dodge the audience's thrashing arms and punches as I Am Terrified confidently took the stage.

Not being the biggest fan of hardcore music, I was already skeptical. But my skepticism soon turned to intrigue as I listened to the band's clear, crisp vocals placed strategically in between and overlaid among screams that weren't too high pitched to be annoying, or too low to resemble growling. To say that I enjoyed the set would be an understatement. High energy guitar solos and pounding, high-speed drumming were mixed with intense vocals, especially when the small crowd joined in on "I'll fly away oh glory, I'll fly away…" during the chorus of "Some Glad Morning."

During this year’s Purple Door festival, inReview caught up with Pillar for a few minutes aboard their air-conditioned tour bus. (A much appreciated break from the weekend’s heat). As we heard the female-fronted band, The Pledge, take the stage behind us, we were able to delve into the minds of the four band members and pick their brains about the past tour, new members, and an upcoming CD release.

Later that night we witnessed the crowd intensify as Pillar began their set. With such a great live show and dedicated fans, only greater things could possibly be in store for this hard rock act. Listen in on what they had to share, and be sure to pick up their new album when it drops on September 22nd, 2009.

Some of the best interviews I’ve had the opportunity to conduct were completely on the spot and unplanned. This doesn’t happen often, due to the busy schedule of most bands; but I had the pleasure of happening upon one quite recently.

While attending a show on the Drop Dead Gorgeous tour, I was fortunate enough to run into a band that I hadn’t heard of before and that I immediately fell in love with. As they took the stage, tuned, and then began their first song, I inhaled a breath of fresh air. At a predominantly intense hardcore show, their heavy guitars and pounding drumbeats were lightened with melodic vocals. Two songs into their set, the piercing screeches of the venue’s fire alarms could be heard, causing the bewildered band members to cease playing their instruments as the crowd was ordered to exit the room until all was clear. Those two songs were my first introduction to Before Their Eyes.

Texas In July 

I can only imagine that a visit to Texas in the month of July would be rather hot. Coincidentally, the same could be said about the career of five teenagers from Ephrata, Pennsylvania. It’s every band’s dream: get some friends together while in high school, make some awesome music, land a record deal within two years, begin touring, and have a downright awesome time. Practically speaking, this doesn’t normally happen according to plan. But what if it wasn’t in the plan? “Basically we just did it for fun,” shares Logan Maurer, guitar player. “We’re blessed to have come as far as we have.” Logan, along with band mates Ben Witkowski on bass, Alex Good delivering sharp, brutal vocals, Adam Gray drumming away, and Christian Royer also on guitar, teamed up to form the one of the youngest hardcore bands on the Christian music scene today.

Make it three in a row.

P.O.D.'s new album finds them in familiar territory on the Billboard charts. When Angels and Serpents Dance, the band's first effort with Columbia and INO Records, debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 - exactly the peak position of their previous two albums, which were forged for Atlantic Records. When Angels... is also the most-downloaded rock album on iTunes and holds the top position on SoundScan's Contemporary Christian chart this week.

"After 16 years of being in P.O.D., the loyalty of The Warriors [P.O.D.'s fanbase] continue to make us look good," said lead singer Sonny Sandoval in a press release posted on inorecords.com. "We are truly grateful and blown away to see another Top 10 debut."

The new album marks the return of guitarist Marcos Curiel, whose work was featured on the band's breakthrough effort, Satellite (2001).

There are those both inside and outside the Third Day fan camp who, if they're being honest, would label the group's first five years together as their rock period and the years that have transpired since that time as... well... their not-quite-so-rocking period. While any such hard-and-fast view is true only up to a point, those who bought the Chronology Volume One album, which traced the Atlanta-based outfit's musical arc from the 1996 self-titled debut to the Offerings live worship project in 2000, found more than a little evidence to support such a claim. From the swaggering, Skynyrd-tinged strains of "Forever" to the lumbering, grunge-inflected "Consuming Fire" and majestic power balladry of "Love Song," one couldn't help but marvel at the band's seemingly effortless fluency with the rock and roll idiom.

As unlikely as it might seem to more recent converts to the Third Day fold, time was when lead singer Mac Powell and his cohorts rocked more fiercely than just about any other artist on the Christian music charts. Indeed, newcomers whose only exposure to the group is through latter-day singles like "Cry Out to Jesus" and "Mountain of God" may be shocked to learn that the outfit's first few records were described as a cross between Lynyrd Skynyrd's down-and-dirty Southern hard rock and the arena-ready post-grunge of artists like Pearl Jam. Indeed, Powell's voice was so often likened to that of PJ front man Eddie Vedder that the 3D cooperative often broke into "Yellow Ledbetter" during their early concerts as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the comparison.

If nothing else, the latest 12 Stones release seems destined to send diehard fans scurrying to uncover the identity of the underdog mentioned in its title. Some will conjecture that it refers to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, which caused widespread devastation to the group’s hometown of New Orleans in August of 2005. Others will see it as pointing to the band itself which, despite a considerable fan base, lead singer Paul McCoy’s Grammy for his involvement on the Top 5 Evanescence single "Bring Me to Life," and opening slots for everyone from Daughtry to Creed, has yet to do business on the Billboard Hot 100 or watch its albums fly off of the shelves.