McCoy knows firsthand how surreal it can be to see yourself carved into a stranger's flesh. "We get fans all the time that come up to us with tattoos of our lyrics, and there have even been a couple portraits," McCoy says. "At first it was super-flattering, but then sometimes it's just a little outrageous. For example, there's a girl who got my girlfriend's entire CD cover on her whole back. There's a line, I guess."

With his frontman status and unique look, McCoy is clearly the most visible member of Gym Class Heroes, and probably the most likely to have his face immortalized in ink. However, that could all change with The Quilt, which is the band's most collaborative effort to date and shows what a tight unit the band has become since McCoy and McGinley started it back in the late '90s.

Things were different back then. Although the band experienced some local success early in their career, they didn't receive their big break until Stump, the Fall Out Boy frontman, discovered them. They signed to bassist Pete Wentz's Fueled by Ramen imprint Decaydance, which released the band's second album, The Papercut Chronicles, in 2004. Merging elements of soul, R&B, hip-hop, and rock, the album was a combination of just about everything the group listened to collectively. They played smaller stages on the Vans Warped Tour before breaking into the mainstream with 2006's gold-selling disc, As Cruel As School Children, which featured the ubiquitous crossover radio hit "Cupid's Chokehold." After a seemingly endless span of touring, the band started work on The Quilt last year. Despite the success of previous albums, the Heroes knew they wanted to experiment with the writing and recording process this time around to allow all of their individual influences to shine through.

"I would definitely say that this is the most collaborative album I've played on with the band," Lumumba-Kasongo says. "I remember the very first day we started jamming out and working on the songs. I thought, Man, I haven't felt like this since I was in high school jamming out in a garage. So it's kind of cool, 'cause it was that same feeling, except we were recording for a major album."

McCoy knows firsthand how surreal it can be to see yourself carved into a stranger's flesh. "We get fans all the time that come up to us with tattoos of our lyrics, and there have even been a couple portraits," McCoy says. "At first it was super-flattering, but then sometimes it's just a little outrageous. For example, there's a girl who got my girlfriend's entire CD cover on her whole back. There's a line, I guess."

With his frontman status and unique look, McCoy is clearly the most visible member of Gym Class Heroes, and probably the most likely to have his face immortalized in ink. However, that could all change with The Quilt, which is the band's most collaborative effort to date and shows what a tight unit the band has become since McCoy and McGinley started it back in the late '90s.

Things were different back then. Although the band experienced some local success early in their career, they didn't receive their big break until Stump, the Fall Out Boy frontman, discovered them. They signed to bassist Pete Wentz's Fueled by Ramen imprint Decaydance, which released the band's second album, The Papercut Chronicles, in 2004. Merging elements of soul, R&B, hip-hop, and rock, the album was a combination of just about everything the group listened to collectively. They played smaller stages on the Vans Warped Tour before breaking into the mainstream with 2006's gold-selling disc, As Cruel As School Children, which featured the ubiquitous crossover radio hit "Cupid's Chokehold." After a seemingly endless span of touring, the band started work on The Quilt last year. Despite the success of previous albums, the Heroes knew they wanted to experiment with the writing and recording process this time around to allow all of their individual influences to shine through.

"I would definitely say that this is the most collaborative album I've played on with the band," Lumumba-Kasongo says. "I remember the very first day we started jamming out and working on the songs. I thought, Man, I haven't felt like this since I was in high school jamming out in a garage. So it's kind of cool, 'cause it was that same feeling, except we were recording for a major album."