Inked: Let's talk about the album artwork for Hope. You guys were literally bleeding for that. Where'd you get that idea from?

HH: It was an idea that J.T. our singer talked about with Mike [Ski]. Mike had been doing his "death kites," basically where he tattoos something on you without any ink, and it's sort of symbolic of capturing the essence or the meaning that the thing you're tattooing on you really becomes a part of you. I guess we were talking to each other and came up with this concept of actually tattooing our artwork on us.

Inked: Did all of you do it?

HH: J.T. and Matt did it, and actually we had our merch guy. He had to endure some of the pain. I wasn't there. Otherwise, I definitely would've. I have other tattoos, so that wouldn't have been anything for me to do. But they did it. Our merch guy actually passed out. Mike had to tattoo it in a fashion that is not typical for tattoos. You go a lot slower, you have to make sure the ink stays in. Well he had to go super fast, super deep, and go over there multiple times in order to draw the blood and not allow the wound to heal so they could put gauze over it and get the pattern for the artwork. So it was probably a lot more painful than a typical tattoo would be. And they all did it on their thighs, which is a pretty painful spot anyway.

Inked: Wow. That's dedication.

HH: Yeah.

Inked: Do you guys think you would do that again in the future for more artwork?

HH: I don't know. I have no idea what will come up as far as the art concept goes for the next album or a future album. We don't like to do the same thing twice, so probably not, but you never know.

Hope is available on Amazon and iTunes now. Physical copies are exclusively available at the Hawthorne Heights web store.