Hawthorne Heights are back this year with the release of their eighth studio album, The Rain Just Follows Me, which dropped in September via Pure Noise Records. The 11 tracks on this record stand as some of JT Woodruff’s most resonant writings to date, as he unravels themes of both physical and emotional distance from his wife and daughter in Ohio, as well as personal identity as the frontman of one of the most iconic emo acts of the new millennium.
Throughout their long and storied career, Hawthorne Heights have overcome obstacles at every turn – but these roadblocks always seemed to come from external forces, from unscrupulous record labels and the shifting whims of fickle audiences to unimaginable personal tragedy threatening to derail them.
Despite the odds, the quartet composed of JT Woodruff (Vocals, Guitar), Mark McMillon (Guitar, Backing Vocals), Matt Ridenour (Bass, Backing Vocals), and Chris Popadak (Drums), have overcome it all: earning two Gold albums (2004’s The Silence In Black And White and 2006’s If Only You Were Lonely), penning some of the genre’s most well-known songs (“Ohio Is For Lovers,” “Saying Sorry”), and remaining a hard-touring act nearly two decades after forming in Dayton, Ohio.