Hawthorne Heights throw an emo high-school reunion at Orlando's House of Blues

Ohio emo band Hawthorne Heights have been rocking with their fans for 20 years now. And in celebration, the band and their legions of lovers of loud guitars and chipped black nail polish are hosting a reunion of sorts.

Formerly A Day in the Life, Hawthorne Heights went through the seemingly de rigueur ritual of lineup changes before settling on the now rock-solid roster of Matt Ridenour (bass), JT Woodruff (vocals), Mark McMillon (guitars) and Chris Popadak on the drums.

Frontman Woodruff, in conversation with Orlando Weekly, says that the band is working hard on this tour to ensure the nostalgia that fans desire is exactly what they get.

"We've been a band for 20 years and we're constantly just trying to, not necessarily reinvent ourselves, but trying to keep everything fresh while giving the fans the nostalgic moments they craved when they were teenagers," Woodruff says.

In 2004 the band released their debut album, The Silence in Black and White, rocketing the band to fame. Woodruff says it was a strange thing, fame. "It was definitely weird. ... Our album got really big really fast. You know, one year I was working at a gas station and two years later we had a gold record."

Woodruff says that staying in the Midwest was chill and helped the band cope with the fame they'd suddenly attained. The bandmates worked hard to stay grounded and deal with the ever-changing dynamics of the music industry.

"We did this before cellphones were really a thing, so the first couple years no one was trying to take pictures with us like they are now," Woodruff says. "And that's not a bad thing, it's just a bit different now."

The band's adjustment to fan culture and fame was easier at the start, but Woodruff says the process has been a learning curve for everyone. Pushing through and focusing on the music was what got them through it all.

"Let's say our band is on tour. We're on an off-day, we're at the mall, it's 2005 and we're going to Hot Topic. You would get mobbed at that moment," Woodruff reflects. "But everyone just wanted to shake your hand or say 'hello.'"

As the band evolves over time, Woodruff says he allows the band's headspace at a given time and real-life situations to dictate how their music sounds and what kind of music they write. Back then, emo was what got everyone through everything, and Woodruff made it a point to bring that authenticity of emotion to the mic.

"You're never really writing autobiographically, but you take little moments that you're trying to get yourself through and you craft stories about those moments," Woodruff says. "There's a whole truth in there, but you've got to embellish it so that it helps the sadness, it doesn't amplify the sadness."

The "20 Years of Tears" tour pays homage to that struggle, recognizing the emotional turmoil that the band and fans endured growing up.

Whether the struggle was mental health-related or not, emo music was there when it felt like no one else was, and that's why Hawthorne Heights exists. The tour also includes friends and musical fellow travelers like Thursday, Anberlin and This Wild Life.

"The main idea for the tour was to try to get as many of our friends who we've been playing shows with for forever, that we know our fans love as well," Woodruff says. "Selfishly, we like to hang out with these bands because we've known them forever and when you do it that way, it becomes a kind of emo high-school reunion."

Seeing fans sing along to songs that mean a lot to the band is what Woodruff sees as the reason they're on this tour. With their plans to play The Silence in Black and White in full, fans are sure to leave happy.

"We're playing every song from the first album in sequence, so I've gotta listen to that album again. Which is always super weird, you know, listening to your own music recreationally, I guess," Woodruff says. "We've got to try to figure out a way to create natural peaks and valleys like the album has, to try and create a show out of it instead of just an album."

The band wrote a new song for this tour, inviting their fans to listen to the unfolding of a career and part of a lifetime summed up in one track.

"It's about the last 20 years from our point of view, watching the fans grow up and watching ourselves grow up," Woodruff says. "All the fun times and all of the awful times that happened over the course of 20 years of our life, are all kind of encapsulated in one song we play towards the end of our set."

Woodruff says that the song was written with their fans in mind and they released it about three days into their tour. The song, "Gold Econoline," highlights themes of adolescent tribulations and the relentless yearning of youth.

As Woodruff looks back on the band's journey, he recalls the local punk scene in Ohio, which built the band's backbone and fan base slowly.

"People were so interested in the local scene of just going to shows and hanging out at them," Woodruff says.

Woodruff says the band would pool together what money they had to rent out a spot in a local Knights of Columbus hall. The band would charge $5 at the door (cries in inflation) and invite everybody they knew and just have fun.

With a night of heavy nostalgia to come, the band preps for an evening of tears — very fitting for a venue called the House of Blues.