It’s not a stretch to say that on their epic climb to the top of the Billboard albums chart, Fall Out Boy have shed their fair share of blood, sweat and tears – spending nearly five years crisscrossing the country in vans, buses and airplanes will do that to you .
But on next month’s tour, they’ll be focusing primarily on the red stuff.
Taking a (pretty awesome) page from the Kiss playbook – or, more specifically, the Kiss comic book – FOB will be tapping their veins for a contest, one in which they’ll mix their own blood with the printing ink that will be used on a series of promotional posters. A winner will be chosen in each city the band hits on the upcoming Honda Civic Tour, which also features Paul Wall, the Academy Is … and +44.
“We’re going to be running a series of contests. One is an ode to Kiss,” bassist Pete Wentz wrote in his journal on FallOutBoyRock.com. “My brother is going to make 45 prints based on images from our record. Each will be hand-numbered and individually made. In addition, all prints will have a mixture of each member of the band’s blood in it.”
It’s totally gross and historically reverent! See, back in 1977, Kiss – never ones to shy away from virtually any promotional opportunity – donated some of their own blood to Marvel Comics, who then combined it with the red ink used to color the first “super-special” Kiss comic (a tagline on the cover screamed “Printed in real Kiss blood!”).
Of course, Gene Simmons and company didn’t give those comics away (the first issue retailed for a princely $1.50 – hey, it was 1977). But Fall Out Boy will: One lucky winner at each of the 43 stops on the tour – which kicks off on April 18 in Charlotte, North Carolina – will take home a print, which FOB management said will be “hand-screened variations of the [ Infinity on High ] tarot-card designs.”
Details – including just how the winners will be chosen – have not yet been released, but Wentz is viewing the whole thing as much more than a contest: He wrote that the drawing of their own blood would serve to “[shed] some light on the much-needed support for blood drives,” a phrase we’re pretty sure you’d never hear from Gene Simmons.