Behind The Artworks: Lucy Mayhem - Into Hell (2024)

I went through quite a few name options before I settled on Into Hell as the title for this EP. All I knew originally was that I wanted the EP and the title to have something to do with hell and the devil. However, once I wrote the song Into Hell I very quickly realized that that would be the perfect name for the EP, as the concept of it is that it’s going through my journey into, in, and escaping Hell. By the time I had the EP name and needed to shoot the cover, I had most of the EP written, and the concept of the story clearly in my head, and with that the imagery was clear in my head. This has been the case with every cover I’ve shot, going in I can see the cover in my head, it’s just a matter of bringing what I’m seeing in my head to life. For Into Hell EP I was seeing either someone who’s been taken captive by the devil, or the devil themself, walking into the gates of Hell holding either chains to represent captivity or a skull to represent the death of the person they were before they entered. In the context of the story, I felt it made most sense to kind of combine my ideas since I was taken captive by the devil, but also I myself was the devil. This is why in the cover I’m wearing the same dress I wore for the Into Hell single, just in black. The dress is supposed to represent being more of a prisoner, as it has more of a tattered, ripped up look to it, I chose to change the color of the dress for the EP to represent the burning/death of the other dress/person I wore/was in the Into Hell single cover. I’m wearing a belt with chains and skull hanging from it around the dress to represent the prisoner side a little more (it also is the same belt I wore in the Fear cover shoot and wanted to tie that in), and then the devil horns and platform heels to represent the more powerful, devil side of me. I chose to go with the skull rather than chains, as I felt it was a better representation of the overall storyline of the EP. I added candles because this is just what I saw in my head, and I wanted to carry over the candle theme from the Save Me cover shoot. Similar to the dress situation from Into Hell, I made the candles for this black to represent being more a part of Hell now. The cover picture was taken by my boyfriend Justin Bailey. My main goal with the picture was to get the warm, dim lighting, and dark presence you imagine when you think of the gates of Hell, and also to make the photo feel candid. I wanted it to look like someone just caught a picture of me walking into hell, and I’m looking behind me knowing what’s about to happen, and kind of saying goodbye to everything I once knew/ the person I was. I think Justin was able to capture all of this perfectly. It truly came out about as close to what I saw in my head as I could get with my resources.