Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.

Alex Chaney – Vocals
Josh Allen – Guitar
Zach Sallade – Guitar
Zach Holley – Bass
Casey Hardman – Drums

For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to (insert band/artist name here)? How long has the band been around?

A Story Told was created when a couple of local bands in the Charleston/Huntington, WV music scene split up. We were all bummed out working jobs in the mall and decided to get together and start jamming, just to see what could happen. The two bands that some of our members used to be a part of are a metalcore band called Missing In Maryland and a pop punk band called Some Like It Hot. Each band ended up breaking up around the early 2010’s.

What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before?

We have been A Story Told since the band started back in 2013. We get the name from the idea that everyone has a unique and individual story filled with personal triumphs and failures, along with all the emotions that go with all of that, and we believe that this story, told in our music, is ours.

Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?

Our songwriting process is definitely a collaborative process between all of the members of the band. Josh [guitar] normally will beast out a collection of demos for Alex [vocals] to add some rough melody/lyrical ideas to. Once this rough idea of a song starts to take shape, the rest of the band throws in any ideas, missing lyrics, etc. From this point the songs really starts to come together on their own.

The main themes for the majority of our music thus far have been based around falling in and out of love, and all of the very strong emotions that go along with those experiences. We’re all focused on making sure our music feels fresh, new, and comes from a real place of honesty, so I’m sure these themes will change over time as we continue to release more music and go through new, personal experiences in our lives.

What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?

All of the members in our bands jam out to different styles of music, and I think the combination of these different inspirations really help in creating a new sound within our own band. However I would say that we have found a lot of influence in the sound of bands like PVRIS and The Dangerous Summer. Each of these bands took an existing genre of music and added extreme emotion and depth to their lyrics/songs while shaking up the traditional format and sound of alternative music. We’re definitely trying to follow in their footsteps in that aspect.

Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?

There are probably hundreds of bands throughout the years that led to us being inspired to play the music that we do, so I don’t know if it’d be fair to just pick one. From all of the smash radio hits throughout the 90’s, growing up to our first tastes of pop punk with bands like Blink-182 and Green Day, to the heyday of bands in the early 2000’s that completely changed the genre, we realized that we can make our music sound however we want.

What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, ect …

Our normal routine for a show consists of spending a lot of time together throughout the day of the show just to get in the right mindset as a unit. We love to eat and spend the majority of our time doing so. Directly before the show we all usually take a second to ourselves to get in the right headspace and get focused, whether it be stretching, saying a few words to ourselves, or just jumping around to get the blood flowing. Our live set is pretty high energy, so we all just try to psych ourselves up in our own, individual ways.

What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?

The biggest highlight of the band so far has been the opportunity to play spots on the Van’s Warped Tour for the past two years, thanks to Ernie Ball’s Battle of the Bands competitions. In 2015 we got to play the Ernie Ball stage with a few other competition winners and were absolutely blown away. Our set went perfectly and it was such a rush.

Incredibly enough, we lucked out and won the competition again this year with the prize being a spot on the MAIN STAGE in Burgettstown, PA on July 15. We could not be more exited to play this much larger stage and hopefully catch the eye of a few new fans!

If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?

If we could tour with any bands, we’d have to go with Twenty One Pilots. Other than just making great music, we really admire the fact that they’re able to go out there and do something fresh and completely crush it every night. If something couldn’t be worked out with Twenty One Pilots, we SUPPOSE we could settle for opening for T. Swift haha.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

We’d just like to thank every single fan who’s ever given us the time of day. We make this music to share and connect with you and we are so thrilled to see that you’re enjoying it as much as we are.

We like to take things one day at a time and really live and enjoy all of the opportunities we are fortunate enough to have in the moment. As I said, we’re all so excited and honored to be able to play main stage at the Warped Tour this summer and visit a couple of additional cities in the following weeks. Keep an eye on all of our social network pages for more touring information! Other than a bit of touring, we will be continuing to push Keep Watch to as many people as will give us the time of day. We’re all so, so proud of this record and want to share it with the world.