“He had no idea what it was going to sound like,” adds Levy. “I was in the middle of school, so I came home, recorded what I had to record, then I went back to school.” “Usually, when you record an album, everyone’s there for the entire process,” he explains. Capener travelled to record his parts on the album, then headed right back to school without even hearing the final product. The first full-length, Under Soil and Dirt, came out while Capener, Levy, vocalist Parker Cannon, and guitarist Kevin Geyer attended college, worked, and bided their time waiting for Torf to graduate from high school, which rendered him unable to commit to tours. Round signed them to his fledgling label. Levy met Round by attending local shows, and eventually gave him their demo at a show at the Red House, a recording studio and venue in Walnut Creek, Calif. Levy initially helped with merch, but eventually slid into the spot vacated by Kevin Ambrose-whose older brother was in Set Your Goals-when Ambrose went to medical school. The band casually started playing in high school, though drummer Ryan Torf was still in eighth grade. “We’ve been able to stick with the same guys who knew us as kids. “That’s what’s important to us,” says guitarist Will Levy. Then came Europe and Japan, Warped Tour, and they are now headlining a summer tour supported by Four Year Strong and Terror. Longtime friend Brad Wiseman handles their booking, which helped them pull bigger crowds than the headliners on their initial shows, and continue the trend through their first national tour with Senses Fail.
They’ve all been friends since middle school, have recorded all of their full-lengths with Sam Pura of Panda Studios, and put them all out on Pure Noise Records. ‘Cuz these people hadn’t heard our music even a couple of weeks before.”Īll but one member’s parents are still married, and during the Christmas holiday, all of their families get together. It was weird, because there was a point in the tour where the bands would say, ‘Look, you have to play after us.’ And that’s when I got the impression that our music was going viral to that community. Louis, Mo., and I remember, like, 200 kids came out for that show and then left right after we finished. “I just remember that first tour, because it started out slow and we didn’t have big crowds or anything,” recalls bassist Kelen Capener. They remember the precise time it happened. That they’re called The Story So Far is very fitting they’re young guys still in the early part of their ride, but success hit the second their first album came out. Fast-forward five years… They’re his top grossing band and have breathed new life into the pop punk scene. I had no idea how spot on Jake’s instincts were at the time. I remember when Jake described the first band he had signed as “high school kids from Walnut Creek,” and I winced at what I thought he was taking on. He had just started a label called Pure Noise Records and his second release was a band called The Story So Far. Interview with bassist Kelen Capener and guitarist Will Levy | By Lisa Rootįive years ago, I was working at AMP Magazine and my assistant was a young, ambitious music industry nut named Jake Round.
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