The Chasing Atlas Universe

An Extended Universe by Ashley Wagner

The World

Imagine a world where pop-punk won.

Not just charted, not just had a moment — won. The kind of cultural dominance usually reserved for once-in-a-generation acts. The kind where the music gets tattooed on people's bodies, played at state funerals, referenced in presidential speeches. That world exists. And at the center of it is one band.

Chasing Atlas became the biggest band on earth not by crossing over — but by never having to. Their sound built an empire. And like all empires, what grew up inside it was complicated.

Meet Stevey

Stevey is the person everyone trusts before they realize they do — watchful, grounded, and instinctively protective of the people who become her family.

She came into the orbit of Chasing Atlas as their nanny. She stayed as something harder to name. Ben Marlow claimed her as a sister. She married into the band's inner circle. By the time the daughters were old enough to start asking questions about the early years, Stevey was the one they called. She was there. She remembered. And the story she tells is the one that started it all.

The Band

Chasing Atlas — Lake Harbor, Michigan

Ben Marlow | Vocals / Songwriter

The face of the band. Father of thirteen. Married to Saturday, the band's manager.

Joshua "JT" Thomas | Rhythm Guitar

Grew up in his father's Detroit sports collectibles shop. Knows the value of things that last.

Jeremiah Shae | Lead Guitar

Raised by his mother Diane in a Lake Harbor duplex. The band's sonic backbone.

Ezekiel "Zeke" Evans | Drums

Older brother of Greyson Evans. The one who's been watching everything from the back of the stage for thirty years.

Aaron Adler | Bass

Every band has one person who holds everything together quietly. That's Aaron.

The Books

The Chasing Atlas Universe spans multiple interconnected series. Some follow the band. Some follow the people orbiting them. Some follow the community they built and the world that grew up around the biggest band on earth. All of them stand on their own. All of them go deeper when you read more.

Chasing Atlas: Behind the Lens

8 Books | 2003 – 2030 | Limited POV | As It Happened

This is the story from inside the room.

Stevey doesn't know how things will turn out. She only knows what she can see from where she's standing — which is closer than most people ever get to the heart of something this big. Eight books. Twenty-seven years. One woman navigating the chaos, the love, and the cost of being that close to a band like Chasing Atlas.

Read this series and you get the experience of being there in real time — the uncertainty, the intimacy, the moments nobody photographed.

The Stevey Series

1 Aperture

2 Negative

3 Exposure

4 Focus

5 Framing

6 Grain

7 Contact Sheet

8 Print

Chasing Atlas: Tour Guides

8 Books | 2030 Present / 2003 Past | Ensemble | Looking Back

It's 2030. Six sisters — daughters of Ben Marlow, lead singer of Chasing Atlas — launch a podcast to answer the question they've grown up with their whole lives: who was our family before we existed?

Indie Kate, the youngest, wasn't even born when it started. None of the sisters were. So they call Stevey. And Stevey calls everyone else — Hannah, the label executive who saw it coming before anyone did. Charley, the original merch queen who built the brand before there was a brand. And others who were there, who remember, who have never quite let go.

The story gets told in pieces, through voices, through memory. Some of it matches. Some of it doesn't. That's the point.

The Podcast Series

1 Tour Guides

2 B-Sides

3 Crossfade

4 Stage Left

5 Feedback

6 Long Play

7 Fade Out

8 Encore

Two Ways In. One Universe.

The Stevey Series and The Podcast Series are each complete on their own. You don't need to read one to understand the other. You don't need a reading guide or a checklist.

Pick the entry point that feels right. Start with Stevey and live inside the moment. Start with the Podcast and work backward through memory. Or read both — because when you do, the layers don't repeat. They deepen.

Chasing Atlas: Origins

Trilogy | 1995 – 2002 | Coming Later

Before May 2003. Before the podcast. Before the daughters. There was 1995 — five people and a band name and no idea what was coming.

The Origins trilogy covers the years that built everything — told in a format the band themselves helped shape. Zeke draws. Jeremiah and Ben write (Ben negotiated his way into also doing the score; Jeremiah has opinions about this). JT and Aaron keep them honest.

It will be published after the main series are underway. The titles are ?, ??, and ???. That's intentional. For now.

Couples Collections

11 Standalone Collections of Shorts | Each Couple Gets Their Own Story

Every major relationship in the Chasing Atlas Universe gets its own book — standalone, complete, no required reading order.
Pick your couple. Start there.

Collection Title | Couple

In the Margins | Aly & Asher

Under the Radar | Andey & Greg

Off the Record | Cambria & Jeremiah

House Rules | Cassy & Jordan

On Display | Charley & Grant

Grounded | Chelsea & JT

Holding Steady | Jules & Aaron

Second Shift | Maeli & Jase

Out Loud | Saty & Ben

The Long Exposure | Stevey & Greyson

Among the Stars | Vanessa & Zeke

Extended Universe

The Chasing Atlas Universe extends beyond the band into the community, the families, and the world built around them.

The Adventures of Eric-Rose Evans

Zeke's younger sister Eric-Rose runs her own auto shop and has been the band's mechanic for years. She was once approached to star in a reality series. It never aired. This is that story.

Atlantic

Atlantic is what Chasing Atlas fans call themselves. Vanessa's estranged sister Whitney is one — passionate, dedicated, fully invested in the Lake Harbor fan events that have become their own version of a hometown tradition. What Whitney doesn't know is that her estranged sister is the band's tour manager and has been dating Zeke for years. Whitney's parasocial spiral has no idea it's about to get personal.

Bluecreek Riders

This one is less about the band and more about the barn. Chasing Atlas is mostly background noise here — except for the part where the Bluecreek Equestrian Center riders bully Chelsea Thomas into leveraging her husband's band for a private show if they win certain competitions. They win. JT has feelings about this. Chelsea is just trying to ride horses in peace.

Focuses on Ben's daughter Mel, Chelsea Walters-Thomas, the Bluecreek Equestrian Center, and the riders and horses that make up that world.

I Made Them Famous, Actually: You're Welcome World.
How Hannah C. Ray Built a Brand, Ran a Band, and Accidentally Became An Icon

Hannah's book. The title is the pitch.

The World — Lake Harbor, Michigan

The Chasing Atlas Universe is set in Lake Harbor — a fictional city in mid-Michigan, twenty minutes east of MSU, sitting on the edge of Ingham County. Small enough that everyone knows everyone. Close enough to Lansing that five kids with guitars had somewhere to play before anyone knew their names.

This is where the band grew up. This is where they chose to stay.

Key Locations

⚫ The Pine St House

Where Chasing Atlas lived together before the money. Five people, one house, the whole future still ahead of them.

🔵 Thomas Sports & Collectibles

JT's father's store. Detroit pro sports memorabilia — the kind of place that shapes a kid's sense of loyalty and legacy.

🟡 Jennifer's Apartment

Home of Nora's mother Jennifer. Close to the city center, close to everything that mattered in the early years.

🔴 Jase's Apartment

JT's older brother Jase, just down from Jennifer. The Thomas family stayed close.

🟢 Diane's Duplex

Jeremiah's mother Diane. Where Jeremiah grew up — modest, Lake Harbor, real.

🔴 Northshore High School

Where the band went to school. Where five kids figured out they were better together than apart.

🟣 Bluecreek Equestrian Center

Run by the Walters family for generations. Riding programs, equine businesses, and deep roots in the Lake Harbor community.

🩵 Blue Creek Schools

Where the band's kids go to school. They chose the district first and built their lives around it.

🟠 Narnia

Stevey and Greyson Evans's ten acres — a home, eventually a studio and lab. The name says everything about what it means to them.

Community Landmarks

Pizza Knights

The first place Chasing Atlas ever played. It didn't know it was historic. Neither did they.

Unity House

An after-school program that was part of Ben Marlow's life from kindergarten on. Not a background detail — a foundation.

King Pins

The local bowling alley. Where these kids spent their weekends before any of this happened.

Screen Queens

The local movieplex. Small town, familiar places, the texture of a life before fame.

Pine Lake Villas

In August 2004 — eight months after Atlas, Awake made them wealthy enough to do whatever they wanted* — Chasing Atlas relocated to Pine Lake Villas. A gated lakefront community. Six sub-neighborhoods. Three entry gates.

They bought five of the seven houses. That's who they are, according to Hannah.

The Sound of Chasing Atlas

Some stories are best understood through music.

Each Chasing Atlas album has a curated playlist — a way to feel the sound of where the band was in that moment, before the books are in your hands. Start at the EP and listen forward. Or jump to Atlas At Last and work backward. Either way, twenty-eight years of a band's life is waiting.

Studio Albums & EP

Chasing Atlas EP | May 1999 | Playlist Available

01 | Chasing Atlas | July 2002 | Playlist Available

02 | Atlas, Awake | March 2004 | Playlist Available

03 | Leaving Gravity | August 2006 | Playlist Available

04 | Northbound Light | August 2008 | Playlist Available

05 | Skyline Static | September 2012 | In Progress

06 | False Horizon | July 2016 | In Progress

07 | Signal Fires | October 2019 | In Progress

08 | Echoes of Atlas | November 2023 | In Progress

09 | Long Way Home | October 2027 | In Progress

10 | Atlas At Last | July 2030 | In Progress

Special Releases

Chasing Naps | 2011 | Playlist Available

Motown Tribute | 2024 | Playlist Available

Soundtracks, Collabs & Features | 1999 – 2030 | Playlist Available

A Note on Chasing Naps

In 2011, somewhere between tour dates and everything else, Ben Marlow made lo-fi lullabies for his kids.
Before lo-fi was even a thing people talked about. The whole band showed up anyway. That's who they are.

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