Scars & Stories was recorded beginning in March 2011, and concluded in July 2011. Unlike their debut album How to Save a Life and their self-titled second album, which were both produced by Aaron Johnson and Mike Flynn, their third album was produced by Brendan O'Brien. During a performance at the Hard Rock cafe in Boston, Massachusetts, Isaac Slade stated that the album Scars & Stories was named after a B-side that did not make it onto the third record. He went on to explain that each of the band members have been through a lot of hardships, but collectively they were able to pull through.

"We've been through a lot of stuff personally, and as band we're still together, and I think we like the idea of scars you know, because they're healed you know. They are not like wounds necessarily, but they're still kind of a road map of where you been, and sometimes kinda point to where you want to go."

The album artwork was revealed on November 16, 2011; following the video premiere of the first single, Heartbeat.

The album was made available to pre-order on October 18, 2011 on the band's website. On December 20, 2011 the deluxe edition of the album became available for pre-order on iTunes, featuring 5 bonus tracks; all covers. In addition, the band made the single "The Fighter" available for download.

Writing and Recording ::
During an interview with Vevo the band revealed that they used part of the album's budget to travel and see the world before writing and recording songs for Scars and Stories. The band wrote over 70 songs, and narrowed it down to what they hoped were the [best 12 songs], most of which were heavily influenced by their travels abroad. For instance, the first single "Heartbeat" was inspired by a trip to Rwanda. Slade talked about his encounter with an expatriate women who was talking about the genocides in Rwanda. In the midst of their conversation she held his hand, and he could feel a pulse, but was unable to tell if it was his pulse or her's.

Also the song the sixth track titled "1961", personifies the Berlin Wall, as two brothers that are at odds with each other:

"We wrote that song about The Berlin Wall and the division it represented in regards to one unified city becoming two cities still under the covering of a country. They're both German, but in a sense, they were as far from each other as they could possibly be. I think that's how our relationships can be sometimes. Not to sound cliché, but we all as people build these walls that don't really come down until someone comes into our lives, tears them down, and says, "Enough!""

In addition the eight track on the album titled "Munich" follows the same mode of inspiration, as it is inspired by a particle collider in Switzerland. During an interview Slade mentions that "...they're looking for the God Particle, basically, the particle that holds it all together. That song is really just about the mystery of why we're all here and what's holding it all together, you know?"

Joe King explained "You pull from different locations and places. There’s the cultures and the different people you meet living life...You have to live life, you have to have experiences in order to be able to write stories.” Such stories served as the inspiration for the tenth track titled "48 To Go". During an interview with Jim Shearer on VH1's Big Morning Buzz Live Slade revealed that inspiration for this song came from a road trip he and his wife, Anna took (while they were just dating) from Denver, Colorado to Los Angeles. During the road trip they stopped multiple times to "make-out"; as a result they became lost and ended up 600 miles off course; as Isaac Slade put it "...[we were] two states in and forty-eight states to go".

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