Soupy Campbell of The Wonder Years has announced that he has started a charity clothing company called Shallow Water. The company will feature limited edition and staple shirts by different artists with half of the profits going to charity. You can read a full message from Campbell discussing Shallow Water below by clicking “Read More”.

(tl;dr version- Limited editions shirts by talented artists with half the profits going to charity and some staple shirts you can get anytime.)

I’d like to begin with an apology. I know that being the singer of a marginally (at best) successful band and starting a clothing line is well worn territory. I have begun my descent into living a cliche and while I’ve yet to come to fully to terms with it, I’d like to let you know that I’m self-aware enough to realize that I am not breaking new ground. You’ve read this story before and for that, I’m sorry.

However, you will not find shirts that say “slut” or “whore” in giant text on them. These are not poorly developed Photoshop files sloppily screen-printed onto American Apparel tri-blends and forced on you by weird dudes that follow the Warped Tour. You won’t find a new line of six million shirts every month in a sad attempt to keep you interested in something that was never interesting in the first place. In fact, if all goes to plan, half the time, you might have trouble getting these shirts and I know that that seems counter-intuitive to the nature of a company, but hear me out:

Of course we’re going to have t-shirts that you can always get, but there won’t be many of them. I’m not looking to flood the market with these. I just want to provide a few simple, recognizable designs to further the “brand,” but that’s only the begining. The real crux of the company lies in the idea that, in buying a shirt from us, you’re buying something special, creative and limited and at the same time, are doing some good for the world.

Each month, we’ll be launching a new shirt designed by a new artist for a new charity. For each shirt, I’ll be prompting a pool of artists with a particular cause in order to find the artist with the strongest connection to the cause and a design that captures that connection. Each month’s shirt will serve a purpose and after that purpose is served, the shirt will no longer be available. Ever. So, for instance, if the goal of a certain month is to buy two families a cow through the Heifer Foundation, I would calculate how many t-shirt sales would accomplish that goal and that’s what orders will be capped at. If 100 shirts accomplishes that goal, then only 100 shirts will be sold. If you didn’t get your shirt in time, you’ll be out of luck. If you did, you’ll be promptly sent your shirt along with a hand-screened and numbered card thanking you for your contribution and authenticating that you are one of the few owners of that shirt.

I’m hoping to be able to bring consistent quality apparel to you without any of the bullshit. It’s pretty simple. One shirt a month for one cause plus a few shirts you can get just to, you know, support the whole idea. So, as much as I know that no one needs another company started by another vocalist, I was hoping I could get away with doing this because I think it’s a cool concept and I wanna go for it. Are we still cool? No hard feelings? Alright, word. Thanks.