PropertyOfZack hopped on the phone with Soupy Campbell last week to discuss his relatively new clothing company, Shallow Water. Soupy and I discussed how the company was created, the moral and ideas behind it, the reaction to the initial shirts, how Shallow Water stays running while The Wonder Years are busy, and next month’s limited edition shirt, among other things. Check it out, it’s a great read!

Shallow Water was launched in October, but when did you start thinking about creating Shallow Water?
Shallow Water came to my head this past summer. We were on Warped Tour and there were so many shitty clothing lines run by people with no shame or sense of morality. People were more comfortable pushing really young kids to buy t-shirts that said things like “I love dirty girls” and so much other bullshit like that. Mitch, our photographer who was on tour with us, got in a fight with this company one day arguing back and forth about how we thought they were fucked up. We had a whole group of bands surrounding us like The Menzingers, The Narrative, Moving Mountains, and Every Avenue and a few others. Everyone was backing Mitch up on this and the guy kept on saying, “Well fuck you, I make three grand a day selling these shirts.” He made three grand a day doing something that was morally bankrupt. I also don’t believe he made three grand a day, but that’s neither here nor there. I just thought maybe I could offer up something that had a little more substance and thought in it that would have a little more care for the artist and design and about the people buying the shirts. And not to make three grand a day, but to make some of that money and give some of it to people that need it.
 
Over the past few years everyone has sort of talked about how this community of bands are coming together once again to make quality music. Is it sort of the same message but with the clothing line?
Yeah, I’m hoping to carry the same kind of ethics that I carry with The Wonder Years and all the bands that we’re affiliated with. We’re on the same team with a lot of different bands right now. We may not play the same music, but bands like La Dispute, Into It. Over It., Man Overboard, Mixtapes - We’re not the same, but we’re on the same team ethically. I’m trying to bring that concept to the clothing company.
 
The Wonder Years is obviously your full time just, so how did you go about starting this up with a select amount of time?
It’s hard and down to the wire, but I have really awesome people working for me, one of which is my dad. He helps me update the website. John, who runs Cold Cuts, has also been really seminal and incredibly important to the whole process. Having those two involved has been awesome. James Heimer did the logo, and he’s been a best friend of mine for years. He does all The Wonder Years artwork. We also send out authenticity cards with the limited edition shirts that are hand screened and hand numbered. James prints those all by hand as well. 
 
Was there any back lash when you first started Shallow Water?
It seemed like everyone was cool with it, and if they weren’t, they were quiet about it. It’s sort of a hard thing to argue against considering there are so many clothing lines out there doing such shoddy work for no greater gain. While I’m totally able to admit that this isn’t 100% charitable considering only one shirt a month goes to charity, it’s still better than the alternative I guess. 
 
You’ve released three shirts so far, two of which sold out within 24 hours, if not less. Can you just talk about the reactions you’ve had with such great support from fans?
They sold out way faster than that. One of them sold out in 40 minutes and one of them sold out in two hours or under two hours. I made two mistakes with the third one: One being that we did it on white t-shirts and apparently nobody likes white t-shirts. Thomas Nassiff from AbsolutePunk made a really funny point about it. He tweeted something like, “This t-shirt’s white and I listen to punk rock.” I laughed real hard at that. I also launched it on New Year’s day and realized nobody would be paying attention because it’s a holiday. We’re launching the fourth one now though.
POZ: Sales have been good regardless, but has everything gone better than you hoped for?
Soupy: I was really worried about it. I had all these contingency plans set up for the first month if they didn’t sell well. I put the first one on sale during the Pop Punk’s Not Dead Tour and then went to see Set Your Goals play their set. By the time I came back, the shirts were gone. 
 
Have fans been excited about the shirts that are not limited? Like the bomb ones?
The bomb shirts are doing really well too. It was a no-brainer choice for me to go with James. I think the bomb is awesome and people seem to like it.

How do you go about picking the charities for the limited edition shirts?
I chose the first charity because I thought it’d be good to kick it off myself with an idea. I honed the process down from there and I’ll hit up a few artists to see if anyone is interested in doing a shirt and to see what charity they’d like to do. I think the most important thing is that the artist has a connection to the charity they’re trying to help. That’s really going to fuel the best design work.
 
Each Shallow Water limited edition shirt has been limited, but you’re continue to up the amount of shirts with each new release. Are you planning to continue doing that?
I think we’re pulling it down this month. We have a special artist for February and I guess I can tell you. We can do like an exclusive reveal [Laughs]. It’s Adam Vass, the bass player of La Dispute. He’s doing the February shirt, and I think it’ll be extra special if his shirt is lower in quantity than last month’s. I think people will be excited about it. It’s one of my favorite designs so far. It’s cool that Adam wanted to get involved. He’s been a good friend for years and we’ve been trying to find the right charity to work on together and he hit me up with an idea and I loved it. 
 
It obviously takes some time to put all of this in motion, so how far down the line are these shirts planned out with the artists and charities?
February is done. We’re working on March now, and I also have a few other people, my dad included, that are working on a piece when they have spare time. When they finish it we’ll find a slot for it.
 
Everything that The Wonder Years or Shallow Water does typically involves close friends. Is it just a bonus to be able to work with your friends on something that can be so rewarding like this?
It is. It’s the best way to do it. We have so many people that are so close to us with so much talent. It’d be ridiculous to not use that talent. It’s great because it makes it all real easy and I get to work with friends. There’s no flowery business language involved. It’s just, “Do you want to do this?” “Hell yeah. Lets get it done.”
 
I think it’s interesting that The Wonder Years are one of a few bands that seem to be pretty aware of the fact that there’s obviously a good chance that things will not last forever, not that they need to end anytime soon. Is Shallow Water also just a good way for you to explore other things that fascinate you in music for the future?
It is. The Wonder Years obviously sell t-shirts too and we’re involved in that, but it’s good   to learn how to run a business by myself, I guess. I’m hard pressed to call it a business though.
 
Will you be branching Shallow Water out in any sort of way? In terms of other kinds of collaborations?
I’ve been thinking about doing some Shallow Water sessions where myself and another artist will cover a song. I did one, and it’s done, but we’re just waiting on the edit. I’m hoping to make that into a series. So every once in a while we’ll do an acoustic cover of a song and we’ll be wearing Shallow Water clothes to tie it in.