Pop Shop Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

West Virginia has a rich musical history, and in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Morgantown-based band The Argument was a proud part of that tradition. But after almost a decade of touring and a few appearances on Mountain Stage, the band went their separate ways.

Now, after close to 20 years of inactivity and most of the members moving away from the state, The Argument is releasing new music.

Reporter Chris Schulz sat down with The Argument’s Chris Russell and Scott Simons to discuss collaborating online and Morgantown’s enduring impact on their music.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Schulz: So Chris, first off, can you tell me what is The Argument?

Russell: The Argument started playing 1997 in Morgantown. Had a really nice run of 10 years of touring the country back and forth and recording music. Scott, you want to take over from there?

Simons: We were like 19, 20, 21 and we just started playing. We didn’t have a plan, we had no idea what we were doing, and then I don’t know, it just ended up lasting 10 years. We really had no idea what we were doing. It just kind of kept, in a good way, snowballing and we just sort of followed it and tried to keep up.

Schulz: And how exactly would you categorize the band’s sound?

Simons: We’ve kind of fallen into power-pop, I guess, would be the genre, somewhere like in the pop-rock world. Then by the time we broke up we were kind of, admittedly maybe chasing trends of the mid-2000s. We had certain elements to our songwriting that we liked, but the sound changed a lot over time. I’d say now, we’ve kind of just gone back to what we liked doing the most, which was the power-pop stuff, the second record.

Schulz: Chris, do you have anything to add to that?

Russell: I really enjoy making music now. I kind of feel like with the first few releases and songs that we really got to put out and finish, I kind of felt like we pressed pause, and for a really long time, and then just unpaused it. These next couple are just sort of the fun of revisiting, the fun of those days of being together.

Schulz: Tell me a little bit more about how you all ended up coming back together, what the motivation was there.

Simons: Maybe we didn’t realize it at the time or fully realize that at the time, but we were so lucky that our 20s were spent in a van for five days a week with three of our best friends. I think we’ve also seen other bands that we’d love to hear again, and not have a chance, the bands that we came up with.

With the way technology is and the pandemic forced us into a way of using technology that maybe we didn’t know what we were capable of. It just felt like a perfect storm of, if we have the songs, why don’t we just do it? Let’s just figure it out.

Schulz: Chris, what’s in it for you? What made you want to start making music with the band again?

Russell: Scott has been the main songwriter for The Argument since the beginning, and has always been really good about bringing it in and putting our little spin on stuff. He brought in songs that just fit. It immediately got us talking again. The chat messages, four way messages going off 50 in a row because somebody’s excited about stuff. Getting back together was a no-brainer if we could make it work. It’s always been an issue, 17 years of moving sometimes further apart. But with technology, it’s been really great being able to demo some songs and things like that.

Schulz: Scott, what about you?

Simons: What Chris said. It really comes down to songs. And there was such a specific way of writing when we were together that I guess was hard to find again. You know it’s different when you’re writing stuff when you’re 26, now I’m 46. It was trying to figure out, “What did we used to do and how do we just do that and have fun?” I think the biggest difference between the two things is now we just want to be together. We want to write fun music. We want to tell good stories, and we love just seeing people online have that nostalgia for the sound.

Schulz: What role does Morgantown and West Virginia continue to play in your music, despite the fact that a few of you have moved on?

Russell: We left Morgantown two years ago for North Carolina, but Morgantown for us, for me, has been since the ’90s my home. It’s been, even though I’m from another place in West Virginia, I consider it home. And it’s so awesome to go back to a place where you had so many roots put down for so many years, and still see a lot of the same people and then their kids.

Simons: There was no other town that we could have done what we did. We got to be in this vibrant college town in the middle of nowhere in the middle of everything at the same time. We could get to New York City in one trip in six hours and we could get to Charlotte in six or seven hours. We could get to Chicago in eight to 10 hours and we could get to Nashville in 10 hours. We were in the middle of everything with low overhead, teaching lessons and being involved in the community. We got to educate kids there at the time through private lessons, some of us in schools. Now those kids are killing it, and so we get to see that happen, which is incredible.

We took pride at the time being from Morgantown and being from West Virginia and busting stereotypes. Now for us, all our memories and everything emotional about the band centers around our time being in Morgantown. You can’t, I mean, there’s no way to separate The Argument from Morgantown, even if the members move out. That’s part of who we are.

Schulz: Before you moved away Chris, you started a local music school here in Morgantown called Pop Shop. And between that and the band, I was curious to know what you think about your legacy locally.

Russell: In The Argument, we started Pop Shop. Can we teach the younger generation, high school students about vocal blending? Or can we talk about songwriting or the business of what we do and how we stay on the road? It’s amazing to see the bands that have come from that program, and how they’re sort of populating a lot of the bands around there. The word I hear over and over again is, “I wish this was around when I was young.”

Simons: I wish it was around when I was young.

Russell: Same. You know, I really do but you know, we found our own way somehow, and then we can help others to find a way. And the people that we employ in Pop Shop are musicians.

Simons: I’m really proud of the legacy we left with our music and our community involvement. And I’m really happy that we get to somehow still touch that nerve and exercise those muscles and do it again.

——

The Argument’s single “Drag” is out now with more music on the way.

People ask, “It’s a rock school. How do they graduate from this?” And I always say, “We win (and they graduate) when they go make music, play in bands and go out into the community on their own. That’s when everyone wins.”

From West Virginia Public Broadcasting and A Change of Tune, this is 30 Days of #WVmusic, the interview series celebrating the folks who make the West Virginia music scene wild and wonderful.

And today’s interview is for the young rockers and the young rockers-at-heart. In the words of Jack Black, “you are not hardcore, unless you live hardcore,” and this School of Rock-esque facility is definitely hardcore. From Morgantown, West Virginia, this… is PopShopWV.

PopShopWV is currently in session. You can rock enroll and learn about the classes and summer camps on their website and social media. Hear more #WVmusic on A Change of Tune, airing Saturday nights at 10 on West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Connect with A Change of Tune on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And for more #WVmusic chats, make sure to go to wvpublic.org/wvmusic and subscribe to our RSS / podcast feeds.

PopShopWV during their Springfest 2017 in Morgantown.

Interview Highlights

On what PopShopWV is:

PopShop is a non-profit arts academy located in Morgantown. We take students in the area that want to learn music. Specifically, our vehicle to teaching them music and the musical instruments is popular music, country music, rock music, metal, hip-hop and blues. The goal of PopShop is to not only teach them how to play their instruments, but the underlying goal is to bring students in the area (age eight to adult) and put them in groups together and let them work together.

The major thing that a lot of these students are doing in school is playing in large ensembles, and they can kind of hide behind something if they don’t know their part as much. We stress that it’s a small group, and everybody has their own part; if that part is not there, then the final song does not sound the same, so it’s important to be courageous in how you play it, whether it’s singing or playing a solo or even just supporting the band and sitting in the background to do your part.

I’m a product of the public school system in music, and it was a little bit of the folk stuff every now and then. You got some James Taylor every now and then, but it switched around middle and high school to classical music. I love that stuff and love listening to [classical], but what kept me in music and what brings me back are the Billy Joel’s, the Elton John’s, the Beatles. And a lot of these kids are finding the same things from their parents. We’re teaching them artists, and they’re teaching us about new artists. It’s a great thing for everyone.

PopShop’s SpringFest 2017 in Morgantown.

On the formation of PopShopWV:

PopShop is the product of a band I was in from the late ‘90s called The Argument. We were all teaching music whether in schools or privately, and as we were touring, we had days off. So we decided, “What if we contact the schools and see if we can teach what we know using popular music?” Like vocal blending, the business of music and maybe the students and teachers would want to hear it. That started in 2003. In 2004, the Appalachian Education Initiative helped us find a grant through the Justin Timberlake Foundation that opened some doors and helped us find some of the hardest hit arts schools in West Virginia and allowed us to go to these schools, put on concerts and teach them about popular music.

In 2010, after the band had broken up, I started the actual school itself. It was a small affair. We had 11 kids, all homeschooled. It’s grown to this day, almost seven years later, with over 90 students of all ages and 20 groups. We’ve had a lot of students in-and-out [over the last seven years]. What’s cool about that is some of them teach with us now. From students to now teachers, they’ve been a great asset to our program.

On how PopShopWV operates:

PopShop is for students of all ages. We take students that have no experience or years-and-years of experience. We expect for them to come in and want to play with us, to learn, to want to play with other people and use it as a group effort to make something great. They might not be great players after a six-week session, but we’ll want them to want to know more, maybe pursue lessons.

Most of the younger students have their eyes set on an instrument [before they start], but we give them an opportunity to try anything. We have a very young group called The Blackouts, some seven-year-old’s in the band, and they are happy playing anything you put in their hands. They’re actually becoming a good little band; every time I see them, they blow me away.

We have students that come as far as away as Buckannon. We have students from Fairmont, Maryland, Pennsylvania and a lot of students in Morgantown (of course), but we’re always blown away when a student finds us from a little further away and wants to drive to let us teach them music.

Our instructors are not necessarily schooled musicians, but they have a lot of performance experience so they can actually relay that to students that things might not always go right; sometimes, you have to find a way around things. As a performing musician, that’s one of the important things you can do: overcoming problems, not using shortcuts to being a good musician, but learning how to handle when things aren’t exactly as they should be. They also do a good job of introducing music to these groups, and we all come from different musical backgrounds. Brian Spragg is one of our music technology instructors, as well as Walt Sarkees. Those guys couldn’t be from more different musical backgrounds, and I love hearing them talk about their passions for music.

Recognize the musical faces inside PopShopWV HQ?

On PopShopWV’s relationship with #WVmusic:

We have never done a series or session on just West Virginia musicians, but we have used Bill Withers’ music. He’s one of our favorites. Our students really, really relate to songs like “Lean On Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine.” It’s been great to use him as a model and also have some time with him. We actually got to Skype with him in December 2015, and we all were really blown away. He talked about perseverance and working through everything and wanting to make it happen. A lot of students needed to hear that.

PopShop students Hazel Iafrate and Zorrah Lawson.

The thing we strive for here in West Virginia (and whenever we Skype with musicians around the world), we get to ask them the question, “How were you shaped by where you grew up musically and as a person?” And we always get really great answers from that because a lot of students in West Virginia may think, “Well, I’m just from West Virginia, and I can’t do anything because I’m from here.” And Bill Withers might be the perfect example of what you can do as a West Virginian. We want to produce musicians (and people) who think that they can do anything and be from anywhere and work hard enough to do [what they want].

Young rock’n voices featured in this #WVmusic chat:

Sydney Wiley (15-years-old)

Zorrah Lawson (8-years-old)

Hazel Iafrate (8-years-old)

Support for 30 Days of #WVmusic is provided by Made in WV, a specialty apparel company made by and for proud West Virginians. Online at madeinwv.com.

Support for 30 Days of #WVmusic is provided by Kin Ship Goods, proud supporter of DIY music and the arts. Locally shipped worldwide at kinshipgoods.com.

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