John Scargall ‘08 has had remarkable success in his musical career so far.
John Scargall. Most probably know him but for those who don’t, he is a Malvern alum who is currently enjoying success in a singing songwriting career.
At Malvern, Scargall participated in the musicals, men’s chorus, and liturgical music. But he always had a passion for business too.
After graduating, Scargall attended Millersville University. In college, John owned a couple companies, one of which was a fundraiser for student organizations at a couple colleges. He would talk to companies such as Rhapsody and Overstock and arrange deals. He didn’t get involved musically at Millersville until senior year.
After Millersville, he got a job in procurement financial analysis for Boeing. His work helped to analyze the cost of the products for Boeing. He had that job for about six months until he realized that “music is my thing” and pursued his passion.
Scargall’s passion has really payed off for him. His song “The Wind’s Always Gonna Blow” has had regional success, and John has an album coming out sometime this year. His live performing career has also been in full spin recently. Currently he is performing at NASCAR events up and down the east coast.
Scargall most recently performed at Malvern during the Faculty-Student basketball game. “You know, I love coming back to this school,” he said. “Just being here when I was here was a big deal. I was the first one from my grade school to go to a place like Malvern. I loved it.”
“For me personally, it’s just the values that I live by: to give back to the people that have helped me. I love coming back here because I have time and I can,” he said.
Last summer was the first time that one of Scargall’s songs was played on local radio. 93.7 WSTW was the first to play his music, and now he’s on six FM stations.
“It’s insane to even hear the Malvern chorus sing my stuff because I was in chorus and I sung famous songs and just to know that my song is on that list is like wow, this is awesome,” said Scargall.
Since his recent success, John has accumulated quite the reputation around campus. Some go as far as calling him a Malvern “legend.”
“It’s crazy because when I was here I knew everyone but now I don’t know anyone yet everyone knows who I am,” Scargall said.
On his upcoming album, every song is either written by or co-written by Scargall. Most of his melodies are written by Christian O’Connor, a fellow Malvern alumnus. Scargall appreciates being able to have the message in his songs be what he believes in. He has given several presentations in Creative Writing classes at Malvern related to his songwriting work.
“The Wind’s Always Gonna Blow” is probably Scargall’s biggest song so far. He noted that the mssage behind this song is, “There’s always things you can be upset about even if you’re having the best time.” He said he does not pander for an audience.
Scargall has done pretty well as a musician who has not technically released any songs. He has a total of 0 songs on Amazon and Itunes right now. However, he will be officially releasing an album in the very near future. “It’s been awesome already and we haven’t even done the official thing yet,” he said.
If you’ve heard The Wind’s Always Gonna Blow, you may be wondering what it means to ride a hurricane into a dream. Scargall said, “For some reason it made sense…I guess I was trying to stick with the wind thing… You can either let the hurricane keep you down or you can harness the power to propel you to where you want to go.”
As a Malvern man, John tries to apply the spirituality he learned on campus into his life. Christian Service helped him a lot. He particularly likes helping others with no expectation of getting anything in return. He still tries to work service into his day-to-day life. “That feeling you get is a reward in itself,” he said.
As far as inspiration goes, it doesn’t get much better than what John had to say on following your passion. “You don’t always have to be in a cubicle,” he said. “I want to show people to follow their passion. You don’t have to sacrifice your love for it if you really do love it.”
