In the world of local music, everyone’s a sprinter.

Occasionally someone can run long distances, but seldom does a true marathon runner come along.

After thriving for four years on the local scene, members of Des Moines pop-rock band Stuck with Arthur are still breaking in their running shoes. Though the band has been able to stay focused on the finish line, they haven’t forgotten what it was like at the gunshot.

“You have to start by begging for shows,” says Adam Bartelt, lead vocalist and guitarist.

In the fall of 2001, that’s just what three guys who met in their Dallas Center-Grimes jazz band decided they would start doing.

Not knowing anyone on the scene and searching for shows to play for free, the band persevered through the beginning years because there was nothing else the group wanted to do.

“We’re not in the band just to say we’re in a band,” says Thomas Logan, guitarist and background vocalist.

“Some bands get all rock-starred out. We just want to show up and play,” says Chris Ford, drummer for the band and junior in electrical engineering.

The band has seen the local music scene change considerably in the past four years, with only two or three bands still around from when it started.

Bartelt says the scene is completely different now, having lost the pop-rock feel and moving more toward trendy genres like emo.

“It used to be more like a community or a club and now people are asking for our autographs,” Ford says.

He says the band’s ever-increasing popularity has been an energizing factor, especially when a fourth member was added six months ago and the new sound received rave reviews.

Bartelt says doors have been opened wide for songwriting, and now the band has moved into an updated 1970s rock feel.

He says the new sound is powerful and instrumentally driven, and it’s drawing in all sorts of people.

“We’re not really playing for our friends anymore,” Bartelt says.

Today the band members live two hours apart and only get the chance to see one another at shows on the weekends. Ford says they try to be practical about it, but it can be difficult to focus on school, the band and everything else going on.

At one point, Ford decided that maybe the band should quit, but Spencer Ford, bassist for the band, says the decision was short-lived.

“Chris called me and said, ‘In my heart I really want to do this,’ and stuff like that. It was really cute,” Spencer says.

Although he says he knows it’s hard to make it in the music world, Spencer remains optimistic about the possibilities that come with each new venture.

“Honestly, I just don’t want to have a normal job,” Spencer says. “I just want to play music.”