Confessions
Interview with Mishka Shubaly
Words: Becca Nelson

Mishka Shubaly makes music, which is as timeless-sounding as it is fresh and new. A native Coloradoan who was a self-described “shut-in” until the age of thirty, Shubaly fascinated me from the get-go. His recent release How To Make a Bad Situation Even Worse, released this year on Terra Soul, features a satisfyingly self-deprecating selection of alcohol-inspired gems.  Mishka is a singer-songwriter with no qualms about placing his art in the timeline of such musicians as Johnny Cash, Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt.  Shubaly nevertheless speaks to a younger, but equally as drunk and self-hating, generation of broken-hearted and boozing quarter-life crisisers. Having played with a who’s who of indie supergroups, from Metric and Broken Social Scene to The Bronx, I wanted to ask him about his experience being a folk artist in the center of this shiny and sometimes pretentious scene. I had a rather cheerful conversation with the Brooklynite about his art and his life, and while assuring me in the beginning that he was “ready to talk shit about any and everyone,” displayed an optimistic outlook on fame, fortune and future relationships. 

REAX:  So, tell me how you started doing what you’re doing. You have been writing and playing music since you were a very young kid, right?
Mishka Shubaly:  I started playing guitar when I was about six, and just couldn’t wait to be a huge star.  I got more serious about it and just sort of locked myself up, wrote, played, …and drank and drank.  Then I wrote a couple songs that I thought were good, and other people thought they were good, so I decided that was it… I was moving to New York to become a huge star.

It’s an awesome experience moving to New York from somewhere else.  I know people who have lived here their entire lives, and so then there’s no legend to New York.  But for me, it was like, “Oh, I have to meet the right person, and I’ll get my big break.” Ten years down the line, I realize that… no, that’s not how things happen. It’s a lot of shoe leather and a lot of CDs you give away for free that no one will ever listen to. It’s a lot of time and money that you will never, ever get back.

REAX:  I love what you do. The sound is old.  It’s an ancient style of music, it’s an ancient art: to be a man, with his guitar and his booze. But, you’re making it relevant, and I think for a lot of kids that maybe don’t have the relationship to this older style of music, you are educating them while entertaining them.
MS: A big thing for me is the writing and the lyrics, the music is G, C and D. I’m not doing much to reinvent the instrument, but I hope that lyrically I’m depressing people to a degree that they haven’t been before and in a way they haven’t been before. But, you know I think the shit is funny, too!

I think people have a hard time seeing themselves as players in sad stories and not just as an audience member. When the anvil falls on Wiley Coyote’s head, it’s hilarious.  When it happens to you, it’s tragic. I remember telling this horrific story about absolute heartbreak to a couple of close friends.  It was about this girl just taunting me about an ex-girlfriend when I was on acid, saying “DID YOU LOVE HER, DID YOU LOVE HER?” I told them this in a moment of drunken weakness. About four days later I see this guy across the street, who I’d met once before.  He looked at me and said, “Yo, man, what’s up! Did you LOVE HER?” He was right, and I was wrong. It IS funny, and it’s hard to see it at the time.

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