Biography
Mishka Shubaly channels the hard-earned insights from his unsettled past into his dual pursuits as author and recording artist. Born and raised in Ontario, he endured an especially difficult youth marked by his parents’ separation, which he discovered on the same day gunfire erupted at his school, followed by the loss of the family home after his father’s departure left his mother unable to meet the mortgage. While holding a job at a burger restaurant as a teenager, he began composing songs during off-hours and simultaneously took up drinking; by the time he reached Columbia University, addiction to alcohol and drugs had become entrenched.
He nevertheless completed an M.F.A. in Fiction there, yet music soon overtook his earlier literary ambitions. After graduation he took to the road, delivering stark material in a coarse yet emotive voice at independent clubs across the country. His first EP, So Long, appeared in 2004, followed by Thanks for Letting Me Crash in 2005. A third EP, To Hell with You, surfaced in 2006, and his debut full-length, How to Make a Bad Situation Worse, arrived in 2007. During those years he also played bass in Freshkills, whose own first album, Creeps and Lovers, came out in 2007, and he collaborated with the groups RIBS and Rumanian Buck.
Following an extended tour with comedian Doug Stanhope in 2009, Shubaly achieved sobriety and began running, shifts that soon shaped his creative direction. He returned to prose in 2011 with the autobiographical Kindle Single Shipwrecked, which found unexpected success and led to additional experience-based digital releases that built a devoted readership and reliable income. That online momentum resulted in a book contract with Public Affairs Press for a memoir slated for 2016, but he continued making music and issued Coward's Path in 2015, his first album since becoming sober.
He nevertheless completed an M.F.A. in Fiction there, yet music soon overtook his earlier literary ambitions. After graduation he took to the road, delivering stark material in a coarse yet emotive voice at independent clubs across the country. His first EP, So Long, appeared in 2004, followed by Thanks for Letting Me Crash in 2005. A third EP, To Hell with You, surfaced in 2006, and his debut full-length, How to Make a Bad Situation Worse, arrived in 2007. During those years he also played bass in Freshkills, whose own first album, Creeps and Lovers, came out in 2007, and he collaborated with the groups RIBS and Rumanian Buck.
Following an extended tour with comedian Doug Stanhope in 2009, Shubaly achieved sobriety and began running, shifts that soon shaped his creative direction. He returned to prose in 2011 with the autobiographical Kindle Single Shipwrecked, which found unexpected success and led to additional experience-based digital releases that built a devoted readership and reliable income. That online momentum resulted in a book contract with Public Affairs Press for a memoir slated for 2016, but he continued making music and issued Coward's Path in 2015, his first album since becoming sober.
Albums
