Lubalin Turns Over Emotional Stones With “long txts”

Lubalin doesn’t consider himself a singer in the traditional sense. Rather, he is a producer still learning how to best utilize his own voice in song. As evidenced with “long txts,” he certainly knows how to push the limits without going overboard, perfectly capturing a deep-throated snarl to give the song an extra punch.

Across his catalog, including a self-titled debut EP and last year’s viral sensation “internet drama,” Lubalin has a firm grasp on exactly how to center his voice in both dark and light musical tones. “When I’m recording a lead vocal, I listen back to almost every take I record right away. I think this has helped me kind of tune in to different parts of my voice and figure out when to use them,” the Montreal-based creative tells American Songwriter.

He also allows himself to follow potentially fruitless paths as a way to experiment and perhaps sculpt smaller bits he can later repurpose. “It’s a different mindset to a live performance, where you want to be consistently good,” he continues, “but at some point, I also started regularly doing vocal warmups and exercises.” What’s resulted is a much “more solid foundation,” further allowing him to find a grove where he can work more quickly and safer. “And the good takes are just straight up better.”

Okay, sending long texts, getting long texts back / Shadows in my head that made my heart turn black, sings Lubalin, reaching to the furthest edges of his vocal range. Turned a couple stones I could never turn back / You said some things to me I should’ve never said back.

During a Greyhound trip, feeling a bit bored, he glanced over to another passenger’s phone and noticed blocks and blocks of text in what could only be a passionate exchange. He was immediately struck by a common tendency to simplify very complicated aspects of relationships and sidestep what is really going on. Lubalin plays narrator in the song, but finds himself reflecting on his own personal experiences.

“Sometimes, I write something that I think isn’t really about me. Then, when I step back, it’s like, ‘oh no, yeah, that’s definitely about me.’ I just tricked myself into writing it. In general, I’m hoping to make things where people can pull what they want ─ maybe what they need—out of it. Releasing personal, specific songs can be messy, and I don’t think it’s vital to that goal,” he says. “I’d rather paint a picture, pulling from different parts of my experience, but also from the experiences of others.”

Whether it’s the languid guitar slipping through a song like “floating,” his voice emerging almost ghost-like, or confronting random “internet drama,” Lubalin has a way of dissecting “the nature of being human” with great “nuance in between things. I guess it’s like, if I can pull from here and there and a bit of this and a bit of that, maybe I can achieve this emotion, this feeling, this experience when you hear the song—that is hopefully unique and captivating and inspiring.”

Riding a wave of inspiration these days, it might come as a total shock that Lubalin “used to think songwriting was not something you could learn,” he admits. “Like, ‘how are you gonna tell me what to write?’ That didn’t really make any sense to me. Recently, I kinda got over that and realized it’s all about tools. It’s not about…a template to fill in.” Rather, it’s a songwriter’s duty to interpret and deliver art through wildly different lenses, perhaps reconfiguring their own biases and preconceptions.

“I think the biggest evolution for me was when I stopped trying to look and sound cool. And I’m surely still guilty of that, but there was a point where I just started trying to remove the self-righteousness, the ego, from my music,” he continues. “The crazy thing about everyone having their own perspective is that we all think we’re right. So, these days, I’m kind of just wondering, ‘what if I’m wrong?’ I feel like that’s more interesting than ‘here’s why I’m right and you’re wrong.’ If I’m gonna talk about someone’s faults in a song, it should probably be my own.”

Songwriting initially began in bite-sized 45-second clips. While his songs largely remain rather short (“long txts” is just over two minutes long), Lubalin is “always racing against the fact that I will eventually wear the song out for myself,” he says. “There’s a certain point where you’ve heard a song so many times you don’t really hear it anymore. That sort of limits how much you can do before you lose the magic. I also start a lot more songs than I finish, which means I’ve got less actual practice finishing songs. Lately, I’ve just been trying to get to that third chorus.”

With his new-found TikTok fame (2.7 million followers and counting), Lubalin has also had plenty of time to discover other musicians and artists. Those who standout most in his mind include Jensen McRae, Jax, known famously for rearranging popular songs with a hilariously different perspective (see: Sia’s “Chandelier” but through the eyes of a housekeeper), Petey USA (whose “comedy sketches are a sublime blend of absurd and casual”), and twin sister duo Kiran + Nivi.

Photo by Denise Audette