Buckley, WA native Gabe Kubanda (formerly of the band Letters Burning) has lived a pretty successful life. Not only has he jammed with rock-n-roll royalty on VH1 Classic’s Rock N Roll Fantasy Camp, but he’s also performed on the stages of festivals like Summerfest, SXSW, and Van’s Warped Tour, and is the co-creator of the Epic Proportions Tour. Now after the release of his debut EP, Kubanda is ready to step back in the game to release a full length album. Its first single is”Mother’s Son.”
When you see the title “Mother’s Son”, it’s hard to not assume that the song is going to be about 1. a strained relationship with his mother or 2. the loss of his mother that he had a close relationship with. When the track started off at a slower pace, my mind was automatically brought back to Mayday Parade‘s “Ghosts” and I had the feeling that it was going to turn into slightly more upbeat track with a morose story line (or how describe it, the cheerful eulogy). However, once the rest of the song picked up in energy it turned into a indie, beach-y American Authors or Gentlemen Hall meets The Ataris‘ “The Boys of Summer” jingle that radiates positivity.
While Kubanda classifies himself as an “acoustic indie-pop” artist, “Mother’s Son” is a lot more than just that. Energetic guitars with a hint of country and a slight twang in his infectious vocals to differentiate him from other indie singer-songwriters. Its chorus of “keep on moving/keep on going/no other options/no backup plans/just back up and go” can easily play into one of the two story lines that I had mentioned before, in which he could be remembering an old saying from his loving mother. It could just as easily be switched around to be a happy-go-lucky tale about a son who’s simply living his life to make his mother, his biggest cheerleader, proud and to not let anyone negative stand in the way of your dreams.
“Mother’s Son” is pretty much the musical version of the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”. With a title that could have left little to the imagination, he successfully achieved multiple scenarios from the song’s instrumentation and lyrics. Can I see this in a coming of age indie film? Absolutely! Let’s see what else Kubanda has up his sleeve.
The sponsorgabe project was formed through Kubanda’s dream to finally record a full length album and film a high-quality music video. With an extremely busy schedule consisting of touring, guiding bands in their musical journey, as well as attempting to pursue his own endeavors, he has had to put off this dream for the past 3 years. However, his crowd-funding project through RocketHub is giving him the chance to turn that dream into a reality. When Kubanda meets his goal, the world will be exposed to his first professional music video as well as his upcoming full-length album to be named Flow Fail Prevail. So what are you waiting for? Go fund his project!
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