The musician RM Hubbert has the sort of backstory that you can't make up, and he's smart enough to use it in a set. About 15 minutes into a recent solo show in the Vintage Room of the Workmans Club, in Dublin, he somewhat sheepishly rolls out what he calls "the spiel" in his laconic Glaswegian burr.
Hubbert has been playing for about 25 years, and in that time he has had no little influence on his city's music scene. He ran a club in Glasgow called the Kazoo Club at the 13th Note with his friend Alex Kapranos, of Franz Ferdinand. He gigged with The Blisters and Glue before forming El Hombre Trajeado, in 1995. Something of an underground postrock favourite, they got three albums, several John Peel sessions and the admiration of many into their 10-year history.
His solo career, though, came out of the sort of tragedy that would have an X Factor contestant slack-jawed with envy. Months after Hubbert's father died of cancer, his mother also died, leaving Hubbert with no family. Shortly afterwards he split from his wife, although they have since reconciled and are now the best of friends. Since his teenage years he has also being dealing with chronic depression.
To distract himself from his grief Hubbert decided that he needed "to learn something really hard", and he went for the flamenco guitar. This led to the nine solo guitar pieces on First and Last, which he self-released as a handbound book with a CD in 2009. Chemikal Underground took note, as did more than a few critics, and the album got a full release.
It would be fair to expect any man to crumble under that level of tragedy, but Hubbert is made of flinty stuff. He’s a beautiful player, delicate and modern. There’s a rawness, sure, and a fine pop sensibility that shows up in the odd killer hook or verse. But his playing hums with unqualified emotion. It’s the kind of stuff I’ve often heard Philip King refer to as the “raw bar”, and you only know it when you hear it.
Hubbert's other main asset – and here those X Factor wannabes really will break down in jealous tears – is his dark-as-death, lacerating Scottish wit. One track is called Buckstacy, named after a cocktail popular in Troon, the small fishing town in south Ayrshire in which he now lives. "You take a bottle of Buckfast in one hand, and a handful of ecstasy in the other. Combine. Allow to breathe . . . "
He’s got tattoos up both his arms, and he has some salient advice for why you shouldn’t have the names of your loves permanently inked on your arms (although not for the reason you might think). There is a long, charming and heartbreaking story about his dog, D Bone, who is melodramatically attached to the slippers of Hubbert’s dead father. But of course Hubbert follows it up with a crushing punchline that even he can’t help but laugh at.
He's not averse to a pop song or two, either, and even tried writing a few, after a revelation in the house of a friend who is also a musician, and who writes more mainstream tunes. Hubbert was wandering from room to room there and suddenly noticed that "all his stuff was really nice". The result is Bolt, with the kind of lovely hook you could easily imagine Taylor Swift slinking around.
But it’s hard to imagine these kinds of lyrics – railing against domestic abuse – falling from her lips: “He broke your heart, so you broke his jaw, well you should have done . . .”
Hubbert recently broke up with his girlfriend of many years, so there are lengthy, often crude and always funny expositions about why he is perhaps not the easiest man to live with, before he wonders aloud: “I don’t know why these women keep leaving me.” He then points out that he’s single, for the ladies in the house.
Hubbert is deathly funny, but his big frame hides a heart as big as a house. He plays one song he made by stitching together bits from his ex's favourite music. Another track, For Joe, was written in the wake of the death his father-in-law, who had looked after him after the death of his own parents. It isn't, he says, as some sort of tribute, more as a reminder to himself to simply think about him each night on stage.
Towards the end of his set Hubbert takes the time to thank the crowd. He has had chronic depression since his teenage years, and early on discovered that playing and performing were all that made him happy. It’s not an unusual thing for artists to say, but to hear Hubbert be so sincerely appreciative of the connection he feels with the crowd – which he calls his daily dose of therapy – is moving and encouraging.
Hubbert’s is an unusual sort of genius, and he writes the sort of songs that will bum your last cigarette and then break your heart. For all the primp and the polish that usually go into performance, he’s not so much a breath of fresh air as a fiery dram of Scotland’s finest.
The raw bar indeed. You’ll know it when you hear it.
