Johnny Depp’s a fan. So is Jeff Bezos, and comedian Doug Stanhope. For Mishka Shubaly — novelist, musician, ultra-runner and inspirational speaker -- doing what you love, and doing it well, is a no brainer. He’s just recently published The Long Run, a memoir on transitioning from an alcoholic to a sober distance runner without rehab or AA. And on his third album, Coward’s Path, Mishka makes listeners feel the stories of past: his descent into alcoholism and the (often funny) aftermath. “I’m at peace with my alcoholic past,” he says. “I can’t recommend 20 years of drinking to others ... but I gained a lot of insight into human darkness, soaked up a good story or two.”

Hometown: I was born in a small town called Deep River, Ontario in Canada. We moved away when I was eight, though, so I have a couple other hometowns: Los Alamos, New Mexico; Kingston, New Hampshire; Denver, Colorado; Athens, Ohio; and my number one, Brooklyn.

Homebase: Right now, I live in a tired 1993 Toyota Minivan, currently parked in a Love’s Travel Stop outside of Seattle. I left Brooklyn after 17 years in New York at the end of July and have been touring so much since then, I haven’t been able to really find a new place. I’m not hosting many Tupperware parties these days.

You have a really colorful past, where you were described as an alcoholic and drug addict who got sober and and become an ultra-runner and then became a memoirist. How old are you and how did your journey lead you to music?

I’m 38. I started playing guitar at 6, started drinking at 13, and finally got sober at 32. I ran my first ultramarathon less than a year later, and published my first bestselling Kindle Single a year after that. As a kid, music excited me like nothing else. As I got older and got weighed down with trouble, it kept me going. I think I wrote my first songs just to comfort myself, to say “There, there, you’ll be okay.”

Was your family musical? Is that how you discovered music?

My childhood home was not particularly musical: My father was a rocket scientist and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. When I was maybe 7, I got a Walkman and a couple of ‘50s – ‘60s doo-wop compilation tapes at a garage sale and I remember walking around in a daze, listening to those tapes over and over again at top volume.

What were your big musical influences, then? And how did you know you were going to be a musician?

I had a couple of huge rock’n’roll epiphanies as a kid—Guns ‘n Roses' Appetite for Destruction was massive for me, as was Nirvana’s Nevermind. But what had the greatest effect on my music was the Johnny Cash Live at Folsom and San Quentin cassette tape my roommate (Zachary Lipez from Publicist UK) played for me. I stole it from him, I don’t regret stealing it from him, and I’m not giving it back.

My great awakening as a musician came pretty young. I remember hearing “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry and that was it, man, any other plan my parents had for me went in the trash. When I was six, I told my mom I was going to be a wandering minstrel and just travel town to town with my guitar.

Sadly, a couple of years ago I tried to track down the Chuck Berry record of my parents that was responsible for turning me on. It doesn’t exist. My great awakening didn’t come from Chuck Berry at all, but Michael J. Fox covering Chuck Berry in Back To The Future. Hoo, boy.

Describe your music to someone who's never heard of you.

Ha! I would describe it as the best thing you've ever heard, like all the best lonesome, angry dudes-- Johnny Cash and Richard Pryor and John Prine and Doug Stanhope and Townes Van Zandt. And then I would try to sell you a T-shirt so I can get something to eat.

Why is your latest album called Coward's Path?

The new album is called Coward’s Path because that best describes the life I was living when I wrote these songs. I got drunk and high as much as I could, worked as little as I could, and basically lied and cheated and did whatever I had to in order to escape. I took the path of least resistance to the end of the line. Not something I’d recommend, but I got some bleak, funny songs out of it. The record’s about pain and loneliness and frustration … but it’s also about giving a big middle finger to that mounting darkness.

You say that being writer is like your day job. Does being a writer help you make music?

I'm proud to say that I've supported myself as a writer since 2011. I have six bestselling Kindle Singles on Amazon and my first full-length memoir, I Swear I'll Make It Up To You will be published by PublicAffairs on March 8th, 2016. Writing and music nourish each other and cannibalize each other... and I've decided that I'm not going to obsess about how they affect each other in my life because, either way, they're going to be with me till the death.

Do you like writing prose better than songs? What is the difference?

Songwriting is like fishing; sometimes you nail one on the first cast, sometimes you catch your limit before lunchtime, sometimes you hook a big one that spits the hook just before you land it, sometimes nothing happens at all. Writing prose is more like farming: one day, you spread manure. Then you till the soil. Then you plant the seeds. Then you cover them over. Then you water them, you fertilize them, you keep the pests away, you prune them, you fret, you worry, you lose sleep. But, with a lot of hard work, at the end of a year, you have something to show for it.

Songwriting is often fast, exciting and involves a lot of luck. Writing prose is more about whittling away at the job a little each day. Both involve a lot of waiting and worrying. I love both processes to death, and they both really, really suck.

I read a story about you getting shipwrecked in the Bahamas. What was that about?

Getting shipwrecked is actually really easy-- all you have to do is get on a boat and make one mistake. I was crewing on a family friend's hand-built sailboat when we ran aground during a storm in the middle of the night on the uninhabited point of an island in the Bahamas. The Coast Guard estimates I walked between 24 and 32 miles before I got rescued. Hence, I no longer enjoy long walks on the beach.

Who would you love to collaborate with?

Sam Coomes from Quasi. Joe Henry. Radkey. Bayli from The Skins. The Riverboat Gamblers and Jay Whitecotton. Sharon Van Etten makes my brovaries hurt. Love to do something produced by Blockhead or El-P or Aesop Rock. I'm toying with the idea of making the next record all duets.

What do you do for fun?

I like building Frankenstein guitars out of old parts with pickup combinations/ electronics you'd never find on a stock guitar. And dogs. Dogs, dogs, dogs, I love dogs.