As a junior in 1993, Dave Lubben sat in History class staring at the clock, waiting for the bell to ring so he can get to his favorite class, music. The hand seems to be moving slower and slower. He didn’t care about The Revolutionary War, Shakespeare, or how to find the square root of 256.
Lubben is now a Christian singer who grew up in West Fargo. He went to school in West Fargo and grew up in a musical family.
“My earliest memories of singing were standing next to my dad at church and trying to out sing my dad,” Lubben said.
His first experience in a band was as a lead singer in a garage band in sixth grade.
“I guess I’ve loved to sing ever since,” Lubben said.
Growing up, he listened to a lot of music from his favorite bands; The Eagles, Billy Joel, and the Police. He always wanted to be a rock star when he grew up. When he was young, he called the mother of Joey Allen from The Warrants, and asked her how her son made it in the music world.
They talked on the phone for a while and he was partly inspired. The rest of his inspiration for being a musician came from music teacher Jeffery Mueller.
“Mr. Mueller came to my junior high and was a big inspiration,” Lubben said.
Lubben would take singing lessons from him. They focused on blending voices with other people, which came easy to Dave. Mueller said that he was good at singing with other people.
“He had a really, really nice voice,” Mueller said.
Lubben said Mueller was a really good example for him.
When Lubben was a junior, he began to lose interest in school. In fact, the only class he did really well in was music. All he wanted to do was sing and play guitar. He talked to his parents and counselors about dropping out.
“Give me your complete effort for this next semester,” Dave’s father, Larry Lubben, said when he proposed the idea of dropping out.
He did well for a while, then lost interest again. He ended up dropping out his junior year and joining a rock band.
“I talked to some people, and had to make the tough decision to let him give it a try,” Larry Lubben said.
After a while, he decided that kind of life was not for him and he went back to school. He finished his junior and senior classes in the same year and went on to get a music degree at Moorhead State University with excellent grades.
Dave Lubben lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, Maggie, and four kids. He continues to sing and occasionally goes on tour. He will be coming to Fargo December 7 with Kutless and Moriah Peters on The Reason 2012 tour.
Dave thought that growing up in a town like West Fargo really helped guide him in his life.
“It was easier to be grounded and know what really matters most,” Dave Lubben said.