When Kentucky singer-songwriter Justin Wells released his newest album, he didn’t just give it a name- he gave it a hometown.
“Cynthiana,” named for the town where he found music, first love, and the roots of his story, is a heartfelt and honest collection of songs. Wells sat down with us to share why this album was decades in the making, and how one small Kentucky town continues to echo through every lyric.
Q: Your new album is called Cynthiana. What does the town mean to you personally- and why was now the right time to write about it?
Justin:
I lived in Cynthiana for a relatively brief but formative time. My family moved to Kentucky from Blanchard, LA after my Dad got a job at the Toyota plant in Georgetown. I was a weird small-town kid, and I wrestled with the kind of discordance that I reckon plagues most weird small-town kids.
Started playing guitar in middle school, started writing songs as a freshman. I formed a just-shy-of-a-Metallica-cover band with my friends, and I was elected singer because I was the least-capable musician.
And then I met my wife. She was a freshman, I was a junior. We dated for a few years, got engaged quite young, then spent nearly a decade apart before finding each other again.
So Cynthiana is where my relationship with music started. It's where I met my wife. The truth is, the album is about her. It's about getting back to what matters, and that can be back with your person, that can be getting back to that small town in Kentucky. Honestly, I've been trying to write this album my whole life. I started out writing love songs to her, and she was the only audience I ever had for those songs. But a love song for the rest of the world to hear? That's tough. An album of em? Tougher. Now was the right time because now was when those songs finally reared their heads.
Q: Was there a moment when you felt like Cynthiana wrote itself into your story? A memory that made it into a song?
Justin:
Most songs that I've written that look that far back, they take place in Cynthiana in my head. I don't usually like to anchor a listener in a particular person or location's name. That leaves the door open for people to overlay their own experiences onto my work. One of my favorite things is when folks tell me what they think my songs are about.
Q: Are any of the tracks based on real places or true events from around town?
Justin:
All of these songs are rooted in truth, but as I mentioned, I generally prefer to paint with broader strokes.
Q: If someone listened to Cynthiana while walking around town, where would the music match the mood?
Justin:
Man. I was a trespassing kid. So many memories on a particular railroad bridge that I won't specify because it's not not dangerous. Driving Highway 62 from where I lived in Leesburg to Highway 36 out to Shadynook, where Andrea lived. The Rohs Opera House, where we went on our first 50 or so dates and where I proposed the second time.
Q: How do small towns like Cynthiana shape a songwriter differently than big cities?
Justin:
We know how to be slow. We know how to look out the window. Nobody's particularly hip, and I was an especially not-cool kid, so I was even less so. And that can cause you some grief socially, but, at least before the world was hyper-connected, it meant that my imagination could run absolutely wild. The world could be whatever you imagined it was. It 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 can be.
Q: What was the hardest song to write- and which one came easiest?
Justin:
Hmm. "Queen of Queens" may have been the hardest. I wanted to write something that genuinely showed how I felt about my wife, but I wanted to write it through the lens of these made-up little colloquialisms that felt like the kind of thing your Granny or your Papaw might've said. I had to hammer at that one, because it had to be right.
"Little Buildings" came in about two hours. Just a short, very non-comprehensive list of my shortcomings and bad habits.
Q: If the album had an opening scene- emotionally or musically- what would it look like?
Justin:
Gym class. High school. That's where we met. I was wearing Doc Martens because I didn't own sneakers. Her first words to me were pointing out how those weren't great gym-wear. Now our kids wear Doc Martens.
I shot a music video for "Sad, Tomorrow" in that very gym.
Q: What’s something unexpected about Cynthiana you hope people feel when they hear the album?
Justin:
I can spout the trivia, but what I hope folks hear is that there's a lot more to Kentucky than the eastern Kentucky coal mines that are ubiquitous in a lot of Kentucky songwriting. That, if you get off the interstate and take the older highways, you're gonna find the heart of this Commonwealth.
It's just people, man. People struggling just like anywhere, people falling in love just like anywhere. People working to keep the lights on. People struggling with a vice they may have been ill-informed about, people wanting to be heard.
It's just people.
Q: What about the town- the landscape, the people- shaped this album’s sound?
Justin:
The only thing I can say is I've felt like a mutt for most of my life. Nothing has ever felt homogeneous in my work. That kid out in Leesburg sitting in front of his boom box learning music like a caveman, whatever worked since then worked because I was fairly isolated and didn't know the "right" way from the "wrong" way. There wasn't a music scene in Cynthiana really, and I'm grateful for that. It let me just kinda figure out my own way.
Q: If Cynthiana were a bottled spirit, what would it taste like?
Justin:
Wasn't no local spirits out that way when I was growing up, so I'm gonna take a left turn and say Pepsi out of the fountain at the Rohs while pretending to watch the decidedly awful 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘢𝘨𝘦: 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦 2 circa March, 1999.
"Cynthiana" is available now wherever you stream or buy music.
Take a drive. Take a walk. Take a listen- and let "Cynthiana" tell you its story.
🎧 https://justinwellsmusic.com/
📍 www.cynthianatourism.com