Meet Brennan Justice of Aunt Cynthia’s Cabin in Bay Park

So, before we jump into specific questions about the band, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Anthony and I started playing music together in a surf rock band called The Twinfins. It was like a 60s garage/indie rock band, we never released any music but played a lot of shows around San Diego. Things were actually going really well for us around the time of its demise, we had begun to play bigger and better shows, we were finally finding our sound in these super reverbed-out western type desert-rock jams, Anthony and I loved it.

However, after one gloomy Saturday night gig at The Tower Bar, we learned that our lead guitarist (also a lead songwriter) and drummer were both leaving the band. While we knew it was the end of an era, it really was the beginning of everything we have now. We realized that this was our opportunity to take the music in any direction we wanted.

So, as any motivated musician would, we retreated back to the garage, wrote some new music, and kept at it. Our first release as Aunt Cynthia’s Cabin followed a couple of months after The Twinfins breakup. Writing with just the two of us, we started to take things a bit heavier, turned some of our old surf riffs into more psychedelic western type stuff, and really let the songs go where they wanted.

We recorded the first two Aunt Cynthia’s Cabin songs in my garage, On The Mountain and a cover of Neil Diamond’s Solitary Man, using two microphones, a tube preamp and a Danelectro spring reverb pedal that I bought on Craigslist. Solitary Man ended up landing a spot on a UK vinyl-compilation of 60’s psychedelic cover songs, and the vinyl sets sold out in less than a week. It was huge for us and really told us that hey, this is the right thing to do, keep working at it, and things will keep happening.

In between the single and our first EP (Cabin Fever), we got in touch with Jeremy Luvaas through another band Anthony was involved in. The dude was a killer drummer, and after jamming the three of us a few times, we all pretty much knew that was it. He really took our sound to another level, and on top of that I was getting more experienced and savvy recording us, we really became a new band.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Thing’s have been going really well, although we hit the occasional roadblock we always manage to get back up on top. Anthony is one of the most motivated and driven people I know, so I feel like anytime things start to slow down, or something happens, and we get stiffed at a venue or whatever, he always has an answer and keeps us going strong.

Aunt Cynthia’s Cabin – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I’ll try to do this without labeling ourselves too much. While our influences stem mostly from classic rock, Sabbath, Pink Floyd, even a lot of 90s rock, we try to keep things as modern as possible. It’s the most honest expression we could have with our music. It’s too easy and too common-place to sit there and play a Byrds song that a ton of people have heard and put a new spin on it and be like, “look new music!” So we really try to insert our own individual styles as much as possible while writing the music, it’s just the most honest and straightforward way of expression, and to me it doesn’t seem like a ton of people are doing that right now.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I would define success in music as honesty in your artistry. Writing music from an honest place, even if there’s vulnerability involved (especially, in fact), can move a listener so much more than something inauthentic or dishonest.

I have a bad habit of wanting to cover up parts of my music that expose me too much, and I’ve noticed that (even though it’s against my instinct) the less I care about vulnerability and what someone might say about a particular lyric, the better the content actually becomes.

If someone comes up to me after a show and tells me that they like our lyrics, and can tell a personal story about how they related to them, to me that’s a good night.

Pricing:

• $15 – T-Shirts – https://auntcynthiascabin.bigcartel.com/
• $50 – Denim Biker Jacket – https://auntcynthiascabin.bigcartel.com/
• $5 – Koozies – https://auntcynthiascabin.bigcartel.com/
• $6 – Mud Room #13 EP, MP3 download – https://auntcynthiascabin.bandcamp.com/

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