“With the upcoming album, we challenged ourselves to be as transparent as possible and to write about some of the heavier things that are often left unsaid,” Wes Lunsford says.

Written By

Sheikh Ajmal

Laurel Wright and Wes Lunsford
 | CREDIT: JEREMY RYAN

Laurel Wright was without a guitarist in 2014. Fortunately, a guitarist named Wes Lunsford arrived.

And before they knew it, they’d both found love.

“We’ve played almost every show together since that day,” says Lunsford, 26, in a recent interview with PEOPLE about the chance meeting that not only gave birth to the country music duo The Young Fables but also turned into a love story for the two who had grown up in the same hometown of Maryville, Tennessee.

Granted, it wasn’t love at first sight.

I mean, we were really good friends,” says Wright, 26, with a slight laugh. “But it was more like friends in a band setting, because at the time I was a solo artist. The day after I turned 19 years old, I moved to Nashville and Wes told me that he wanted to play for me there too.”

Laurel

They started dating a year later. They are still dating today, and they find musical inspiration not only in their relationship, but also in the relationships of others.

“We can draw from a lot of different places to make one song,” Wright says.

But it was personal for their moving new song “A Thing or Two (feat. Liz Longley).”

“This one touches on past relationships and all the things you do during the fun stages of love,” says Wright, who co-wrote “A Thing or Two” with Lunsford and accomplished songwriter Liz Longley. “However, once you find that person, everything makes sense.”

“A Thing or Two,” which combines thoughtful lyrics with Wright’s heavenly voice and Lunsford’s undeniable harmonies, focuses on the comfort of the most certain of loves.

“So many people focus on the extreme highs and extreme lows of relationships,” says Wright, whose voice has been praised by Shania Twain and Sheryl Crow. “However, there are many gray areas and in-betweens, and I believe this song touches on that.”

“I think it’s about those relationships where, even when everything around you is gone or going downhill, there’s still that one person who sees you through,” Lunsford adds.

This storyline became all too real for The Young Fables in 2018, when Wright not only lost her father, but also her sister in a matter of months.

“I lost my sister when I was 22 and then my dad died just eight months later,” Wright recalls of the cruel reality she found herself living when her sister Lindy died in a car accident and her father Ron died of a massive heart attack. “I believe that losing them both provided me with a plethora of new perspectives on various aspects of my life. And when I lost them, it impacted all of my relationships, including my one with Wes.”

Because when the flowers and condolences stopped coming, The Young Fables were left alone with each other.

“All I could do was try to be there when I needed to be there, and also know when I didn’t,” recalls Lunsford. “You never forget it.”