Twilight Hotel

The hotel that love built

by Jen Zoratti, Uptown Magazine, Winnipeg, MB

You could call them Johnny and June – if June had a nose ring.

Yes, things have certainly been harmonious lately for Brandy Zdan and Dave Quanbury, the singing/songwriting couple who make up Twilight Hotel.

The pair is gearing up for the Winnipeg release party for its latest outing, Highway Prayer, but a stellar sophmore album isn’t the only cause for celebration for the local alt-folkies. Quanbury and Zdan were engaged on Valentine’s Day – just days before they took the stage at the North American Folk Alliance Music Awards in Memphis, Tenn., where they were nominated in the best emerging artist category.

“We performed at the awards ceremony last night and it was a blast,” Zdan says by phone from Memphis. “It was great to be nominated as an emerging artist. We didn’t win, obviously, but it’s nice to be recognized by your community.”

Zdan is referring to the folk community at large, but there’s no question Twilight Hotel’s strangely Canadian brand of Americana has earned it a special place in the sprawling folk/roots scene south of the border – somwhere the duo has been spending a lot of time of late.

Thanks to frequent touring, the pair has been incredibly well-received in the U.S., snagging plenty of radio airplay and raising the brows of southern music critics who suddenly need to figure out where the hell Winnipeg is. Twilight Hotel was even nominated for best Americana album at the 2007 American Independent Music Awards for its 2006 debut release, Bethune.

It’s fitting, then, that Zdan, 24, and Quanbury, 29, decided to record Highway Prayer in Nashville. Teaming up with Canadian producer Colin Linden (a solo artist/member of Blackie & the Rodeo Kings who’s produced albums by Bruce Cockburn and Lucinda Williams), the duo spent six days in Music City last spring, recording with prolific players such as Richard Bell (Janis Joplin), Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits) and Dave Roe (Johnny Cash).

“We were entering into longstanding friendships,” Zdan says. “These guys have made 25, 30 records together. It made the experience really comfortable. There were lots of laughs, lots of hugs. And all those guys – they can hear a song once and lay down the whole track.”

One player in particular stood out for the pair. Highway Prayer was the last album Bell played on before he died of cancer last June.

“Now that he’s passed on, and the fact that we were graced by his playing – it just really turned the record into something we didn’t expect,” Zdan says.

There were a few things that Quanbury and Zdan did expect Highway Prayer t0 turn into, however. Based on feedback from Bethune, the pair wanted to better capture the essence of its live show.

While every band with a killer live show heads into the studio with that goal in mind, it was particularly important for Twilight Hotel – which performs as a duo but often fills out its sound with session players in the studio.

“Our approach was just that, to capture us as a duo, and I think we succeeded with that,” Zdan says.

“The DNA of the songs, as Colin would say, is how Dave and I interact with each other and how we play together. After that, you can add colour from other players, but the DNA is the most important part.”

While ‘experimental’ is a modifier that is almost never used to describe a folk record, Highway Prayer fearlessly explores a full range of genre-spanning styles, including blues, roots-rock, Americana and cabaret. Combined with the duo’s striking lyrical prowess and beautiful boy-girl harmonies, Twilight Hotel has created a sound that’s truly unique – because it sounds like Twilight Hotel.

“People are starting to get our sound,” Zdan says. “We’ve been reading reviews, and we’re happy that people aren’t trying to categorize us. I’ve always thought that during the early stages of a career in music, it’s easier to fit into a box. But to create longevity, I think you have to beat down your own path.”

It’s not just critics who have started to ‘get’ the pair’s sound.

“I feel like (Highway Prayer) is the first Twilight Hotel record. The first record was fine, but Dave and I brought in a lot of songs we had written before, so it really felt like we were playing on each other’s songs,” Zdan says. “This one feels like us.”
That growth applies to the couple’s life together offstage as well (they met in 2002).

“You know, it’s getting better all the time,” Zdan says. “We love playing together, and we keep that at the heart of it all.”