“Memories are a peculiar thing. Do we shape them as time goes by for comfort’s sake or do we twist them around for the stories we tell? We can’t avoid the rose-colored glasses. Who can really know, and who knows if any of this memory is correct, but it is true.”
“I can still remember the smell in the basement of my parents’ house, 234 Bancroft Bay. The brightly colored ’70s carpet of red, orange, and yellow hues. And the taxidermy black bear rug that hung on the wall, one my Dad got while hunting somewhere in Manitoba.
Basements are the best when you’re a kid. But then it becomes something completely different as a pre-teen. It’s the escape realm. The specific smell I can recall is from the cupboard that held their record collection. Tucked away in the corner on the ground, always damp and musty, the worst place to hold vinyl. But the best place because that’s where I found it.
Music, for me, has always been. I’ve been singing since I can remember and involved in all the things a child could be involved in. You could find me singing along to The Bodyguard soundtrack (which is still amazing) and liking New Kids on the Block while singing classical music at my voice lessons every week.
But something happened at around age 11/12, I discovered my parents Beatles records. Now, I’m sure this is a typical story, but who cares?! THIS was the moment I really heard songs, I heard harmonies, I heard the limitless possibilities of music! This made me want to pick up a guitar and start writing songs! I could write my own songs and sing them? That’s a thing?
That’s how it started. This was the point it all changed for me. Music was now a whole different beast and the real dreams were taking shape. I also made my mom take me to Osbourne Village, the hip strip of town, to buy me a tie-dye shirt and some tan corduroy bell bottoms. A 12-year-old hippie singer-songwriter was born.
Specifically, I remember Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper being the go-to out of the pile. How could you not be in awe as a pre-teen putting the needle down on these records for the first time? Hearing the count in to “Taxman” and then hearing “Tomorrow Never Knows” and not knowing what is happening!?! I became a Beatles fanatic for a couple of years after that and I think those times being so immersed in a catalog of music shaped the writing that’s coming out now.
I’m going back to the pop rock I first heard on vinyl. I’m referencing the drum sounds on the White Album, the guitar tones, etc. I’m writing short, cut the fat songs with strong hooks that I learned how to do from them. I’m instantly taken back to that time when I put on one of their records now in my 30s. It’s one of the beautiful gifts of music, how your senses can hold a memory within a song.”
—Brandy Zdan
Brandy Zdan’s sophomore release, Secretear arrives in stores on May 11, 2018—on limited edition neon pink vinyl. Pre-order the LP here.
