Tegan And Sara: Know Your Role

Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 29-Oct-07 @ 01:41 PM

TEGAN AND SARA are no strangers to labels-they've been dealing with a variety of them their entire lives. But on their latest album, they're letting the music do all the talking, hoping to encourage others to do the same.

Story: Rachel Lux
Photos: Roberto Chamorro

Tegan and Sara Quin are many things-some more obvious than others. They're undeniably free-spirited musicians and artists, for sure, but the acoustic indie duo profess an unexpected love of raucous music (from System Of A Down to Against Me!) and episodes of Dog The Bounty Hunter.

They're both endearingly chatty, willing to ramble excitedly to a relative stranger about things they find important, from music to relationships.

Then there are the things about the Quins that are more obvious-the cop-outs, er...categories, most media and casual listeners are more eager to settle on when discussing the two: Being lesbian twins from Canada.

"I feel like with our first record, nobody cared about any of that stuff," says Tegan from her home in Vancouver, between a press trip to New York and starting a short club tour in support of the group's latest album, The Con.

"Because you're a new band, no one's asking about your personal life and they're certainly not analyzing your history. I feel like on our second record, it was very much 'folk, acoustic, lesbian, Canadian, twin duo Tegan And Sara,' and it's like, 'Holy crap! That's a lot of checkmarks next to us.' I'm totally excited to see what happens on this record, but I'm hoping it's a little less about labels and a little more about the music."

The pair definitely have reason to be curious about the spin journalists will use while covering their newest album, The Con. While they admit press associated with their home country and sexuality is usually positive, it isn't always that way.

"I can remember a really horrible radio interview where someone asked us if we make out onstage," Sara says, slightly wincing down the phone from the "monastery-quiet" apartment she owns in French-speaking Montreal. "And I just remember [thinking], 'You're talking about incest, man. You're talking about something that is deeply offensive to us. Just because we're gay does not mean we want to kiss each other. I mean, do you wanna kiss your sister, you fucking prick? Fuck you.' I got so upset."

Fortunately, both sisters are comfortable enough in their own skin-evidenced by their open, honest and sometimes painfully personal lyrics-to separate fact from foolishness when it comes to both their music and image. Playing and writing together for 10 years, the 26-year-old Quin sisters have had plenty of time to get used to the spotlight. From a young age, strangers fascinated by the identical girls' big-eyed, dark-haired pixieness have constantly approached them in public. But now, even as established musicians, the scrutiny still hasn't stopped. Most recently, Sara dealt with alleged decidedly immature haters online finding her new, asymmetrical, 21st-century hipster update of the mullet somewhat suspect. Tegan, distinguishable from her sister by her shorter haircut and labret piercing, may share the exact same DNA with her younger-by-eight-minutes twin, but there are certainly more than slight appearance alterations that set the two apart. From their writing patterns (In-your-face, blunt-force rock? That'll be Tegan.) to their lifestyles (Sara's regimen is more settled and domestic when contrasted against Tegan's sense of wanderlust), these two were destined to make passionate music -and lousy roommates.

Growing up in Calgary, Alberta, a sleepy city in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, the Quins enjoyed the city's unlikely underground punk scene. "I was obsessed with this [local] band, Red Autumn Fall, from when I was 14 until I was probably 17," recalls Tegan. "I don't want to [dismiss them] and say they were a Smiths knock-off, but they kind of were. But I didn't know the Smiths or the Cure or Morrissey. I remember going out and buying, like, four Smiths records and being like, 'Wow. This sounds a lot like Red Autumn Fall.' But it was awesome! It's really stuck with me in the last 10 years since I've got out of Calgary how cool the scene was there, even for such a small, out-of-the-way place."

"That was the culture and community that left a big impression on me," says Sara of attending shows at local community centers while growing up. "Getting to the show, setting up your gear. There's no lights, usually the PA is shit, and you're selling T-shirts and homemade tapes off the side of the stage. That was what made Tegan and I-as soon as we started writing songs-start recording ourselves."

While their sound is soft, the two definitely don't want to be limited as a wimpy, acoustic act. After all, their early love of Calgary's punk scene was with the energy than the music. "Because we toured acoustically the first two years, we were always trying to undo this misconception about us that we were a duo and that we were folk," Tegan says. "I think with The Con, we felt like that had been done [with previous albums]. We were like, 'Okay, we don't have to be afraid to show our more vulnerable side.'"

One result of that decision was a switch in production teams. Though both women raved about their experiences working with John Collins and David Carswell of the New Pornographers on their two previous albums, they opted to record in the States with Death Cab For Cutie guitarist Chris Walla. Working at his Portland, Oregon, studio allowed them to see someone else's production perspective, taking their demos to a whole new level. One of the most unique things about the Quins' new process was their decision to write their songs separately from one another. In the past, these demos would be hashed out in the studio. But for The Con, the duo figured, why wait for studio time? They'd been playing long enough to come up with their own rhythm parts and vocal melodies. Building the songs together-across 3,000 miles of Canadian countryside-the record was near completion by the time they hit the studio with Walla. "We ended up using a lot of [Tegan's] vocals [from the demos]," says Walla from his home in Portland. "Lots of Sara's guitar parts got pulled over. It's really cool. I'd never done a record like that before. Their set of demos was probably my favorite album of 2006." [Laughs.]

The all-star cast of musicians Tegan And Sara culled to play over their demos only added to the album's density. Former Weezer bassist/current Rentals CEO Matt Sharp (who played keys on So Jealous) laid down bass on Sara's tracks, while Tegan's close friend Hunter Burgan of AFI played bass on hers. Walla's Death Cab bandmate Jason McGerr contributed drums. But the most impressive thing about The Con has little to do with the way it was recorded or who came along for the ride. The disc serves as a veritable scrapbook of a specific point in time-something genuine and honest that can be felt in the songs. Lyrics about heartbreak ("Nineteen"), loss ("Burn Your Life Down") and mundane life situations ("Relief Next To Me" finds Sara worrying about paying taxes and fixing her leaky roof) resonate with those diehard fans who wish to know as much as possible about the people who make the music that's so meaningful in their own lives.

"A lot of my songs were more based in life stuff and anxiety," says Sara, speaking faster the further she delves into her inspiration. "Over the last couple years, a couple people have died. The biggest in our lives was our grandma dying; she was like a second mom to us. I thought a lot about her while I was writing, a lot about relationships and how you're with someone for so much time and you kind of present to people that you're strong and that you're tough. In the end, you're just alone and you have to show how weak and vulnerable you are."

Tegan had just ended a five-year relationship and was in that raw, crazy place of uncertainty where one's senses are seemingly enhanced and everything is felt more-even if it means regressing to feelings thought to be long outgrown.

"I really battled with how much from the past you bring with you, and how much of the person you became in that old relationship sticks with you when you start new relationships," she admits. "At some points over the past year-and-a-half, I was falling in love with somebody, so I felt like I was 15, which was 'Are You Ten Years Ago' [from The Con]-the idea that I was 25, writing about feeling 15. That was the first time I fell in love, and to have those feelings of anxiety [where] you can't sleep, you're up all night and you feel completely taken and connected to somebody. At the same time, you're not, because you're 15 and you can't tell the person you want to be with them. It was horrifying, as well as completely amazing, to feel that way at 25."

Because of the highly personal themes of the record, the Quins say people's reactions to their new music could gauge whether or not they'd feel a genuine connection with the twins if they were to meet them on the street-as opposed to some perverse radio shock-jock's arrested development.

"We cared a lot less about projecting what people want to hear and projecting what we hear when we listen to ourselves," Tegan resigns. "I think that if people like the record, they're going to love it. And if someone really hates it, then they hate us." ALT