Tegan & Sara

A conversation with Tegan Quin

(December 2007)

Interview by Adam McKibbin

Photograph by Autumn De Wilde

Previously published in abridged form on Metromix

Tegan and Sara Quin - better known as simply “Tegan & Sara” - have been steadily building momentum with each of their five albums. On The Con, released this past summer, the twin sisters showcase their continual and hardly-identical growth as songwriters, with Sara showing a knack for immaculate pop melodies (like lead single “Back In Your Head”) while Tegan chases harder edges informed by emo and pop-punk.

Tegan spoke recently about the changes in their career thus far, how the sisters find (and provide) laughs while on the road, and why you’ll never see the same Tegan & Sara show twice.

We did an interview around the time of If It Was You and in that interview you were saying at the time that you much preferred writing to touring.  Has that preference stuck?

I mean, I think that as the years have continued, obviously our touring entourage has grown. We’re traveling in a bus, and that sure makes things a lot easier. A lot of us are in new relationships and we got back on this tour and we were all like “God, it’s so hard with a new person.” Nobody understands; they think you’re weird because you don’t cry or get sad because you love what you do so much. But they’re sad. And then when you are sad on the road, it’s a self-imposed sadness. There are those aspects, the emotional aspects, that are really difficult. But the actual condition of touring has gotten really fun. I’ve always enjoyed playing but back in the day, an hour of playing did not make up for the 23 hours of what felt like incredibly hard work for the first seven years of our careers, traveling alone or in a van or on a Greyhound bus. It was very difficult and lonely. I definitely feel like it’s gotten a lot better. I love every aspect of what we do for different reasons. There are definitely parts that make me cringe; we had a week off between our Canadian tour and this American one, and when I was getting on the plane yesterday, I was not prepared, I was like “Oh, I want another week off!” But now that I’m out here, you know, it’s great and it’s a great group of people, and it’s a great record to play live. We’re playing almost the entire album live, and this is the first time in our career we’ve ever been able to do that - or ever wanted to do that. It’s a fun time.

How hard was it to hammer out live versions for The Con? Some of the songs have quite a bit going on.

On a song like “Are You Ten Years Ago”, the actual electronic part of the song, the beat, we’re running it - everybody is on ears except for me, so they all play the click. The drummer does his part and we have our bass player multitasking on synths and keyboards and between the other three of us on stage, the guitar players, we’re making an enormous amount of noise, and before you know it, it sounds bigger and better than the album. Sara and I have three really great musicians on the road with us - two studio hired guns - and they’re young guys but they’re veterans, too. They jumped into the record and loved it, they were really excited and challenged by all the different parts and things we’d come up with. You know, sometimes when you’re preparing the material for the live show, it’s a matter of listening to the record and picking the five things that stick out upon first listen - those are the five areas you should focus on when you’re getting ready for a live rendition.

Have you found what you think is an ideal venue or best sort of setting for an audience to enjoy a Tegan & Sara show?

I think theatres with standing room at the front are my favorite. I know a lot of people want to sit and be comfortable. It’s a long show - we’re playing nearly two hours, so we want people to be comfortable. I like theatres, too, because I find that people don’t drink nearly as much, which I like as well, because it’s difficult to compete with a drunk and rowdy audience. But I still love having the people up front getting excited and screaming and giving feedback. We’re trying to play those venues around the country.

Do you allow yourselves any indulgences on your rider now? Only green M&Ms, that sort of thing?

When we toured in Europe this summer, our promoter and tour manager thought our rider was insane because it’s so small, and we don’t have any booze on it. I think people are always surprised at how not rock star our lives are still. Most people don’t realize that when it’s your show, you get paid the back end, and your rider, whether you use it or not, gets paid out of that back end. As a band, we’ve figured out over the last ten years what we’ll actually eat or use during those six hours or ten hours we’re at a venue. We don’t overindulge. Having a bus with internet - those are the kinds of things we’re indulging in these days.

A lot of the live reviews of your shows will mention the lively between-song banter between you and Sara on stage. Do you go to other shows and think “Wow, these guys are stiff and awkward?”

[Laughs] I definitely go to shows and think “Wow, these guys are stiff and awkward” - but we have our stiff and awkward moments. Our banter happens whether we’re in a good mood or not; sometimes I feel like we hit a bulls-eye and we get off stage and I’m like “God, we’re funny. Those were some good stories! We had ‘em in the palms of our hands.” Other nights I walk off stage and I’m like “We should not be talking on stage. We’re a rock band - we should play music and get the hell off.”

But as much as it’s for the audience, it’s really for us. We play the same songs every night and we’re not a jam band - we don’t stray much from the material we’ve practiced. It would get pretty robotic, I would think, because we play so many shows a year. We like to change it up and try other songs and that seems to lead to a lot of conversation. I like our audience, too, and I like the idea that they get to hear about what the songs mean or what’s in our heads as we’re playing or what was happening backstage before we came on. It gives this human aspect. When I go see bands, especially when I really like a band, I desperately want them to talk, because I want to know more about them. How often do you get to hear it from the artist’s mouth? You get to interpret their music and you can certainly read interviews, but the journalist or the editor have control over how the artist is portrayed. I think live - and television interviews if they’re running straight - are the only times that you get a full clear perspective of what kind of person an artist is. I try to give that as much as possible to people, because I really like the idea that people feel connected to us - I think it gives them a little more reason to stay connected and consistent and loyal.

That must be increasingly important as the band gets bigger and the fanbase gets bigger. You obviously can’t engage directly with every fan anymore.

No, and I miss that a lot. We’ve been trying to mix it up, and trying not to do venues that are over 1,000 seats. But it’s hard, because that could mean we’re on tour forever. We still try to project like we’re talking to everyone - and really we are, even when we’re just engaging with one person who’s screaming for a song. You know, it’s difficult. We’re still trying to keep that connection, because that connection keeps me excited about what we’re doing. I don’t think we’d play much bigger venues than we are.

Is the banter ever rehearsed?

We don’t even rehearse, so...  [Laughs]  No, the banter is pretty off the cuff.  Sometimes I wish we would [rehearse] because we can be very funny and we also don’t usually tell the same story twice. Sara will start to tell something that I feel like I’ve heard before and I’m right in there, happy to be like “Uh, you told that already.” And then she’s like “Fuck!” and then will tell a variation or a story that correlates. It’s so funny because it’s something that our fans have talked a lot about - a lot of kids will come and see a lot of shows on tour, and they can because even though we’re playing a lot of the same songs, the show is never the same. The stories really influence the mood of the show and the mood of the audience - and they affect the temperament behind the music that night. I think that makes the shows diverse and I also think it makes the songs stand out and sound different than the record. That’s something we have to do because it would be so fucking boring to go out and sound exactly like the record.

Where do you turn if you need a good laugh? Who or what never lets you down?

Well, we are all Arrested Development and the British version of The Office addicts. After shows, when we get back on the bus and are getting into our pajamas and saying our good nights and doing our post-show rehashes, we put on The Office or Arrested Development. We’re total nerds. Basically we’ve regressed - we used to have a pretty diverse backing band and now they’re all 26 and they grew up together. So we turn into five teenage boys. We don’t do fart jokes or burping or any of that kind of shit, but we sit around and quote TV shows to each other and we think we’re hysterical. And we do it all sober, too. I think our crew finds us terribly boring.

What do you think is the key for a young band to be able to make it?  Is it record sales, merch sales, ticket sales?

Definitely merchandise and touring have always been the way we’ve made money.  Near the end of So Jealous, we were getting a lot of TV placements and we were doing a lot of support stuff - supporting The Killers and Cake and Gogol Bordello.  So we took those tours even though we weren’t making much money because we were starting to make money off TV and movie placement. 

On this record so far, it’s again stuff like that.  We tend to really work hard and spend a lot of time on merchandise.  Our designer, Emily Storey, does everything to do with our band, whether it’s artwork for the record or the website or the backdrops or the merchandise.  We are constantly, consistently changing up our merch.  We print on American Apparel.  I think our fans kind of know how much time and energy and effort we put into the merch.  It’s a whole production.  I think merchandise is one of our big income streams at this point, which is great - all the band members get a cut of that, so that helps everybody eat a little more on the road and keeps everybody feeling like part of the team.  It’s a great way of connecting with our audience, too, and it’s exciting when you look out in the audience and they’re all wearing Tegan & Sara shirts that were designed by someone so close to us.  When we meet young bands, I always encourage them to do merchandise but not do 25 different designs.  Rather than spending a boatload on a bunch of shirts, pick one shirt that’s pretty basic but really cool.