Tegan and Sara's new album, Sainthood, is released Tuesday,
Oct. 27.
VANCOUVER - Through embracing the most uncomfortable situation
imaginable Tegan and Sara found the spark needed to weld together
their latest album, Sainthood.
For the punk-popping twin sisters, this meant sitting down
face-to-face, and writing together - something the 29-year-olds
hadn't done before.
"It was not so bad actually," Tegan Quin says, pouring herself a
glass of water during an interview at a downtown Vancouver
hotel.
She raises an eyebrow framed by choppy brown hair and smiles.
"There was like a few moments, like a few outbursts, but I think
that was more just general frustration with the process than with
each other."
They survived five days writing in New Orleans last November, and
ended up creating a mix of songs together, including the album's
title track, Sainthood.
While none of the songs they wrote on that trip, including
Sainthood, made it on to the album, they used the song's theme -
particularly as it relates to relationships and love - to narrow
down which songs to include.
No small feat considering they had 50 demos to choose from, says
Tegan, adding they wanted to include the song, Sainthood, but
weren't allowed.
The song had "Leonard Cohen lyrics in it and so we couldn't get it
approved," Tegan explains.
(The song and title were inspired by Cohen's song, Came So Far For
Beauty. "I practiced all my sainthood / I gave to one and all / But
the rumors of my virtue / They moved her not at all.")
"I loved Leonard Cohen's lyrics and I loved the idea ‘I practiced
all my sainthood,'" says Sara Quin, seated in a separate hotel
room, identically-furnished but oriented in the exact reverse to
Tegan's media suite.
"I loved the idea you would, almost as a martyr, would behave in
such a way that would prove your devotion to somebody."
Sara, who had recently ended a five-year relationship, says the
words resonated.
"Because I was in a period of time that I was not in contact with
the person I was pursuing and because I couldn't win their
affections with gifts or words or charm, I really felt like the
only power I had was to be devoted in my mind," she says, her face
serious but calm as she recalls her feelings at that time:
"How can I be so devoted and it not move her?"
As an album, Sainthood comes packed with intense tunes, moving from
punk swaggers to poppy hymns. It brims with poetically in-your-face
lyrics, all lifted up by catchy melodies and the twins' surprising
vocal twists.
The 13-track release - produced by Death Cab For Cutie's Chris
Walla and Vancouver's Howard Redekopp - begins with the
electro-thumping rant, Arrow, ("Would you take a straight and
narrow critical look at me?") and moves through the slightly
grinding Don't Rush.
Things pick up with the pretty but dark single, Hell, inspired by
Tegan's time living in an apartment in Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside. ("Four blocks, run and hide, don't walk alone at
night/Cityscape, city change before they die.")
There's nothing dull about Sainthood, including plenty of
stand-outs like the poppy Alligator (a "slow burner," says Tegan,)
the vocally-rich The Cure or the hooky tune, The Ocean.
"This is the first record we've done in years where we've recorded
as a band," Tegan says, of Sainthood, recorded in May at Sound City
Studios in Van Nuys, California.
"It's also light production compared to maybe what we've attempted
in the past."
This is a good thing, she says.
"To draw an analogy when people put a lot of make-up on Sara and I,
I think it makes us look older and I don't think it looks good on
us," she says. "We don't hold make-up well."
Not much blush, eyeliner or gloss needed on their tunes either, she
says.
"If you overdo it with us, if you overproduce us, if we overproduce
ourselves, if we overlayer, it doesn't allow the natural kind of
beauty of what we do to come out."
The pair are candid about their sometimes scrappy sister dynamic
and their intense bond.
"I always describe it as a valve being unscrewed," Vancouver
resident Tegan says of her relationship to Sara, who is based in
Montreal.
"When a situation gets to a point where it's like super
uncomfortable and intense one of us has to almost lash out and then
it's like, 10 minutes later we can be laughing about something. And
it's less dramatic than it used to be."
The sisters, who grew up in Calgary, signed their first record deal
at 19. In the past decade they've released two previous albums,
including 2007's well-received The Con.
"I really feel that my life is enriched because of Sara's presence
in it," Tegan says. "I think there's like this interesting dynamic
between us where we challenge ourselves to be better."
It isn't always easy, says Sara.
"I often feel extremely dysfunctional, or like I'm not good at it,"
she says. "There's no one who I have a relationship with, who
remotely resembles the relationship I have with Tegan, and it's
definitely fraught with periods of horrible, you know,
communication and saying unkind things."
Sara adds: "And yet there's so much we've accomplished
together."
With the release of Sainthood, the Quin sisters are sharing more
than just their music, they're releasing a box-set of three books
called ON/IN/AT.
"Each book covers a different experience we've had this year or
last year," Tegan explains.
For instance, the second book documents their writing trip to New
Orleans.
"The photos look like stills from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was
just super spooky," says Tegan.
"There was this feeling like we were there to analyze each other.
Even though we were there to write."
Uncomfortable but good.