Date: November 16th, 1999 Author: Mike Ross, Edmonton Sun Publication: torontosun.com Headline: The Mighty Quins

Even a 19-year-old former punk rock chick turned folk singer who writes songs about trees is not immune to the charms of the Backstreet Boys. Tegan Quin - one-half of Calgary duo Tegan and Sara, performing tonight in the Sidetrack Cafe - lets it slip that she's a closet fan, in a recent phone interview. "I was watching them on MuchMusic yesterday and they're pretty cool, I mean, for what they do, right? All they're doing is playing pop music and apparently there's a huge number of people that really like them. And they do it well. I mean, I wouldn't go to their concert, no, but I think A.J.'s pretty cute." You sure you want this to get out? "I don't care," she replies, "but put in that I'm also a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen and that I do go to his concerts and that's who I hope to be and to meet and to live my life like." Besides, "people are making fun of us for liking Bruce Springsteen." Not that she or her identical twin sister would care about that, either. Tegan and Sara (recently switched from Sara and Tegan because they were tired of hearing people say "who's Sara Tegan?") don't seem too concerned about image - or any of the other showbiz customs, for that matter. With charm and dry wit, the sisters tend to speak their minds, much to the amusement of the local media at the last Lilith Fair press conference. The duo had yet to play its one and only show on the very last Lilith Fair (booked on the third, or "shopping mall" stage), so they hammed it up answering a question about Lilith memories: "We get choked up every time we talk about it. We hope we can keep the bonds we've made here." Not too long before that, Tegan and Sara were just another couple of guitar-strumming high school girls entered in Calgary's Garage Warz contest. They used to be a punk rock band called Plunk, but decided to go unplugged after their PA system went kerflooey during a particularly loud house party. After winning Garage Warz - "I don't think our music was all that great. I think it was the passion between us on stage, the charisma," Tegan says - it was off to the New Music West conference in Vancouver. In addition to meeting kindred souls like Veda Hille, Kinnie Starr and Oh Susanna, collectively known as the "Scrappy Bitches" (T&S were dubbed the "Baby Bitches"), the young duo drew the interest of major record labels. Tegan and Sara's debut album, Under Feet Like Ours - on an independent, for now - came out this spring. On the fast ride from garage band to touring recording artist, Tegan says, "It's crazy. But we've always been a little ahead of everything. We've never really had to muck it out." Maintaining that she and her sister couldn't imagine playing with anybody else (despite the nearly constant sniping between them), Tegan says she's ready for whatever the music business throws at her - including becoming a pop star. "I want to play music. Whatever comes with that I'm ready for, or I'll prepare for it. I was having a dream about being a rock star, actually. It kept fading in and out. It was me and the Backstreet Boys. I'm not sure what that meant. I'm going to go look it up in my dream book, but I don't know if Backstreet Boys will be in it."