Tegan and Sara join Neil Young and The Pretenders on tour
by Suzan Alteri
Real Detroit Weekly
My guess is you haven’t heard of Tegan and Sara, not yet anyway. But the
two Canadian musicians have signed a major label deal with Vapor Records
(releasing their major debut This Business of Art in September) and are
currently on tour with Neil Young and The Pretenders. “It’s been pretty
surreal. You have to be loud and battle with the beer and the masses,”
said Sara Quin of touring with such legends. The two have just woken up
and they’re feeling a tad groggy and world-weary, but once we broke the
ice with a brief discussion of lying, “We lie generally in life to make
things sound better,” Sara laughed, their exuberant nature comes through
the phone line like a refreshing blast of energy. If you need a little
kick in the morning to get you going, Tegan and Sara are definitely it.
They talk so fast at times that their reflective thoughts are often missed.
Before you know it they’ve gone from talking about their album to their
life as twins. They often would say, “I’ll get to the point eventually,
I promise.”
The
same could be said of their music. One critic in Canada called it spastic
and Sara agreed, “We definitely know, as an album, it’s a mouthful but
it’s very energetic. It’s very true to life. I think that we’ll grow into
a maturity and it will come in our music as well. Right now, our music
is a little spazzy.” With heady mixtures of acoustic guitars, electronic
bleeps and pounding drums, Tegan and Sara have managed to breathe life
into a dying genre of music. Their album nearly reinvents pop-folk music.
While some might compare these two young women to Ani DiFranco, their
music is surprisingly more visceral and well defined. They’ve taken their
cues from both pop and folk music, merging the two into an irresistible
melange of beats and razor sharp lyrics.
By
definition from grade school to age 30 / We quietly become strong so early
/ Take it or leave it / They can’t believe it / They go from kindergarten
to killing sprees / They go from heartache to inner peace.
Taken
from “The First,” these lyrics, penned by Tegan Quin, the other half,
could describe the life of this dynamic duo. “I walked in on a burglar
and it was so creepy and it took away all of my sense of security. And
then, family stuff and crappy jobs. I felt like I was starting to get
fearful. (I thought) I have to get off this train and I just sat down
and wrote it,” she commented after pausing. Their words often make them
seem wise beyond their years, although Sara disagreed, stating that she
knows more than one youth whose thoughts echo the ones they discuss on
This Business of Art, “They just don’t play music,” Sara said.
I
asked the two if they studied writing, since their lyrics are so clever.
Although they read voraciously and were big English students in school,
“I don’t think we studied or tried to do it on purpose; I think it just
came out that way.” The two are more than just content with their latest
album. Apparently their system of letting their work evolve naturally
has paid off in spades. Tegan described This Business of Art as, “the
closest and it’s made me the happiest.” Sara quickly echoes that sentiment
with, “It’s very honest and raw and we think it’s very true to how we
are onstage.”
Besides
creating great music, the duo has another oddity about them — they are
twins. It gives their music an almost psychic quality, as if the one knows
exactly what the other is singing and thinking. Perhaps it is this odd,
intimate connection that gives their live show its passionate energy,
which is missing from many of today’s bands. Still, it’s a little weird
for them. “What happens sometimes onstage or the way we can play music
together is that we’re so close to one another. We’ve always been in each
other’s face and we’re such good friends. It’s just an odd thing. I hate
sleeping in the same bed with her. I feel that I have weirder dreams,”
Sara laughed.
But
recording the album wasn’t exactly what the two imagined. If you think
recording your first album is all glory, parties in the studio with famous
guests stopping by, forget it. “It was insane just ‘cuz we were in one
room. When Hawksley Workman was doing the drum tracks, we would wrap jackets
and scarves around our heads. If you could see how we did it, it was a
joke,” Tegan laughed heartily.
This
Business of Art is an inspiring debut to say the least. But if you’re
looking to Tegan and Sara as role models, that might be OK, but they certainly
aren’t setting out to influence the next group of young girls searching
for anything emotional in an increasing barren society. “We’re really
just trying to reinforce ourselves. We write songs as reminders to ourselves.”