Date: August 21, 2003
Author: Denis Armstrong
Publication: Canoe
Headline: Separated at rebirth: Twins solve identity crisis by moving apart

Tegan Quin is having another identity crisis.

As one half of the bicoastal cowpunk twins Tegan and Sara, she thought that putting some personal space between her new Vancouver digs and her identical twin, who's living in Montreal, might cause some professional separation anxiety.

"When we started recording the record, we were having a little identity crisis about where we were living and what we were doing with our career," say Quin. "So a lot of the record is about coming to terms with change in life."

Not surprising then they called the album If It Was You, samples of which they'll play tonight at the opening of the Ottawa Folk Festival at Britannia Park.

"It's the first time we've been separated," Quin admits. "We get along a lot better. We just went on vacation off the Vancouver coast together. We see each other two weeks a month, so when we live apart it's less suffocating.

"Sara's in love and living in Montreal and all my friends are either falling in or falling out of love in Vancouver. That gives me something to write about: Love and going away."

Growing up in a tight-knit Calgary family with a therapist mom, she feels helped her become a well-adjusted adult.

"I think I'm pretty giving. We were raised to be open-minded."

Then she lists off her personality disorders like a shopping list of ailments.

"I'm incredibly obsessive-compulsive," she wails in mock horror. "And I'm really anal, so that's two. And then I'm really easy-going, that's three. And I'm completely paranoid and a hypochondriac, so that's four or five."

Still, for all the issues she might have about herself, she doesn't have any romantic misconceptions about what she does for a living.

"It's a job, a great job and a good problem to have," she says matter-of-factly. "Writing music isn't work. Touring and playing's work. We called our first album This Business of Art for a reason. It's about balance."