Date: June 2005 Author: Wade Howland Publication: dBmagazine.com.au Headline: Tegan & Sara

So much for the bond shared by twins. It doesn't take long for Sara Quin - no prizes for guessing which half of Tegan & Sara she represents - to trash that cliche when I ask how her twin and bandmate is after suffering a bout of pneumonia. "She's healing; she's getting better. I think the infection is gone now, officially. But she's still coughing and miserable and bitchy." Is it from touring too hard? "No, I think she was born with it." With the twins' new record 'So Jealous' now out in Australia, the girls are doing the media rounds. It must be difficult; considering the album was released in the northern hemisphere last September. "I actually like it 'cause; I have to be honest; doing Canadian press always makes me feel uncomfortable, and doing American press I always feel like I have a bit of a defence up, because they can be so... American," she says, deadpan. "But I feel really excited to be doing new press. I also feel like there's a different vibe; there's a little more momentum, people have heard about it, and I can make up new stories. I'm really good at that..." On 'So Jealous', Sara's also 'really good' at combining with her twin to deliver a well-crafted, modern pop album with tunes spiky enough to keep you coming back for more. Tegan & Sara are definitely an acquired taste, but their fan base is growing exponentially. "We've seen our project become a lot more successful than it was eight months ago, so we're enjoying that together and things get a lot easier." Sara relocated from Vancouver to Montreal prior to recording the album, and doesn't miss her sister too much. "If she needs something she calls me, and we compulsively check our emails. I wouldn't say I miss her, but sometimes when we've taken a month off or something we'll be flying somewhere and I'll see her at the airport, and I'll get excited, like 'look there's Tegan!'" She pauses. "And then she'll start talking and I'll be like, 'I hate you, you're so annoying!'" The move to Montreal spawned one of the album's highlights, Walking With A Ghost. "I initially moved here because I didn't know anybody and I wanted a change and it's a great city for that. There's a lot of great architecture, and because it is predominantly French there's still a cosy-ness, or a European feel to it. But then you leave the city centre and you're at a strip mall and eating Subway or whatever. There's a lot of hustle and bustle and you can be out and social with people, and it's not as cliquey as Vancouver. Walking With A Ghost has been used in a mash-up by San Franciscan Party Ben, mixing it with Mylo's Paris Four Hundred, though Sara's somewhat underwhelmed by the result. "It's... fine. I actually know Party Ben; he's really funny. Those mash-ups are weird to me anyway, and dance music just reminds me of being 16. Tegan loves it though, and she always puts it on, like, she listens to it all the time. She totally wants to be Moby! She wants to do a dance record. When the record label heard it I think they almost considered releasing it officially, and I was like, 'no, are you fucking out of your mind? We have enough trouble with our image! Jesus Christ..." Having just finished a tour with The Killers, Tegan and Sara are heading to Europe. "We're doing some dates with Weezer and I'm really nervous. I hate the idea that we would open and that people would throw stuff at us. As long as people don't throw stuff at us it's really good." Surely there'd be a part of Sara that would love that. "No! Oh my god, no. I would cry if someone threw something at me... I'm very confrontational, so I would either cry, or I would like, get down into the audience and be like, 'why don't you go up there and I'll fucking whip this at you! Are you kidding?' Anyway, sorry about my dirty mouth, it's really bad...." All going well they'll eventually make it to Australia. "Sometimes we're not very sensitive to people who are ill on the road, so after Tegan got pneumonia we had a band management meeting and I'm like 'OK, new rule: if Tegan or Sara get so sick that they have pneumonia ever again: you're all dead." Fingers crossed.