Date: April 25, 2008
Author:
Publication: RollingStone.com
Headline: Tegan and Sara's Coachella Blog: Prince, The Raconteurs and "The Dog Whisperer"

Tegan: We watched "The Dog Whisperer" this morning when we got up, that helped us ease into Coachella.

Sara: It's like a safe place to watch Cesar Millan talk to the dogs. I own two seasons of "The Dog Whisperer" on DVD, and I don't even like dogs, I'm a cat person.

T: It really trained us. Then we got up and we got on a cart, a really nice girl came and gave us a ride to our dressing room, and it's covered in stars and butterflies and rainbows and hearts. It's super girly, it's hilarious.

S: The people who do the trailers say they have a sweet spot for us every time we play, so they put extra effort into it.

T: For each artist, they get artists to paint funny paintings. The one we got this year is two bunnies and their umbilical cords are all tangled up. Which is kind of funny because yesterday we got a fan video for the song "Floorplan" on our new record, and in it there's a little girl character that's supposed to be Sara and she's wearing bunny slippers and they're all evil at the end, so when we walked in today and it was the bunnies I was like, oh my God! Then we ate, so we took another ride in the cart.

S: And that was scary for me, because Tegan and I did not go to camp, our mother was a single parent and camp was totally out of the question. We found out later because she went to Catholic boarding school, she doesn't like communal living without parents, so she enforced a no–communal living rule when we were growing up, so we have never done camp really. Now we're at Coachella and we're in the catering tent and all the bands are there and I'm sweating profusely, I'm very uncomfortable, I'm afraid everyone hates us. I see people looking at me, I think maybe we know each other. I avoid eye contact. The next time we play Coachella I hope we are the size of Prince...

T: We are the size of Prince.

S: In terms of our career, if we are the size of Prince and I am going to hire Cesar Millan to come soothe me.

T: And now we're doing press. And we're wearing suntan lotion. Someone tried to give us suntan lotion that was 15, I was like, 15? Have you seen me before?

S: A guy just walked by here with the most incredible body I've ever seen. This is a funny thing for me, as a gay human. When I see people of the opposite sex with phenomenal bodies I feel like I can stare at them and if they look at me weird it's like a lion walked by. You don't usually see them in the wild. He was already tan. For him, this is heaven. He probably went to camp when he was a kid. We're pale and pasty and my jeans are chafing already because I'm sweating.

T: There is nothing more un–rock & roll than shorts. We learned this on our first tour. Our first tour was opening for Neil Young and the Pretenders and we wore fucking shorts onstage every night because it was hot. Except now I look back at it and we look like stagehands. You kind of look like a kid in shorts unless you wear little short ones. Then you're like a hooker. I opened up my suitcase today and pulled out the one white shirt and put in on and was like, uck, and went and put my black shirt on and felt better.

S: Basically, post–'two o'clock you just have to high–five people.

Who are you excited to see?

S: We're only staying tonight. We're super–psyched to see the Raconteurs. We're big Brendan Benson fans and we've never met Jack and with the whole White Stripes covering "Walking With a Ghost" thing I feel like it's a weird synchronicity that we're playing on the same stage right before them. I'm going to use Brendan Benson to get to him.

T: We met Meg. When we played in Detroit she came to the show, brought the song and played it for us, we went bowling, got wasted, it was so fun, highlight of my career.

S: I always feel shy telling stories like that because maybe Meg White wouldn't want everyone to know she's an absolutely stunningly, phenomenal... bowler. While smoking cigarettes! She bowled with one hand and still whooped our asses. I am going to try to see Jens Lekman, and one of my favorite records of the year was the National, Boxer.

If you had five minutes alone with Prince...

S: I'd try to get him out of his jumpsuit so I could try it on.

T: I think I'd be like, don't be afraid, I'm going to take you outside of your compound and it's going to be really nice. Imagine ten minutes from now you see me and Prince walking around laughing together. Wouldn't that blow your mind?

S: I know he's very lean and quite short, I feel like Tegan and I would look a bit...not chunky, but probably beefy compared to him. We might look like his security. And everybody would be like, who is Prince with? These tattooed cute security guards.

What's the best way to deal with onstage sweat?

S: We sweat on the inside.