TEGAN AND SARA
TEXT RODRIGO PEREZ
PHOTO JEHAN CHU
DATE SEPTEMBER 9, 2004

Tegan and Sara have a stigma attached to them. Sometimes, no matter how much a band changes, grows, improves or better themselves, they nevertheless get saddled with an inaccurate image by the media. You might presume the Canadian outwardly lesbian twins are still disciples of Ani Difranco – but you’d be dead wrong. That was more than 6 years ago and the duo were teens just getting started and finding their musical voice. Or you might think they’re the next Avril Lavinge, cause of their shared Canadian heritage, but, ummm… no.
Tegan & Sara are none of those pre-conceived notions. They work with indie-rock elite like the New Pornographers for a reason. And that reason is they have insanely strong pop melodies and they rock. The girls, as aforementioned, are gay, but it’s as relevant as their nationality when it comes to their music. Sure, they play desperately forlorn songs that sometimes border on emo (in a good way, seriously) but the themes are universal to any sex. Even Ryan Adams agrees as evidenced by their joint tour.
And besides being suffused with amazing hooks, melody and precocious song-craft, some of their 4th record, So Jealous, is strengthened by the sonorous keyboards courtesy of Matt Sharp (Weezer, Rentals). Interviewing Tegan & Sara was easy and natural and it certainly didn’t take much prodding to get them talking.
You both said before that you’re in relationships, so maybe I’m just projecting my own problems, but did someone get dumped on this record, cause there’s some amazing stuff to connect to.
Tegan: I feel like I went around on my last record talking about how it was my heartbreak record, like when we toured with Ryan Adams, every night I would talk about how I got dumped. [Then] I wrote all these songs about being heartbroken. I think I reflected more on the loss of [a] relationship more than the crushing of your full world. The big thing for me was that I really only had one severe break-up and I’m actually still with that person, we got back together after three months, but she changed her phone number and it was an altering experience – I explained that as like the end of my childhood. I thought people really liked me and there was something really interesting about me, but after [the break-up] happened I didn’t really feel that special anymore. I started to feel insecurity and jealousy, and I had never had felt those emotions ever. I was always the one going, ‘Don’t feel insecure, and don’t project your jealousy onto me.’ I don’t think I really captured those emotions, but that’s what I was going through on that last record, and I feel like on this record I tried to look at that.
Is that where the title “So Jealous” comes from?
Sara: I wrote about being really jealous, I’m talking intense jealousy, jealousy that I had never felt before. The thing that I loved about the chorus in that song is that ‘I can’t even work’ it’s like I’m exasperated with myself. I was like disabled by it. I was jealous of what I didn’t have, what I used to have, what I wanted to have, and at that particular time I was sort of half-dating someone who was in a relationship, so it was an affair. It was a weird triangle of people and then my ex-girlfriend started dating this guy and then I felt [worse], and then he felt jealous, and it was just like ‘fuck!’ and I was just consumed.
Tegan: And then I, of course, was writing all these brilliant songs 4000 km away and Sara was jealous of me because I could write and she couldn’t.
Sara: Tegan has always been a really surface-kinda songwriter to me, like she writes very raw. It’s on top, it impacts you immediately, and with me, people either like my songs of they like her songs. They can like both, but like wouldn’t you agree, someone says I like the record, I like this song, this song, and this song. And they’re all Tegan songs.
Tegan: People will say, I can’t tell the difference between your songs. I like “Underwater” and “Not Tonight” and “I Wanna Be Bad.” I remember when Ryan Adams called and said, ‘I love your band. Sorry, I don’t know the differences between your voices and the songs, but I love…,’ and then he proceeded to name every single Sara song, and I laughed and said those are all Sara songs. I think definitely we have a style, and if you’re really in tune with it, you can start picking them out without even knowing you’re picking them out.
Sara: Tegan comes off like she has more anxiety outwardly, she’ll get sick or she’ll get upset physically, she will get visibly more upset, which makes her look like she has a sensitivity inside that is deeper. I think all my songs are a little bit tougher on this record, there was some deep ass shit happening in my life, and Tegan was really singing about [subjects] that were right in her face, you knew what she was talking about.
Sara: I think “So Jealous” and “I Can’t Take It” are the two songs that I’m dedicating to every human being who is alone. I wrote those two songs when I was alone.
Tegan: Oh so moved. Me and my girlfriend would just drive around and listen to them.
Sara: The last song on the record is dedicated to people who are alone. I mean, like alone and you stub your toe and you fall on the ground and you sob hysterically into the ground and you are like, ‘What is wrong with my life?’ I can remember people laughing at us and they were like, ‘oh, you are 18 what do you know about love and sadness.’ And I don’t know if the older you get the sadder you get. But this last year I was happy as hell but I was also sad at shit.
So, it’s safe to say, this is a pretty raw, personal record.
Sara: (laughs) Oh definitely. Yeah, I know Tegan especially was really influenced by her past. But I was just in full-blown sadness when I was writing this record. But it was the most nostalgic sadness ever. Because I knew things were gonna get better because I was moving and because I wanted things to get better. I loved my changes. I was totally crushing out on this new person in my life and it was just shitty the way that it all happened.
Tegan: When we gave the record company the record they were like, ‘Oh, these are all about love.’ But I think it’s bigger than that. It’s also about growing up, about accepting that you are an adult now and there are just things that you are not going to like whether it’s on the news or a coworker or at a restaurant that you are going to have to accept.
Sara: The record company was like, ‘Do you have anything else? This is just another record about love.’ And I was like, ‘No, this is not just a love record, it’s a life record.’ Because I was not in love, I was in shit and that was how this all came about.
Tegan: This record is about reflecting experiences more than just love. And what is more important than love in this world? Love is what you give that makes you who you are. Love is a gift. And that’s all we’re writing about and how you get it shoved down your throat and then it cracks your heart open and then you just diarrhea it out.
Sara: That’s so gross.

artist=Tegan And Sara
interviewer=Rodrigo Perez