Tegan and Sara - interview

Returning to Australia behind last year’s newly optimistic Sainthood, Tegan & Sara have long since proven themselves career songwriters and performers, enjoying mounting critical acclaim and a rabid fan base that grows more diverse by the day. Below, Tegan weighs in on various aspects of her musical life, from her songwriting side project and her creative relationship with her sister to the band still being aligned with Neil Young’s record label after a solid decade in the biz. As success stories go, it’s a unique one. 

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How was it working with Chris Walla again on the production side of Sainthood?

It was great. We enjoyed working with him [in part on 2007’s] The Con. He definitely has a different style than anyone we’d used before. But that wasn’t really a studio record. Sainthood was a much more traditional studio recording. The five of us were in a room recording for a month. So I got to see a different side of him. But I love Chris’s passion for music. I just had dinner with him a few days ago, and he’s made five records since ours. He loves making music so much, so you can imagine how much passion he has in the studio. That’s something Sara and I are really intense about: we’re so involved and invested in what we do. If somebody is only half-assing it, it’s pretty disconcerting to us. He’s the opposite of that.

He has a lot of instrumental contributions on the record as well.

Yeah, he was the bass player. He got out the keyboards and guitars every once in a while, but his major [instrumental] contribution was that he played bass. We played as a five-piece and recorded live off the floor.

I know you and Sara used to always write songs separately, and then you tried writing together. How were the songs on Sainthood written?

Well, we wrote everything that actually made it on the record separately, except for one song, which was wrote together via file-sharing and emailing. And I wrote three songs with Hunter Burgan from AFI the same way. But Sara and I did go on a trip before we started working on the record, and we recorded six or seven songs together. They actually turned out really great. A few of them were included in the initial batch of songs for the record, but they all just sounded so much like each other that it felt like they needed to be their own entity. So we’ll probably release it as an EP. But it was a success. We do more writing together now than we ever have. We collaborate on stuff all the time, and we’ve written stuff for Tiesto and Margaret Cho.

How much do you two edit and veto each other’s ideas?

I think that’s what our major role has been: editing and producing and managing each other’s songs for each other. We rely on one other’s opinion to figure out whose song should go where and what should happen with it. It’s pretty effortless. I think in 12 years we’ve fought about maybe two or three songs. In one case, it was Sara fighting for a song of mine to get on the record.

Why didn’t you want it on the record?

Well, it’s funny, I’m so grateful now that it was on. It was a song called ‘Living Room’, which was on [2002’s] If It Was You. I just thought it was really annoying. And it’s ended up hands-down in the top three favourite Tegan & Sara songs with the audience. We’ve played it every single night since it came out. It’s always been a fan favourite and it’s really enjoyable to play live, but I just thought it sounded annoying. (Laughs)

The songs on Sainthood that you wrote with Hunter have a certain propulsion to them. Do you think that’s part of what he adds?

Sure. I mean, Hunter and I have been working together for four years, and those songs were from that project. It’s definitely a lot heavier and a lot poppier. Hunter is sort of writing with the intention of selling them to other people, so it had a really different vibe to them. But in the end, Sara was like, ‘Why can’t we have that vibe? Why can’t we be a little harder or more mainstream or more pop-sounding? If you can write it, why not put it out on the record?’ So that’s what we did.

Does that project have a name or is it just a songwriting collaboration?

We affectionately refer to it as TVH, which is Tegan Versus Hunter, but we haven’t done anything other than writing songs. We always joke that we’re going to make a record, but both of us are so busy. But we still write, and we have quite a pile of songs. Ultimately, we’d love it if other people just recorded our songs. I have enough going on that I can’t even imagine having another band.

Did the project just come out of you two seeing a market for good songwriting?

Well, Hunter has a side project with himself called Hunter Revenge, and I told him I should start a Tegan Revenge project with all these songs that didn’t make it onto Tegan & Sara records. I sent him a couple and he asked if I wanted to collaborate. Some of the first ones were ‘The Cure’ and ‘Hell’ [off Sainthood]. It was really cool, so we kept doing it. We had no idea what we were doing, really. We were just writing songs for fun. But we’ll see what happens. Sara and I are both really interested in collaborating with other artists and producing, but then we have this crazy schedule. So our priority is always going to be Tegan & Sara.

You and Sara write these songs that are instantly catchy, and I think people underestimate how hard that is…

I think so too.

And it’s even more challenging to write that kind of song with depth and durability to it.

Oh god yeah. It’s kind of like animal testing, except we’re testing on human beings. We put our music out there more than 12 years ago, and people are still screaming for songs we wrote when we were 15. So it works. But it’s hard to write good, catchy songs. For every one great song we write, we write five really shitty ones. Not shitty, but not good. They’re okay, but they need way more work. There’s just some songs that, when you write them … when I heard [Sara’s song] ‘Back In Your Head’ [from The Con], there was no part of me that wasn’t sure. I was like, ‘This is a fucking great song.’ When it’s a great song, it’s a great song. It is really hard. It’s a practice. It’s a lifestyle; you have to be really willing to invest. But you also have to be willing to let go of it and put it out in the world, and a lot of songwriters can’t do it. A lot of people can’t get past that moment where you have to let it go. And once you let it go, it becomes public property.

Is it right that you two live in separate cities but both still in Canada?

Yeah. I have a place in L.A. with my girlfriend, so I spend part of my time in Vancouver and part of my time in L.A. And Sara lives in Montreal but spends a lot of time here in Vancouver with us and also has spent a ton of time in New York lately. She was working on a project there and ended up falling in love with Manhattan. We both are very nomadic.

L.A. and New York are the perceived music centres of America. Did you ever feel pressure to be based in either city?

I’m sure for some people there’s tons of pressure to live in a New York or L.A. or even a Toronto, but not for us. If anything, there’s been pressure for us to live overseas. We’ve really tried to make our career work in Europe and the UK, but it’s really hard. We only go there once or twice a year, and the record company doesn’t know us. We’re international property, which means they don’t have the budget or the time to really invest. It’s been very frustrating over the years. So if anything, the pressure has been to prioritise those markets. But my move to L.A. was purely romantic. It’s not necessarily my favourite American city. I prefer San Francisco or even New York. But there is a lot of music there, and a lot of opportunity. It’s a cliché but it’s also reality. Music and ‘the biz’: that’s where it happens. But Sara and I were lucky enough to sign a record deal and get an agent and have a career before we ever had stepped into America once. So we’ve been able to sidestep a lot of that pressure, I think.

I find it really interesting that, with everything you’ve done in your career, you’ve remained signed to Neil Young’s label, Vapor.

Well, we’ve been handed around. We’ve been on practically every major label, but Vapor is the conduit or the liaison or whatever between us and the label. Warner has full ownership of our records at this point, but Vapor is still part of the family. They’re still involved. It’s a 10-year relationship at this point, and we rely on them for their opinions. We really trust all the people who work with Neil. They’ve been doing it so long and usually really have sound advice. We try to keep them close.

The title and theme of Sainthood was inspired by a Leonard Cohen lyric. What appealed to you about these ideas of devotion and ideals applied to love?

Unlike our past records, which I felt had more focused on the end of relationships, we were focusing more on the attempt at finding someone to love you; the attempt at dating and going out and showing this brave new self. I loved the idea that relationships, at the beginning, are all about presenting your best side. And it’s not necessarily a false side of yourself. It’s like starting the school year: ‘I’m going to keep my binders tidy and I’m going to do my homework every night and I’m going to keep my locker organised…’

There’s this striving to better yourself…

Yep. So Sainthood’s just that. It’s like, ‘I’m going to be nicer, I’m going to be more honest, I’m going to not be codependent, I’m going to look for someone who’s my equal.’

Doug Wallen

May 1 - Groovin’ The Moo Festival - Bendigo Showground Bendigo, VIC
May 2 - Groovin’ The Moo Festival - Murray Sports Complex Townsville, QLD
May 3 - The Tivoli Brisbane, QLD
May 4 - The Tivoli - SOLD OUT Brisbane, QLD
May 7 - Big Top Sydney, NSW
May 8 - Groovin’ The Moo Festival - Maitland Showground Maitland, NSW
May 9 - Groovin’ The Moo Festival - The Meadows Canberra, ACT
May 11 - Forum Theatre - SOLD OUT Melbourne, VIC
May 12 - Forum Theatre Melbourne, VIC
May 13 - Thebarton Theatre Adelaide, SA
May 14 - Fremantle Arts Centre Fremantle, WA
May 15 - Groovin’ The Moo Festival - Pat Usher Foreshore Reserve Bunbury, WA

www.myspace.com/teganandsara