like looking in the mirror ‘Tegan, you’ve totally copied my haircut’
twin As Canada’s identical-twins band Tegan and Sara prepare to play London, Sara Quin tells Sophy Grimshaw about songwriting, her love life, and the girls’ unique bond
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‘I’m going to need therapy after this interview,’ smiles Sara Quin, one half of Canadian indie-pop powerhouse Tegan and Sara. She’s talking about the effect that being in a band with her identical twin sister has on her lifestyle. ‘I don’t like being home for more than about five days because I’m just so unused to it that I don’t know what to do, and I don’t have any kind of domestic set-up. So when I say “my home” I only mean the place where most of my junk is.’ They have voices that meld as one and have spent most of the last 12 years together on a tour bus, but the twins lead independent lives: Sara is based in Montreal, Tegan in Vancouver. They often write by collaborating on songs via email. It’s being a travelling musician, rather than being a twin, that Sara thinks makes her a difficult prospect for anyone else to get close to. She says she was previously in a five-year relationship but doesn’t have a girlfriend at the moment (both twins are gay). ‘I’m not meaning to sound selfdeprecating or horribly insecure, but some days I honestly don’t know why anyone would ever want to date me. Because I don’t know why anyone would want to date any musician. I’ve tried it myself and it’s very hard to fit into somebody’s life when that’s what they do. And not everyone wants you writing songs about them. But you know, the reality is that musicians don’t usually write songs about other people at all; they write about how other people make them feel. And that’s a different thing. ’
Tegan and Sara grew up in Alberta and began making music together when they were about 15, making use of a recording studio in their high school to record demos that won them a signing to Neil Young’s label, Vapor. They released Under Feet Like Ours in 1999 and have been churning out albums as a
I don’t know why anyone would want to date me family business ever since. The recent, critically acclaimed Sainthood was their seventh with the single Alligator out this month. Tegan and Sara’s distinctive sound – bright, sharp melodies beaten out on acoustic guitars,
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and a distinctive, clipped vocal style – has won them fans including The White Stripes, who covered the band’s song Walking with a Ghost, and Dutch DJ supreme Tiësto (they appear on his current album Kaleidoscope). In the States, Tegan and Sara have appeared on the Letterman and Jay Leno talk shows, and their songs have soundtracked the teenage angst of 90210 and One Tree Hill. The Quin girls aren’t the only band of Canadian sisters to have made an international splash, as Sara points out. They were saddened by the death in January this year of Kate McGarrigle – mother to Rufus and Martha Wainwright. Kate and her sister Anna had been successful as folk band The McGarrigles for three decades. ‘When Kate died I felt so emotional about it,’ explains Sara. ‘Around the time of her passing, Tegan and I were playing at Massey Hall in Toronto, which is a huge, prestigious venue and somewhere we’d dreamed of playing. I wanted to say something to the crowd about how sad we were about Kate, and I found myself starting to cry. I thought: I can’t believe I’m crying on stage.’ The bond between two sisters is perhaps the closest subject to Sara’s heart. ‘I feel so privileged that I have this person that I love and respect and can make music with, who is always here with me,’ she nods. ‘In the morning I wake up on the tour bus and Tegan is climbing out of her bunk opposite me looking sleepy, just like when we were 12. I’ll admit, I do find that really comforting.’
town Tegan and Sara 24 Jun London Roundhouse
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