|
 |
  
 
 |
|
Tegan And Sara: Where The Good Goes
Posted by Steven Robertshaw on 30-May-08 @ 01:12 PM
For more than a decade, the Quin sisters, aka TEGAN AND SARA, have been enrapturing audiences with their erudite tales of modern life. In their world, it's all about f-words: family, friends and fans. Story: Tom Lanham Photos:Brion Topolski Outside the Sheraton hotel restaurant window, another beautiful sunset, all orange and gold, descends over San Francisco. As the fog starts rolling in, the evening cools down accordingly. Inside the cafe, however, things are really heating up, as the Quin sisters-identical twins Tegan and Sara-enter the cafe after an all-day photo shoot, radiating kinetic energy and mile-a-minute chipmunk chatter. They should be exhausted; instead, they just previously raced to their respective rooms, pawed off the last vestiges of their makeup, changed into comfortable jeans and T-shirts, and scampered into a waiting booth, eager to talk. Maybe it was the pending 14-hour redeye flight to Australia that had them so antsy. Or maybe, just maybe, it was all those hours of relatively silent posing for the lensman that had the siblings practically bursting at the seams with whimsical recollections and non-sequitur in-jokes. For roughly 15 minutes, the girls do their best to get the elderly waiter's attention. Perhaps he thinks they're sequestered in his booth for idle chitchat, not to eat. Finally, a loudly barked "Hey!" does the trick. As Sara questions the butterfly-cutting technique he's suggested for her steak, the waiter sighs, rolls his eyes like he's dealing with children, and s-l-o-w-l-y explains the process. Twice. As soon as he's out of earshot, a miffed Tegan adopts a hillbilly drawl. "We-all are from Can-uh-duh! We ain't nevuh had no stay-yuks before! All we is a-eatin' up thay-urr is reindeers and polar bears!" The Quin sisters crack up in a fit of laughter. There's really no need for them to defend themselves against such rudeness-they've always got each other's backs. The yarns start slow, starting with Tegan discussing her makeup routine and Sara discussing her clipper-ship shoulder tattoo and what initially appears to be a bar code on her wrist. "Actually, it's six lines, for six strings on the guitar" she explains. "The boat is from a famous woodcut." Giant inky waves on her arm threaten to destroy the craft. She nods affirmatively. "It's doomsday," she acknowledges. "It's funny; I got it while we were making The Con, and I wrote the record about [so many] non-fun topics. I was writing so many of my songs about the pressure I felt: I was 26 years old; we'd made four albums; we'd been somewhat successful; we didn't have part-time jobs and this was our full-time thing. All of a sudden, I have to do a will; I have lawyers; I bought a house. And don't even mention relationships." Sara's spate of business-related anxiety soon gives way to the twins' personal philosophy, and trying to get it across through the most serendipitous, almost subliminal channels. A typical post-concert activity for the twins includes wandering outside a venue to meet their fans. "So I had this experience the other day where there were these girls, kinda like the cool, cute blondes, wearing their team sweaters, who probably watch Laguna Beach and The Hills," notes Tegan, a 5-foot 2-inch sparkle-eyed powder keg who talks even faster than her hyperspeed sister. "Then there was this not-as-cool, kind of nerd girl with glasses, all by herself, who'd been waiting to meet us for half an hour. She's fumbling around with her camera, and she says, 'Will you sign my poster?' and we did. Then she turns to the Laguna Beach girls behind her and goes 'Will you take this photo?' and they ignore her. They wouldn't help her out; they just look at her, look away and keep talking. "So, Sara grabs the girl's camera and goes, 'Hey! You guys! Here, take a picture of us, would you?' Then we grab the girl, put our arms around her and take the picture. The smile on that girl's face just killed me-if there hadn't been 35 more people standing in the alley, I would've just bawled. What's funny is, the Laguna Beach girls-who'd initially been so annoying-turned out to be really sweet, too. But then their camera broke, so there ya go." "What I realized in that moment was this," continues Sara. "When I'm standing up onstage; when I'm sitting in my studio at home writing songs; or when I'm laying in a fetal position in my storage room, wondering how to get through the next couple of months-whatever experiences I'm having in my life, I look forward to those moments where I can change somebody's life, for just a second. I don't think that girl's gonna remember that moment for the rest of her life." She stares at her dinner plate, twirling her fork thoughtfully. "But she might..." This small ray of hope, the optimistic concept that somebody out there will eventually pick up on what they're putting down, has sustained the 27-year-old, Calgary-bred Quins for nearly 13 years. Despite living and composing music in separate cities these days (Sara in Montreal, Tegan in Vancouver), a simple "might" has almost always been good enough. In their history before the arrival of the wonderfully quirky folk-pop-punk of the Chris Walla-produced The Con, the Quins self-released early demos, played underage gigs in their garage and, in Tegan's words, "flailed around in obscurity for the first five years of our career." When they finally signed to Neil Young's Vapor Records for their sophomore 2000 effort This Business Of Art, she adds, "Nobody cared about us, except for [Young's manager] Elliott Roberts and the Vapor staff, who were three people in an office in Santa Monica. They said, 'Go out there, have fun, play shows, travel around.' And here we are, 10 years later. We came from having zero interest and support, to being a band that can actually sell out shows now." TO SEE MORE, CHECK OUT ISSUE 236 |
