Brightest Young Things

Back in 2009, I interviewed Tegan Quin, one half of the identical twin duo Tegan and Sara. The Canadian band released their sixth studio record, Sainthood, in October of last year, and now, they're back in D.C. playing at The Warner Theater tonight.

Tegan Quin: Hi there!

BYT: How are you?

TQ: I’m good. How are you doing?

BYT: I’m well, thanks. So, where are you calling from right now?

TQ: I am in Los Angeles.  We have a couple of days off, and then we head to Europe to start touring there.

BYT: In the UK, right?

TQ: Yeah, we head to Germany for a few days to do press, but then our first show is in London, yes.

BYT: You recently played in New York. How was that?

TQ: It was great. It’s always really exciting to play new material. And Sainthood is, in particular, a really fun record to play…a poppy record, and a lot of the songs are upbeat. It’s also probably the most challenging artistically for us. We definitely covered a lot of new ground.

I think as a band we’re all feeling pretty challenged by it, which is really exciting, you know, after 11 years to get up on stage and feel that you’re making progress, and you’re evolving, and your band is getting better. So, all the shows went really well. The audiences were super receptive. I think people were really excited about the new material.  All in all, it went really well!

BYT: Cool.

TQ: Yeah!

BYT: How was the recording process of the new record?

TQ: It was, overall, really positive. We hadn’t made a traditional band record since So Jealous. With The Con, we recorded it backwards and added the band at the end. So, this was much more of a traditional studio record; the five of us in a room, playing together, recording everything at the same time. It was nice. There wasn’t much pressure on us. We were working with a really amazing creative team. It was amazing to play with Chris Walla and Jason McGerr at the same time. Death Cab [for Cutie] is such an interesting band. It was really nice to combine forces with them.

We were recording in Sound City [Studios], which is a classic L.A. studio; Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac records were made there, Nirvana’s Nevermind was made there. So, everyday I’d walk into the studio and it was like, “please don’t disappoint these amazing walls, who have held amazing music over the years.”

BYT: Amazing. Is there a significant to the title Sainthood?

TQ: Yeah, when we were in New Orleans, we wrote a song…Sara had the melody idea, but she used some Leonard Cohen lyrics from a song called “Came so far for Beauty.” The chorus is “practiced all my sainthood.” The idea of the song is this sentiment of doing everything, anything to win the affections of someone, who basically doesn’t know you’re there. [Sara and I] really attached to that and thought it was a beautiful sentiment…sad and pathetic, but kind of amazing and dead on too.

There’s something really unforgiving about those first few months when you meet somebody and fall in love. You think everything is going to work out and it doesn’t. This was all summed up by this beautiful song. We were never able to secure the lyrics, but we loved the sentiment. It was Chris Walla, who produced the record, who suggested that even though “Sainthood” couldn’t be on the record, that we should still call the record Sainthood, because it summed up where all the songs on the record were coming from.

BYT: Do you have a favorite song to perform live?

TQ: Yeah! I mean I love “Alligator.” I think it’s probably my favorite of Sara’s songs and it’s pretty fun to dance to on stage. I also enjoy playing “Someday,” which is a song of mine. I think we’re all enjoying it. It’s pretty wordy, excited and upbeat. It’s a bit like an anthem at the end of the set.

BYT: I was watching your video for “Hell,” and I was wondering how that concept came together.

TQ: Basically, we reached out to a lot of different directors and got back great treatments, but nothing that felt right. We went back to this guy, Jamie Travis, who had directed the video for “Back in Your Head,” and asked him if he would potentially consider the song. He came back with this really elaborate, crazy, fun treatment, but it was a little lofty for our budget. So, he came back with this really cool idea that we would use all these images of our parent and grandparents and all these weird family members, from the early 1900s into 1980. The actual concept of the video, I think, is pretty much just random imagery. This idea of struggle between Sara and I is probably tied into the struggle of the song.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/7335977[/vimeo]

BYT: You have some other projects going on. Tell me a bit about your book set.

TQ: It’s called ON, IN, AT. It covers a lot of different elements of what we do. Two of the books are more about touring and contain essays and pieces written by people who have toured with us, other bands, our band. And the other book in the series, which is called IN, is about a trip that we took to New Orleans. Sara and I physically sat in a room and wrote songs together, which we had never done.  We’ve always collaborated, like, once we get to the studio or when we’re rehearsing. But, we had never sat in a room and thought up song ideas together. So, that book sort of shares that experience in photos and essays and transcripts and stuff.

BYT: Where can your fans find it?

TQ: It was part of the record preorder, but starting in January we’ll have it at shows on tour.

BYT: You’ve been living in Vancouver. What’s the music scene like there?

TQ: There’s a lot of great stuff happening here right now. The New Pornographers are one of my favorite bands. I’m really proud of that band. We’ve played with them a couple of times. They are fabulous performers and songwriters. Also, recently, we were at a radio station in Vancouver, where they’re having a battle of the bands. They were talking about one of the bands we should check out, and I went home and listened to them, and they’re amazing. They’re called We Are The City. There’s so much great music in Vancouver, a couple of good venues. There’s definitely a vibrant, underground scene.

BYT: How do you think the audiences differ in Canada compared to the ones in the States or Europe?

TQ: Each market is very similar and different. I think our audience is very similar. We have a pretty diverse audience these days, but we have a lot of young people. No matter where we tour, it feels familiar. In terms of customs and attitudes, I definitely think that in Europe, people love their music festivals and love live music. There’s definitely an intensity and passion to playing in Europe, like singing and clapping, bobbing of heads…just, kind of, drunken excitement. I think Canadian and American audiences are more reserved in that way.

BYT: How do you feel about playing in D.C.?

TQ: I’ve always enjoyed playing there. I remember D.C. being a really good market for us early on in the States. We were playing smaller venues in a lot of places and then going and playing the 930 Club. It’s been really good. It’s also a really weird place to visit. It’s just really intense. You have the White House and then five blocks away, you have some of the most dangerous neighborhoods.

I remember going to a gas station or something literally a minute drive from the White House, and Sara came out of the bathroom and was like, “someone is smoking crack in there.” American cities blow my mind that way. How you’ll have these really amazing parts and then also these devastating, impoverished areas right next to each other. There’s divinity an intensity to America that takes me a few days to get used to. But again, D.C. is an awesome place for us to play, so I like visiting.

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