SARA QUIN, one half of Canadian indie duo TEGAN & SARA, catches up with ALASDAIR DUNCAN to talk about the band’s devoted following, their relationship with the internet, and their special connection they feel with Brisbane thanks to the kids from Iron On.

It’s a warm evening in Florida, and Sara Quin has just stepped off the stage. Shortly before our interview, she was helping her road crew pack the tour bus that she shares with her sister, Tegan; when we’re done, she’ll be on her way to Atlanta. Ten years ago, when Tegan and Sara were high school students, playing shows for friends and recording their music on cassette, did they ever imagine that their creative collaboration would last for as long as it has?

At this, Sara laughs. “You know, when we started making music, we didn’t have the internet, the whole world of computers was completely different, and we couldn’t even begin to fathom what it would be like to even have a career in music. I wasn’t aware of what we would have to do to be musicians, have a career and travel the world – it wasn’t like going to university, and you couldn’t just go to your guidance counsellor at school and be like ‘I’d like to apply to the place where you get to be in a band.’ You filled out your applications or you went and got a job, and those were your options.

“It was always a grey area for Tegan and me,” she continues. “We always liked to write songs, and we knew that we loved to perform in front of people, but we were sort of blind in the dark, wondering forward with the idea that it would become very obvious at some point that we would need to stop what we were doing and go back to university or something like that. I’m obviously tremendously happy that here we are ten years later, playing music and making a career out of it.”

Over the course of their career, Tegan and Sara have developed an extremely devoted following, and the genuine love that many feel for the Canadian pair is known to spill over in obsession. For proof of this, just check out the internet communities where people write stories, draw pictures and create artworks devoted to the sisters, and one fan has even included them as characters in his comic book. I’ve had a low-level crush on the pair since witnessing their So Jealous tour in 2002; I wonder, are the band aware of the immense level of internet devotion they inspire?    

“Oh yeah,” Sara Quin laughs. “When we first started playing music, it was really difficult to get people to pay attention to us – we were eighteen, nineteen years old and playing music that wouldn’t broadly be considered cool, so we really relied on what communication we did have with our fans on the internet. It was important for us to be dealing with our fanmail, and it was Tegan and I ourselves.” In fact, Tegan and Sara are so protective of their internet fan base, that recently, when a record label tried to intervene, they saw red.

“It’s really funny,” Sara says, “because we just revamped our record deal in the US for The Con, and one of the big issues was that the record label wanted to be able to add content to our site and have access to our mailing list.” At this, the pair became indignant. “Our mailing list is in the hundreds of thousands, and our MySpace page is in the hundreds of thousands, and we really didn’t want our label to be able to have access to them. We like to talk directly to our fans, and we thought, why would we want these people who’ve put their trust in us to be receiving information from people we don’t even know?

“We absolutely value the relationship that we have with the audience,” Quin continues, “and it’s so easy – I can write a blog or an email and send it out to the people on our mailing list, and there’s no reason why there ever needs to be a middle man in that situation. People want to hear directly from us – we are a personal band, and I think that the people in our audience really value that relationship.”

The artwork accompanying Tegan and Sara releases is also particularly striking – I remember, around the time of So Jealous, picking up postcards with a modified version of the cover photo and sticking them all over my walls. Do the pair have a lot of involvement with the artistic side of things, I wonder? “Yeah,” Sara says, “in fact, for the past couple of years, I’ve been dating our art director, so I’m involved in kind of a ridiculously intimate way. We care so much, it’s almost up there with the music – almost to the point of obsession. My girlfriend and I live together and all we talk about sometimes is art and conceptual ideas. I really do love music so, so much, but I like to be more balanced than just being a musician and doing that all the time, and there’s something about the artwork that allows me to be creative in a completely different way and use a completely different part of my brain.

“Our art director Emily really does understand our project in a way that nobody else could,” Sara continues. “She’s been out on the road with us a lot, and designs everything from our artwork and our backdrops to what our photos are going to look like. She and I are nerds, basically – we don’t sit around talking about music, most nights we’ll sit around talking about paper stock and inkwells. We just really geek out on the whole art side of things, and going back to the internet, it’s important for me for people to understand how much input we have in that stuff. It’s another way of letting people into the music, of letting people know that the images they’re seeing are really personal and are coming straight from us.”

When Tegan and Sara are next in Brisbane, chances are they’ll spend some time hanging out with local indie heroes Iron On. The two bands have a strong connection, and when I ask Sara how this came about, she laughs, before launching into a well-worn anectode. “The first time we came to Australia, we were touring So Jealous and we were meant to be playing shows with Little Birdy, but they had to drop out, meaning we had no gear. I had met Kate in a record store in Brisbane, so without really even knowing her, I called her and said ‘hey, you’re in a band – can we please borrow your gear to perform with?’ She was like, ‘oh, yeah mate, no problem!’ and I was like ‘wow, I love you guys, thank you so much!’ They were super, super nice to us then, and we hung out with them a lot afterwards, and do every time we come to Australia.”

In fact, subsequent to that initial meeting, the kids from Iron On followed Tegan and Sara back to Canada, and now enjoy success of their own over there. “The last time we were in Australia, we toured with them,” Sara says, “and right after that they came to Canada, and they did some shows at a big festival that happens in Toronto every year called Canadian Music Week. I think they’re a really great band, and I tried really hard to use the level of success and visibility that we have in Canada to get people to come out and see them – they did really well, and ended up signing a little record deal of their own over here. They came and slept on my floor for a week – I think they froze their asses off, because it was kinda cold in Montreal – but I really love those guys, I think they’re great. I love their melodies and harmonies – when Ross and Kate are singing together, I love how they perform – and I think they’re hilarious.” 

TEGAN & SARA play an all ages show at the Tivoli on Saturday December 15 (Sold Out). THE CON is available now through Warner Music.

Comments (1)

1. Written by Yo.momma !, on 26-11-2007 11:09 , IP: 61.69.12.20 they're excellent !

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