Tegan Interview With AZNightBuzz

Tegan: "Oh, yeah. She gets on my nerves, but not as much as anyone else does. Everyone gets on each other's nerves when they are in such close quarters. I think because she is my sister, it is easier. We don't have to be nice to each other if we don't want to. If we want to be irritating and irritable to one another, it is OK." Click for full interview.

Edit: Interview pasted here in case the link above becomes inactive.
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October 25, 2007
By Gerald M. Gay
ggay@azstarnet.com
Tucson, Arizona

Tegan and Sara Quin recently returned to the road after more than a year off from doing live shows.

Why take the break?
"We had been touring for, like, eight years straight," said Tegan in a phone interview last week from Vancouver, "we wanted to take a lot of time off, write a lot of songs and handpick a producer for our new album in a period that we felt comfortable with."

During that time, the Canadian twin sisters created their latest release, "The Con," and Tegan took to blogging, reading, hitting concerts and chasing after TV reality-show star Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman in Hawaii.

You mention in a blog entry on your Web site that you hate going to see live music. Why?
"I see 200 shows a year, so when I get home and people ask, 'You want to see a band?' I say, 'No, no I don't. Let's go bowling or to a museum or something. It is such a one-dimensional world sometimes, being out on the road playing all the time. I like to back off a little bit when I get home and not think about music so much, so I can develop other parts of my brain."

I couldn't tour with my sister for eight minutes let alone eight years. Do you two get on each other's nerves?
"Oh, yeah. She gets on my nerves, but not as much as anyone else does. Everyone gets on each other's nerves when they are in such close quarters. I think because she is my sister, it is easier. We don't have to be nice to each other if we don't want to. If we want to be irritating and irritable to one another, it is OK."

I heard you recently went to Hawaii in search of Dog the Bounty Hunter.
"OK, I'm not that obsessive. I was very excited that I might run into him, but it did not happen. I love that show, and I've never been on a vacation. "I've been to real nice places, but I've always been playing. It was amazing to pack up and go somewhere for two weeks and not work. We just kind of went and winged it every day. That was very exciting. It was much needed because this record took a lot out of both of us. It was an emotional, intense period of time. There was a lot of stress and a lot invested in this record. I wanted it to work out, and I wanted it to be well-received. I had to get to Hawaii to get myself in a good space for that preparation."

How was Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie as a producer on "The Con"?
"Chris was so open to us doing all of our stuff first and then adding drums and bass. That gave the record an open and loose feel and then reflected Sara and I's ideas of what a record should sound like."

Two of the songs on the album, "Knife Going In" and "Burn Your Life Down" — both written by Sara — were inspired by your grandmother's passing. How important was she to you?
"My mom was 20 or 21 years old when she had us. My grandparents were already very involved in our lives, and then my mom and dad split up when we were 4. My grandparents became integral because my mom was so young, younger than I am now (Tegan is 27), with twins, a mortgage and a car payment. My grandparents became crucial to our survival. My grandpa bought us our first piano. Our grandma baby-sat us after school. We would go there and she would let us clean her house on the weekends for spending money. We would spend Friday nights there. Even as teenagers, my friends would all be out drinking and partying with their boyfriends, and Sara and I would choose to go to our grandparents'. They had a bar in their basement, and we would shoot pool, listen to Johnny Cash and play cards. When my grandmother passed away, we were touring still and it was difficult to get away to take in the loss. We didn't have time to grieve until we took time off between records, and Sara pushed a lot of that anxiety and sadness into her work."