Tegan And Sara interview!
Balancing Act
Twin girls who play poppish punk rock are bound to attract attention, and as their success grows so will their cadre of obsessive fans. Tegan And Sara, the first names of the Canada-born Quin sisters, have more than their share of Web sites devoted to them, not the least of which was an “everything you ever wanted to know” blog that perhaps knew too much. On the eve of the band’s 2007 release date for The Con (Vapor/Sire), this blog boasted all sorts of trivia, news items, and attendant fandom to coincide with release day. The clock struck midnight and . . . nothing. It’s been quiet since. Was this tribune silenced?
Appearing: August 18th at Charter One Pavilion on Northerly Island in Chicago.
“No, it was my mom,” laughs Sara Quin. “I was like, ‘That’s creepy and you need to knock that shit off.'”
But the Internet and accessibility and celebrity remain vivid realities for Tegan And Sara, and though some of it is unwanted most of it the duo cultivate themselves. Twins who aren’t constant companions come by rarely, and the Quins attacked music together in life, obsessing just as their fans do today.
“I was bananas for Smashing Pumpkins when I was a kid,” she says, “and I cried at the end of their concert and wrote Billy Corgan a letter once. I can certainly tap into what it’s like to be completely, genuinely a teenager who loves music so much. We would go to concerts and write down the songs and go home and make mixtapes of that concert. We had this amazing library of all the concerts we went to – we were as fanatical as you can get without being creepy. And I think Tegan and I naturally created a career, band, and persona that encourages that kind of fan-ship from people. If you don’t want to be that level of fan, you don’t have to be. But if you kind of want to be geeking out on everything Tegan And Sara, we offer a lot of appropriate material for that.”
Quin’s very specific when she defines “appropriate.” Her fangirl/celebrity duality has given her plenty of insight into what creates access, encroaches on privacy, but also satiates an audience. “Being in a band, it all changes when you see behind the curtain,” she explains. The danger is you can be put “in a place where you believe you are bigger than life and you’re somehow above other people or whatever – just true narcissism. You try to avoid letting people meet you because if they really knew how much like them you were it would be extremely unflattering. I would take just this morning as an example: Here I am, someone who has tons of fans, I have such a positive view of myself because people are constantly saying ‘I love you!’ or ‘You’re attractive!’ ‘I wanna marry you,’ ‘I love your music,’ or whatever. But I’m still the person who looks at my bedroom furniture hating everything I own, hate all my clothes, I feel like I look disgusting, I need a haircut. I’m like, ‘Oh God, I do nothing. I’m lazy. I’m so boring. What am I doing?’ I feel like it’s hard to imagine this mystique people will project on us, ‘You live this amazing life and you’re so cool.’ And I’m like, ‘No, I’m just like you. We’re exactly the same.'”
— Steve Forstneger
For the full story, grab the August issue of Illinois Entertainer, available free throughout Chicagoland.
