Intimate interactive AND
Alterna-pop sisters Tegan and Sara come home
As you get older, the opportunity for intimacy often comes down to a matter of convenience.
Such is the case with the two sold-out shows this weekend with Calgary natives Tegan and Sara in the cosy confines of The Grand.
In the sorta off period between supporting an album — their last release was 2009’s Sainthood — and recording a new one, the veteran alterna-pop sisters found themselves booked in a handful of western Canadian folk festivals and, well, since they were in the neighbourhood. . . .
“We actually jumped at the opportunity because we were close by,” says Tegan Quin, the West Coast part of the duo (she lives in L.A. and Vancouver, while sibling Sara resides in New York). “Especially in Calgary and Edmonton, where our audience grew so quickly, it’s been so long since we’ve played a really intimate show. I think it’s an opportunity for us to hear what our audience thinks about things, and we like that. So, I’m excited.”
The concerts, Friday and Saturday in their former home, are set up like radio shows, with the pair ripping through six to eight songs from their now substantial catalogue before taking a break to talk and take questions from their local fans, and then beginning the process again.
It is, she says, an experience not too unlike what early T&S shows were like.
“I think it gives the audience the opportunity to hear songs that they’ve only ever heard as rock songs, in a stripped-down fashion. But it also still has the show elements, it’s not like we’re just sitting there with an acoustic guitar.”
As for previewing new material, despite having already begun writing for what will be their sixth ma- jor-label release, the Internet and cellphone age has pretty much made the pair, like most musicians, gun shy when it comes to roadtesting songs that aren’t quite ready. Still, Quin says they might perform something from an album they recorded with L.A. house DJ Morgan Page — who has previously remixed some of their songs — which is set for a fall release.
That dance direction — something they’ve also explored through a highprofile collaboration with DJ Tiesto — is probably not one that they’ll travel down when they hit the studio in the fall, Quin says, but exactly where the one-time folk act, current nu-wave popsters are headed has still yet to be determined.
An initial recording session with Rob Cavallo — the chairman of their label Warner Music, who has also produced such acts as Green Day, the Goo Goo Dolls and Avril Lavigne — yielded one track. More importantly, though, it inspired the duo to think bigger when it comes to their compositions.
“It was a very interesting experience. I think I learned more in three days than I’ve learned in 15 years. It’s already affected the way I’m writing,” says Quin, noting that they’ve come to trust Cavallo more than any other record exec they’ve come across in their decade-plus in music.
“I’m really intrigued to see what happens and what comes of it all, but I think it will be a really important record. We’re certainly feeling very wordy and political and upset about a lot of things, which doesn’t mean we’ll make a political record. But I’m feeling like the way I felt before The Con. I feel like it’s going to be a very emotional record.”
The rest of the music industry got a pretty good illustration of the mood the pair are in during a recent online controversy that had the blogo-and Twittersphere burning up. Posting on the official T&S website, Sara penned an emotionally open letter to the music biz about the perceived pass it — labels, writers, programmers, etc. — was giving to rapper Tyler the Creator over his use of violently homophobic and misogynistic language and imagery.
It was, Tegan says, just something her sister wanted to get off her chest, and despite the hip-hop artist’s responding Tweet — a sophomoric offer of his engorged organ — something that they had moved past almost immediately.
“The second Sara posted the letter, obviously we had two days of the phone ringing off the hook, and we just decided not to say anything additionally because the majority of intelligent people realized that the letter was to the media and that there was nothing else to say.
“It was a challenge to the media to be better. And the people that were calling were looking for headlines and tag lines so that they could start a war between Tyler and Sara, and there was no war to start,” she says. “Sara doesn’t give a s--t about Tyler and doesn’t care, he can continue to make music — she was not talking about Tyler, she was talking about the industry. So it was over really quickly.”
Still, Tegan admits some good things came out of the controversy, including support from artists that T&S grew up listening to and admired, including members of the early ’90s riot grrrl movement such as Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill.
“I think in a weird way it was very validating for Sara, because she was like, ‘For so long we’ve spoken out, but in a very Canadian, funny way.’ And she was like, ‘Finally it was just too much.’’ . . . It was sort of like a passing of the torch in a way. Because Sara was like, ‘Well, I guess it’s our turn to be the angry, man-hating feminists. And that’s OK.’ ”
She pauses. “And now we know where to go if we want a hard d--k,” she jokes. “There’s no app for that.”