anderswolleck

To fans of Tegan & Sara, it may seem like it's been a quick rise from unknown indie band to one with a respectable following. But to Tegan & Sara it has been a long, hard road with many artistic rewards along the way. One of their most recent rewards is that they are finally putting out a DVD. It's Not Fun, Don't Do It!, features all of their music videos, a full length concert, the making of their video for "So Jealous," and endless commentary by these talkative sisters/singers.

Buy the DVD of It's Not Fun, Don't Do It!

Daniel Robert Epstein: Are both of you still on vacation?

Sara Quin: Yes, we are although Tegan is gone. She was here in Montral for two weeks, so she just left to go back to Vancouver. Im without her again, which is nice. But we had a really nice time. That was the first time in six years that wed had time off together without it being somewhat related to Christmas or a death or the road or business.

DRE: Wow.

Sara: Yeah, it was fun. We went to the BioDome and went to Gay Pride in Toronto and went to movies. It was nice. .

DRE: What movies did you see?

Sara: We saw Superman [Returns], which was great and we saw The Devil Wears Prada, which was really funny. We went with a couple of friends and we all chuckled and had a good time. We got out and started to socially analyze the roles. I was like, Okay. Wait. Wait. Please. Lets just not do that with this movie. Theres no point. We laughed. It was funny. It was totally not a waste of an hour and a half. Lets just let it be what it is. But I really thought Meryl Streep was great.

DRE: Were you surprised that Tegan wanted to do so much touristy stuff?

Sara: Yeah, but when we were kids we didnt do a lot of vacation stuff. Our mom was a single parent and during the summer, going on vacation was going the six blocks to my grandmas house to hang out and watch soap operas. I think our big trip was when we went to Florida to visit family and go to Disneyworld when I was 11 or 12. I dont even think we understood what it was to be a tourist because just going anywhere outside of where we lived was touristy. So suddenly being in a band and traveling all the time, everyone around you is like, Oh my God. Youre so lucky. You get to go everywhere and see everything. Im like, Yeah. Ive seen every club and every theater in every city around the world. But you dont really get a chance to go and see the Empire State Building or go see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or whatever a normal person would do if they were in Paris. Everyone was making fun of us that we were going to do touristy stuff in Montreal especially because Ive been living here for four years. But it was nice to see what the tourists see.

DRE: You get that stuff out of the way and you can always say, I did it.

Sara: Exactly. The most embarrassing part is when people come and theyre like, Oh, have you ever been to the Olympic Stadium or the BioDome or the whatever? Youre like, Um. No. Ive been meaning to do that. Now I can be like, Yes. Ive done it. Its great.


DRE: The DVD was supposed to originally come out earlier this year. What happened?

Sara: The actual content of the DVD was very simple to put together. We just had to shoot the concert and edit it and whatever. But we initially we had projected a February/March release because we knew we were going to take time off. We thought that it would be a good time to put the DVD out. But we felt we deserved to have a fair deal especially since most of the content actually belongs to us. Its interesting once you start negotiating one of those contracts. Its easy to sign a record deal when you dont negotiate or change anything, but its difficult once you start saying, Well, can we adjust this? Can we do this and do that? Its remarkable how long it can take. It took us a long time. The reason it took so long is because we wanted something that we felt was fair. It takes forever when you start getting lawyers and record company people involved. Were just in a funny growing pain type time. We love our labels and we just wanted to make sure that we got it right. Once we started finalizing things, we released it was an awkward time to put the DVD out, so we just moved things back until the end of the summer. Were not Eminem releasing our big DVD. Were a small, independent band. Its a big deal for us, but its a small deal for the industry. So we figured it didnt really matter when we released it.

DRE: So when you talk about footage you own thats on the DVD you mean the footage you and your sister shot personally, not the videos and such.

Sara: No, we pretty much own the videos and we only partially own the video, Walking With a Ghost because our US label paid for it. But all the other videos we pretty much paid for ourselves with the help of the Canadian government. In Canada we have Factor Grants, where you have to come up with an organized plan and then you come up with half the money and the government will match your money. But it has to be exactly what you said it was going to be. People have been known to go off on a tangent and do something different and they will ask for their money back. So really the only thing on the DVD that is the labels is the actual hour-long concert, which at the time of negotiating we hadnt been paid back for it. We paid for it ourselves and then they were going to pay us back. Ownership in the music industry is a funny thing. Not very many people own their stuff anymore. I dont even think labels really understand ownership anymore because they just assume they own everything. I dont want to give this perception that the DVD was a battleground. It was just a brave new world for Tegan and Sara. We were like, We own this now. We can do whatever we want.

DRE: Is there a big difference between labels in Canada and America?

Sara: Its all the same thing really. I like record labels. I dont think theyre bad. I just dont necessarily think theyre always effective. Some of the techniques that bands like us are choosing now seem really revolutionary to labels. One of the videos on our DVD, Living Room, was difficult to get financed. My mom was like, Dont you dare come after me for money. Were basically like, We have no money. But we definitely wanted to make this video so we figured out what it would cost to make the video and what it would cost to make t-shirts and sell t-shirts to make the video. When they were all sold, it gave us enough to pay back making and shipping the t-shirts and with the money that was left over was the exact amount we needed to make the video. When we told our labels what we were doing, they just were astonished by it. Sometimes you have to do things outside of the box and I just dont think labels are good at that. But theyre not going to change their techniques. I think that when it comes down to it, when the next band comes along and they cant make a video, theyre not going to be like, Well you know one time this band they did this. I dont even think they have space for that information. They just look at it as like a cute, funny thing that one of their bands did one time. I certainly feel like a bit of trailblazer but Im not prepared to start my own label and do it all myself

DRE: Why wouldnt your mom pay for anything?

Sara: My mom never pays for anything [laughs] Im just kidding. My mom, my dad and my stepdad raised us to be very independent. My mom bought us a stool so we could do the laundry when we were eight or something. So I always hated the idea of asking them for money. I remember we got into a strange financial situation about a year after high school. There was a lot of drama and crying and like, Oh my God. What are we going to do? My parents were all like, Whatever you need even if it means remortgaging the house. Very 7th Heaven. But we just carried on and we fixed the situation. My parents would do anything for us, but we always use my mom as the butt of the joke because it sounds funnier.

DRE: You and your sister obviously get along really well. When you do argue what is it over?

Sara: We didnt have other brothers or sisters so we always were really close and hung out. We fought like normal siblings. So when we started working together, it just carried over. Theres nitpicking. We mostly argue over Well you said this to me like that. Its really random and you cant really talk yourself out of an argument like that. Its stupid sometimes. I think most people are surprised that we dont beat each other up or argue or yell or that were not competitive. When Tegan does something to annoy me, I tell her. Ill be like, I cant believe you just did that and I hope you die." Whereas if were on the road and my drummer does something I dont like, inside Im like, I hope you die. Whereas outside I have to be like, Rob, I need to talk to you about this issue. I prefer if you would do this or that next time. You dont say that to a sibling. Youre not like, Jeez. Can we talk about this constructively? Youre more reactionary. When it comes to the business, I think that we have a pretty similar idea of what our band and what our future is going to look like. Occasionally well argue about how that should be done or how it should be said to people. Tegans always been a bit more hardcore about money and business. Ive always been a bit more anal about the actual art and presentation of our music and videos and our image. Well get a little bit down on each other occasionally when shes like doing payroll. Ill be like, God. Loosen up. Sergeant Sunshine. Shell be like, You dont have any idea how much work this is. You dont know how long it took me to do. Then its the opposite when I send her a t-shirt idea. Shes like, Yeah. Whatever. I dont care. Im like, Do you have any idea how many hours I spent doing this? So You dont know how hard it is for me is a very common fight with us.

DRE: Did the two of you always collaborate?

Sara: We always played music. We were a very musical family in terms of listening to music and fooling around with music. We had a piano and we took lessons. I remember starting to write songs in about tenth grade. I remember actually thinking, Okay. I want to make my own songs. I loved music and I saw bands play all the time. We discovered that there wasnt just the first layer of music that you heard on the radio or on TV and that there were all these different layers. I talk about this to my friends that are younger and they laugh hysterically because they say I sound like Im really old. But I remember being a teenager without the Internet. 1996 was the olden days. Spin and Rolling Stone were a lot better back then but everything was so different. I definitely started writing songs and playing first, but Tegan immediately was like, Yeah. Im going to write songs too. We started singing together and recording ourselves. It was very distracting during high school. All we did was record and play and make demo tapes and try to sell them at school. There was a radio broadcasting class at high school and our broadcasting teacher taught us how to use the recording studio so we could record our demos more professionally. Then it just became this intense infatuation with writing songs and playing for people.

DRE: Theres a lot of commentary on the DVD too.

Sara: Yeah, its obnoxious.

DRE: Are you two just nonstop talkers?

Sara: We were supposed to do it on the road and then we just kept putting it off and putting it off. We were like, Oh, theres no rush. Then I decided I was going to fly to Vancouver and take a couple days off. On that vacation I was like, Lets just do the commentary. We decided it would be more fun to do the commentary if you could see us. So we decided to videotape ourselves doing the commentary for the concert so there could be that option. Then once we had done it for it concert, we were like, Well why dont we do it for everything?

DRE: It seems like you are a good talker.

Sara: Well, when we were doing the commentary, there were some passive aggressive moments where I can tell Tegans not talking because she thinks Im talking too much. She just hasnt learned yet that thats actually a technique I use to make sure she shuts up. Its a funny passive aggressive war that we have sometimes. I dont know whos a better speaker. I know that we go through phases live. There was a time when we first started out where I did a lot of the talking and Tegan was quite shy on stage. Then we went through this phase where she talked all the time and I had this quieter persona where I felt shy and didnt want to talk all the time.

DRE: Is your mom still doing stuff for the website?

Sara: She said that she doesnt want to write stuff anymore. She told us that we need to stop referencing her so much because its creepy so were trying not to talk about her as much. Were trying to talk about other people instead. I asked her to write a piece because shes on vacation right now but she said no.

DRE: I read an article about the two of you where the male journalist wrote that he was excited to interview the gay identical twin sisters.

Sara: The thing is, I dont remember that situation. Nobodys ever been so forward about that with me before. Most of the time people have these completely normal conversations with us and then they write these articles that are extremely slanted and talking about mostly about our sexuality. I find that interesting because so often its written from the perspective of these white hetero guys. They dont ask us anything about being gay and then they write these articles that are about us being gay. Its like, What the hell do you know about us being gay? What do you know about our dynamic? Its voyeuristic because the articles get titled in a way that gets attention and nothing gets peoples attention like gay twins. But we cant help it. Its not a marketing thing that we came up with. We just are. Its definitely a part of who we are, but its not as if we had six arms. Its not a freakish thing. It should be normal. Im not just saying its guys because girls write bizarre articles too. If they know that their article is going to be written about us being gay, it would be nice for them to actually talk to us about it. I think thats why those articles feel so homophobic to me. They are written from this perspective where they werent comfortable enough to ask me about that stuff to my face or on the phone, but theyre comfortable enough to write it and let thousands of people read it, which is why theres still so much homophobia in this world. It seems like it is okay to be homophobic and yet it leaves the people who these articles are written about feeling really bad. I feel terrible. I can handle a bad review. After seven years of getting reviews, both good and bad, you get over it. But its a whole other level when people are talking about you as a person and it makes you realize how easy it is to be inappropriate and homophobic. We have all guys in our band and its incredible sometimes how theyll say or do something and Ill be like, Oh my God. Thats so homophobic and sexist. But they dont even know. It is just like how so many people are still extremely racist or say racist things. When youre not in the minority and you dont have any education and you dont care about educating yourself, its really easy to just say or do those things and not even mean it. Then when you get called on it, theyre like, But I didnt know. Im not going to run around calling every person who has ever written an article about us and be like, Dear Sir or Madam, youve been extremely sexist and homophobic and I bet you didnt even think you were being that way. Whats the point? If someones really, really over the top, Ill spend the energy doing it. But I dont have the energy to do it. I just dont. I just hope itll change.

DRE: Youre 25 now, at what age did you know you were gay?

Sara: Its a funny thing. Its like when you ask the average person, When did you know you were straight? You just know.

DRE: Some people dont.

Sara: Youre totally right. For me, it felt like a natural thing. You realize pubertys happening and you get crushes on people. In junior high youre like Hmm. I dont really want to date Bobby. I want to date a girl. It was as simple as that. Again, I was raised in an extremely heterosexual society so it is not like one day you go, Oh I guess Im gay. You feel weird. You feel scared and you dont want to talk about it. You know somethings different about you, but you dont even know that for a fact because you cant even talk about it with other people. It was a long process, but I definitely knew when I was 12. But I wasnt able to actually vocalize that or even say it to myself. I wasnt able to say, I think Im gay inside. I didnt even say that until I was like 18 or 19 when I was like, Wow. I really am gay. Even though like all through junior high and high school, I was like, Yeah. I definitely dont like boys.

DRE: Did you and Tegan talk about it?

Sara: Not really. I think it was just understood. But I think Tegan knew that I was gay long before wed ever said anything. She didnt come out until after high school. She didnt sit me down and say, Gee. Sara. Guess what. She just was like, Yeah, Im dating this girl and thats what Im doing. I was like, Okay. Whatever. I have friends who are my age who are coming out now and I just cant believe that its taken them this long and yet I think about how long it took me and I had a pretty ideal situation. My mom had lots of gay friends and was very open and progressive. I went to a really progressive, arty school and I had really progressive, arty, queer friends. Im like, Jeez. I was so scared to talk about it. I cant even imagine if I grew up in a family where we were first generation immigrants who are extremely religious or whatever.

DRE: What do you think about SuicideGirls?

Sara: I love SuicideGirls. My mom worked with teen prostitutes for ten years. So we had lots of interesting conversations about pornography and sex and sex workers and all of these things when I was in junior high school. I had very strong opinions about most things associated with sex and sexuality. When I got out of school, I rebelled against my moms views. Not that she was wrong but she had a lot of really strong opinions about certain parts of the industry. It was interesting to travel because there are so many positive things that happen in the sex trade and the sex industry. But whats cool about SuicideGirls is that if you search for porn on the Internet and youre looking for people who arent blonde, long-haired, banger types, it is almost impossible to find. Porn looks the same, no matter where you go, no matter what you look at. SuicideGirls really is alternative to that. I can see why its been really popular and why its attractive.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck