Cover Story

words Jane Czyzselska

photos Jan Von Holleben

Well, this isn't very 'Rock 'n' Roll'. It's 9am, and new pop sensations Tegan and Sara are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after last night's sell-out London gig. Drinking tea and chowing down on healthy Eggs Benedict and pancakes, the twin sisters are bemoaning a group of inebriate girl fans that nicked some of their guitar equipment as souvenirs. 

'I mean, who do they think we are?' Sara asks no-one in particular, incredulous. 'Cables cost money. Guitar strings cost ten bucks a pack. Just 'cause we're on stage doesn't mean we're rolling in it.'

They may well be soon, however, judging by the present level of interest in the Canuck lesbian pop duo. It's only four years since the Calgary-born Quin sisters were signed by indie record label Vapor (Neil Young's manager signed them to Young's label after hearing their 1998 debut LP Under Feet Like Ours), and already they've seen success at home, in the US, and critical acclaim over here. They've toured with Rufus Wainwright, Ryan Adams, Ben Folds Five, Hot Hot Heat and, of course, the legendary Mr Young. Hardly flash-in-the-pan stuff. Fêted by Rolling Stone and the New York Times when their latest album, So Jealous, was released in the US, Tegan and Sara look set to have cash registers trilling when the album hits British music stores in April. 

There's a palpable sense of excitement in the air, a sense that there's work to be done, fans and fans-in-waiting to entertain. The twins, supported by their band - drummer Rob Chursinoff, bassist Chris Carlson and former Weezer Moog wizard Matt Sharp - are ready to take the music world by storm with their exuberant, pop-inspircd, guitar-fuelled signature sound. Since hearing the first blast of their fourth studio release, the infectious, galloping title track, So Jealous, has etched itself happily onto my brain, and the twin's passionate harmonies suggest a young Sinead O'Connor trapped in a pub lock-in with The Police.

But now, just a few hours before a lunchtime industry gig in the gay Soho eatery Balans, Tegan and Sara are holding court. There are two press aides from Vapor's British parent label, Sanctuary, and me. Tegan, a genial, talkative 24-year-old with a pierced lip, wonky ebony fringe and eyes that roll to the back of her head every time her identical twin says something that annoys her, is getting cheerfully worked up over the state of rock 'n' roll in 2005. Sara - no facial piercing, apple-cheeked and plenty of inky-blue arm tattoos - listens patiently beside her.

'Let's compare the way the press treat Pete Doherty and Courtney Love. I mean, I don't think I even need to say anything more than that,' she says, stabbing a cold pancake with her fork. Sara takes this opportunity to interject. 'I just think it's really interesting that - what?' she asks, as Tegan makes like a slack-jawed puppet with her free hand. Tegan: 'I just want to complete my thought.'

Sara: 'No, I want to complete your thought.' Tegan shoots Sara an unreadable look and Sara carries on: 'This magazine I read was talking about how Kate Moss has a two-year-old kid, and how no-one's making comments about her dating a heroin addict, and what kind of person must she be to allow her kid around Pete, and it's all about Kate Moss.' Pause. Sip of tea. Twitch of nose, and we're off again. 'Hello? Hello, UK; why are you making an international superstar out of a crack-head? And why do we always have to blame the women?'

Tegan: 'Like I was saying, there's not the same grace with women as there is with guys in the music business. Like, even last night, talking to some of our record company people, they were telling us to get a good night's sleep so we could be picked up at 8am for this interview. And I said, "What if we were freebasing or getting hammered tonight?" And the woman said, "No, no you're not going to be doing that". There's so much pressure on us to be presentable, to be controlled. I don't think people would have as much patience with us as with guys who get out of control on drugs and do a half-arsed show. I've seen it happen, and they say, "Nice job, you guys". Our first manager managed a guy who was a heavy weed user, so you'd never know if he'd do a good or bad show. And he put up with it, but he was so much harder on us than him.'

'If Sara and I were to play our show tonight really drunk, beating each other up and ripping our clothes off, I really doubt that people would take us or our music seriously, but male rockers do it all the time. I think that it's society, not just the music industry. So the girl rock scene - bands like Le Tigre - is pretty clean. Society expects girls to be clear, precise and good when we're on show, but then assumes the rest of the time that we're not as clear and precise as guys. And the guys get special dispensation to be out of control. It's bullshit.'

Sara: 'It is, but also the reason I don't want to do drugs or drink a lot is that I want longevity, I don't wanna die; I want to be healthy. I find my life very difficult anyway; I don't need to make it any harder. Our friends are like, "Wooh, you're on the road, wow". Yeah, on the road, and I want to read books' - Jonathan Franzen is a current favourite, and Sara's politically-inclined girlfriend recommends non-fiction volumes - 'and take vitamins. We're musicians. We taught ourselves how to play guitar and sing. We write the songs, we co-produce our own records. This is our job. We take it really seriously.'

Tegan and Sara started making music together at age 15. Turning boredom to their advantage, the talented twins talked a sympathetic teacher into letting them record their first demo with their classmates. They sold the copied tapes to friends and family for a dollar apiece. At 14, their liberal parents - mum Sonia, a social worker, still lives with her third husband in oil-and-beef-rich Alberta - encouraged the girls to go to gigs at a local punk rock venue. There, the self-conscious 'geek girls' would stand at the back of the Carpenter's Union Hall, gazing in awe at the local bands struggling to make it. 'Those guys all had Mohawks, but even there, we felt like we never fit (sic) in,' Sara remembers, her cool, clear eyes rising upwards and leftwards. 'I remember making the association that if you were in a band, that was very cool. I was an outsider and there was some kind of switch inside me; I realised that probably I wanted to be on that side - the cool side.' 

Tegan: 'We never sat together and plotted our rise to fame, though, and even when we left school we didn't think, "Ok, let's get a record deal". We said to our parents, "Please don't make us go to uni yet; we don't know what we wanna do". Mum totally freaked out.' 

A few years down the line, and the two pop stars live and work separately. 'We're like two solo bands. We are Outkast,' Tegan adds with a smirk. Tegan lives in Vancouver, Sara in Montreal. 'When we get into the studio, we start helping one another. Even when we first started, it was the same — Sara would have a basic outline and I'd say if I liked it or not, and we never really got involved until it was done. We record our songs alone and send them to each other. We really stay out of each other's way because it allows us to write without insecurity, without having someone look over your shoulder critiquing you.' 

Despite the avalanche of praise, there have been some nay-sayers. Critics of the T and S project have described the band's music as 'thematically monochromatic' (songs about love predominate on their latest release), or as 'heartbroken lyrics tailor-made for teenage bloggers'. Yet this response oversimplifies and undermines the emotional maturity that's given rise to lyrics such as those found in I Won't Be Left. Tegan penned the song to her second stepfather when he split up with her mum after 15 years of marriage: 'I won't mistake you for problems with me/ I won't let my moods ruin this, you'll see'. 

'I wanted to help my stepdad,' Tegan explains. 'It was something about the kid consoling the parent who's still upset. We're not necessarily as mature as we appear in our music, but we can see what we and other people are going through and we have insight into the heartbreak of people around us.' The lazy references to Ani DiFranco, Melissa Etheridge and, God help us, tATu, are a source of much irritation to the Quin twins. Positive, considered feedback has come from male and female rock critics such as Pop Matters journalist Katie Zerwas, who believes the sisters' songs reflect a unique, personal understanding of modern femininity that's neither sweet nor sexy, but mature, jaded and riddled with contradictions.

'Listening to their new wave beats and a vaguely danceable intent, it's not hard to come away with the sense that we've just heard something completely new. Through the synthesis of gender and sexuality contradictions, the music world can finally point to an example of self-made women unencumbered by the need to be sexual objects or vehicles of heterosexual female fantasies', she writes.

T and S haven't escaped sexual advances from some of their female fans, however. At one of their early gigs, a hot girl flashed her breasts and invited the twins to take their shirts off. 'It reminded me of what another girl rocker said at a gig recently: "Listen, how about I come round to your workplace and ask you to take your top off?" The audience howled. But what she said was right; it's about respect, and it's always disappointing when girls do that to you, because you want them to respect you and themselves and it's really hard to say that to women. I'm much more afraid of them than guys,' Sara admits. 

On tour, the duo often bring their partners along to help them out. Sara's designer girlfriend has helped create the band's website and helped Sara to hand-sew the heart-on-its-side backdrop used at their smaller gigs.

'We're like the Partridge Family with our Wives' Club. All except one of us have partners, and they get to see what it's really like on the road.' Do their partners ever get jealous of the groupies? 'My girlfriend's very confident that she's the only one for me, and would finish with me if I strayed,' Sara says, laughing. 'Another thing she says is, "Sure. Go ahead. I've seen them. I feel sorry for you". For the record, and contrary to cyber gossip among the band's fans, Sara's lady-friend is not a 17-year-old employee at the Montreal aquarium.

Sara came out when she had her first serious girlfriend after high school, and Tegan soon followed suit. 'I was dating, too; it wasn't a big deal. Mum guessed it,' Tegan adds in cavalier fashion. 'Mum had super-lesbian friends, tattoos; she's a feminist, a member of a women's book club - she was like the stereotype of "gay". And our dads said, "Whatever. No problem". It's non-threatening, and they're more likely to get worried about whether we are objectified.' The Quin family home trilled to the sounds of Melissa Etheridge, k.d. lang and rented lesbian movies. 'Basically, we were bred to be lesbians,' Tegan jokes. 'I think if the Canadian government wanted to string someone up for the lesbian movement, I'd say it would have to be my mum.' 

Sara: 'I don't think we associate sexuality with music, though. We like bands with a queer-friendly agenda, [like] new wave band The Gossip. None of them is gay, but they're cool and all we want is to communicate with any one who gets our songs.' 

'Yeah, but it's tough to communicate with heterosexuals,' Tegan quips. 

Sara: 'People ask us about The L Word the whole time, though, and as a kid, I used to love Clare Danes and Jared Leto in My So-Called Life on TV. I used to kiss the screen, and I mean I was a gay-ass kid. You don't have to be straight to identify with TV dramas. Anyway, I just assume everyone's gay until proven other wise.' 

Tegan, wryly: 'Yeah, those poor old heterosexuals; they are constantly being stereotyped.' 

Live, the girls have a reputation for what has been referred to as 'salty banter' in between numbers. In truth, they're just trying to break the tension of being on stage and the amiable push and pull adds a touchingly comedic dimension to the T and S show. There's no macho Gallagher brothers' posturing here: the Quin twins are to the Oasis bad boys as Morecambe and Wise are to Steptoe and Son. At their second London gig, Tegan accused Sara of having an unbelievable pottymouth, and suggested that anyone in the audience who thought they could help her develop a solo career was welcome to her. 

In actual fact, the twins intend to continue writing together for many years to come. Asked where they think they'll be in ten years' time, Sara gives an answer that suggests a maturity beyond her years: 'Our birth-dad drummed into us from about the age of eight that we had to save for uni - we were dirt-poor, and he was freaking us out about money. So, I want to be financially secure. I want to have a house and babies and not worry about it, and be able to tour. Success doesn't have a number for us. It's just about having people show up to our gigs everywhere, and making records, and not worrying that we don't sell enough. And after that, we'll see. We've made it in the industry after six years, and our music is gaining respect.'

'One of the most amazing things for me,' Tegan adds, 'is that all of our three dads have called us to say how much they're into our music. It's not just kids our age connecting to the music, it's middle-aged heterosexual men and women - and mass connection with what we have to say is our main objective.'