Coup De Main Magazine

And so last night someone was like, you should get a projector if you tell that story. But I was like, we never tell the same story twice onstage. So I don't know if I'll ever tell that one again. Maybe I will. Next time I come to New Zealand I definitely promise I'll bring the picture. We try really hard. The rule in our band is that we try never to do it. Like it's very, very rare. We might tell like the same sort of, it might be the same period of time, like there's songs where I think of the same thing all the time. But the rule in our band is that if you tell the same story again, then you have to acknowledge it to the audience. You have to be like, I don't generally do this but I'm gonna tell you something I've already told people before. But we were laughing last night cuz there have been some funny ones on this tour. Not this Australian leg, but in the U.S. And I'm like, oh it kills me every night. Cuz I just wanna pull them out again. But I CAN'T! Damnit. I CAN'T DO IT."

CDM: You are touring Australia... But why the lack of any New Zealand dates?
TEGAN & SARA - SARA QUIN: I don't know if this is an interesting answer, but it's the truthful one. We just had this discussion with our agent. The problem with Tegan and I, we have this problem pretty much internationally... we don't sell albums. People know about our band and there's a lot of visibility and buzz about our band but we don't sell a ton of records. And so when a promoter looks at record sales, a lot of times they'll base what they're gonna offer you for the show and how many tickets they think you can sell based on what your record sales are.

So, we don't sell any records in New Zealand. And so the promoters in New Zealand didn't really want to do the show and when they did offer us shows it didn't really make sense, like we couldn't really afford to go to New Zealand to do it. And then of course we put the shows in Australia on sale and they all sold out. And then by the time someone sorta got on board and was like 'okay! I think we can do this!', it was too late. So what we're gonna do is, we're gonna come back in the New Year and we're gonna do more shows in Australia, probably two shows in New Zealand and probably go over to Japan.

We just ALWAYS have this problem. We get into a market and the promoters or the agents, they're like 'they just don't sell enough records!'. And then we sell the shows out because we have this loyal fanbase and then they're like 'oh... snap'. This just happened to us in Europe. We put this tour on sale in like August and it sold out. EVERYWHERE! Like so fast! And the record label still wouldn't put the album out there. It's such a tough time in the industry right now for a band like us. We can go out and tour very successfully, but for record labels who are only making money on album sales, we're not the kind of band that sells records anymore. We're just not. And. WE think we sell records! Like, ten thousand records to me, is a lot of records! But to the record labels? It's not. It's like their overhead for pencil sharpeners or something...
I also think that there is not a traditional model or statistic to calculate or predict what size audience a band like us will have in a foreign market. Based on our Australian tour, we now have an idea of what we can afford to do in NZ! Because we pay for the tours out of our pockets, we try to make the right choices. So we hope to tour NZ next year!

We really will be coming to New Zealand. The last time we were in New Zealand the venue and the show really was bad. But we had a really fun time! And I thought New Zealand was really beautiful. Like I really, really liked it. So we're definitely gonna come over.

CDM: What ingredients do you put into a live performance?
T&S: We love to play a great musical show. But we also like to give the audience something that they haven't seen or heard before. We want them to understand us and 'know' us better than before the performance. From telling stories or having a dialogue with the crowd. I think we manage to do that! We aren't big rockstars and we like to keep our show 'organic'.

CDM: Would you ever consider doing a concert with a full orchestra behind you as some artists have done in the past?
T&S: Sure! We just saw Tom Waits do that and it was amazing. There hopefully will come a time and a place where a special evening like that would make sense for us!

CDM: If you could only play one song for the rest of your life what would it be and why?
T&S: Oh god... 'When You Were Mine', by Prince.

CDM: Will you be releasing a concert DVD like you did for the 'So Jealous' tour?
T&S: Yes for sure.

CDM: If you didn't have your sister, do you think you would have still made music?
T&S: Yes!

CDM: Explain the concept behind the artwork for your latest album: 'The Con'?
T&S: It's a real book. Emy, our art director, she took this old book and she cut out the middle of it and then put dirt and soil in it. And then photographed it. So it's a real image. And the pages on the back of the artwork are also real pages that we ripped out and photographed that way. So it kinda has a surreal look to it, like maybe that's it not totally... like it's a computer generated image or whatever. But it was a real thing that we built and we wanted it to feel...

She's a really big fan of Nancy Drew books and that kind of stuff. She does lots of Nancy Drew screenprints, so when we got talking about what we thought would be cool for the artwork, we literally started from chapter one and worked our way through. We didn't jump around. We really took a linear approach to recording the album. And because we had sequenced the album before we had actually made it, we literally worked in sequence. So we started with 'I Was Married', and then worked on 'Relief Next To Me', and then 'The Con' and so on. So we wanted to take that approach with the album artwork.

We wanted to have a book theme and we wanted to do these illustrations like you would find in Hardy Boys or a Nancy Drew type-book. And so Emy took this idea, because the album was sorta about love and death and relationships, she wanted to take this soil, the idea that the book had been buried. Like it was dead, or lost. And the idea of the stumps, the trees that Tegan and I are sitting on that have been cut, you can see the rings. Like how, what life has passed. And how long the tree was alive and the contemplative idea of thinking what a life is and the passing of time and that sort of thing. So it was very conceptual for us. But we wanted it to sorta be dark, but in a weird way like strangely uplifting or warm. We wanted the packaging to feel very warm to people. Even though it was sort of miserable haha and depressing.

CDM: Do you know what book the pages are from?
T&S: I do. But I can't tell you. *laughs* You know, we were worried that... it was something that when we started to deal with the printers, we started to feel like: 'what if people know? What if they find out what book it's from? Will we have a copyright issue because it was an actual book?' So, I dunno. Maybe one day I'll tell people. It's a really funny, cool book. The text in the book and the font in the book and then the cover of the book was very inspirational for us. It was a book from the 1920's and it was very cool.

CDM: Maybe if your fans found out.. there could be some special prize...
T&S: Honestly?!! If people wanted to find out... we obscured some of the writing so that you wouldn't be able to. At first, it was very easy to figure out. It took us like ten seconds to figured out on the internet. We were like: 'okay! We're a fan and we wanna know what the book is!' We took some of the text and we figured it out right away. We were like, we have to change that.

CDM: Speaking of Tegan and Sara fans... T&S fans are a nice bunch of people... Do you think that your audience etiquette training has impacted upon them?
T&S: You know, I think that we're nice people and so I think that when we have a night where the audience isn't nice... I really judge how a show is going by the first couple of rows of people because I really feel like those are the super, super die-hard Tegan and Sara fans. And if I feel like they look uncomfortable or that they're unhappy with the way the audience is behaving, I'll sorta use them as a litmus test for, like okay! We gotta get the crowd under control. Or people are being pushed around. Or the kids are getting sick of people yelling out songs and bla blah blahh. So Tegan and I try to police the audience a little bit because I want everyone to have a good time.

The idea that someone would come to our show and not have a good time, really bothers me. Like in this way that, probably most bands just don't care? I think that the audience is accountable for their time that they spend there. If you choose to sit and not participate in whatever, then yeah! Then your not going to be having as much fun as you can... but. We don't want to be like, some rockstar band that comes out and fire cannons blow off. Do some scissor kicks and then leave the stage. It gets more difficult as the shows and the venues get bigger, but I do think that there is a way still for it to be like, communicating with the audience in this way where it is still like, we're people. We're alive. And they sorta have to be respectful to us. So we try to do that all the time. I try not to be motherly. Sometimes I feel like I'm naggy. Like I'm, 'okay! You guys!' and then I'm like 'oh god, I sound like a mum'. Like I need to calm down.

CDM: Does it get harder to meet your fans as the venues and shows you play increase in size?
T&S: It is. It's really hard. We've actually been having this problem. We just toured for six months in Canada, the US and Europe. And probably, of every single show, we've maybe only three times, not gone out and signed people's stuff and hung round and taken photos. It's exhausting. You spend your whole day doing press and TV. And loading into the venue and then you set up. It's a real job. You know like a twelve hour day and then you play this big show and you're exhausted. And then you have to go outside and talk to people. And a lot of times the thing that sucks about after the shows, is that a lot of people are really drunk. And we don't really drink. And so it sucks sometimes to have to go. I wanna meet the fans but sometimes it's lame to have to go out and talk to people who are really, really really drunk. It sucks.

Since we've been in Australia... they have different rules here outside of the clubs. Like if you gather too many people on the sidewalks, you can get fined. So the clubs, really really encourage you not to go outside and to basically create pandemonium outside their venue. So we haven't been signing. And I feel really bad because I'm used to doing it. But I'm also like, this isn't our country. I don't know what we're able to do and it's also just exhausting when you have jetlag and your tired and then you play the show. And then you want to just run back to the hotel and go to bed. But then, people are outside and they're drunk and they're like 'come out!! Come out!' And you're just like 'oh god. I'm so tired. I don't want to.'

So. It's really tough, but then I can remember the days when we used to play in clubs and we sat in the club. And then we got up onstage and then after the show was over we would go over to the merch table and put all our merch out and sell our merch. And those days were really fun, but they were hard. Being around everyone for ten hours straight, it's exhausting. It's really draining. And there's only two of us. People think of themselves as individuals. They don't remember that there's a hundred and fifty individuals you know. So sometimes your like, *sobs* 'I'm just one person! I can only do so much!' But. You just try and do your best!

CDM: If you could pick another name for the band, what would it be?
T&S: Tegan Versus Sara.

CDM: Describe a day in the life of Tegan & Sara...
T&S: Wake up... Go to the hotel for a shower... Do radio or press... Have lunch... Go to soundcheck... Do more press... Eat dinner... Visit with local friends or business partners... Watch support act play a wicked set.... Do jumping jacks... Play show.... Load out gear... Drive away into the night while eating chips and salsa and watching 'The Office' (British version)... Go to sleep in little bus pod...

CDM: What's the meaning behind 'The Con' music video? Does the therapist die? Or just... stop breathing...?
T&S: I think he dies...

CDM: If someone was to travel through time and bring you a copy of 'The Con' when you were nineteen, would you have believed it was you?
T&S: Yes!

CDM: If you had the chance to spend a day with anyone alive or dead, who would it be, what would you do and why?
T&S: My grandma. She passed away three years ago. I wish I could spend another day with her. We'd go to the zoo. Then we would bake pies and bread and then play cards and pool in the basement with Johnny Cash on the jukebox!

CDM: What's your guilty pleasure?
T&S: Pleasure never makes me feel guilty.

CDM: If you were to cook me dinner, what would you make me?
T&S: I'd make you sweet potato quesidillas.

CDM: You're a self-declared funny person... What's the funniest thing you've ever said?
T&S: I don't know! I was recounting this story last night about the shoes... Like how we are both in a passive aggressive war right now about who's gonna get to claim these shoes that we both have. I was saying that I got my hair cut the way it is right now, first. Then Tegan showed up one day and she had like half my haircut. She still had long hair on one side, but short hair on the other. And I was like: 'what are you doing? That's my hair cut. You have my haircut now'. Everyone's gonna be like, "you have the same haircut!". So I was saying last night that one night, I was on stage with Tegan and, I kinda started bantering about our haircuts and Tegan gave this hilarious explanation of why she cut her hair like that. She was like: ' you know. It's like if I see a girl that I think is cute and she seems like she wants someone a bit tougher, a little edgier, I turn my head like this...' and reveals her half-shaved head or whatever. And then she's like! 'But if I see a girl that I think is cute and she seems like she wants something a little sweeter, a little less risqué, I turn my head like this...' And then it's like, her long-hair side. We were laughing so hard onstage. We thought it was like the funniest thing, ever. So I think that's one of the funniest stories of late, that really got me laughing onstage.

CDM: Which one of you is the better beat-boxer?
T&S: Yikes. Not me!

CDM: If you were an instrument what would you be and why?
T&S: I'd be a vocal mic because that's my favourite way to be heard. Amplified!!!

CDM: Your ringtone is?
T&S: Vibrations.

CDM: Favourite holiday or festival and why?
T&S: Favourite holiday is Christmas because it means seeing all my friends and family.

CDM: What's your favourite Christmas song? And would Tegan & Sara ever release a Christmas song?
T&S: We just went and did karaoke last night. When it was over, we came back to the hotel and there was all this Christmas music playing in the hotel lobby and I was like: 'it would be rad to do karaoke Christmas-like music'. That would be really, really fun. So that's a side-note. My favourite Christmas album of all time, is the Charlie Brown Christmas. That is my ultimate Christmas album. I always play that album. I think it's genuis. And it reminds me of being a little kid and watching the Charlie Brown Christmas and I just love it.

CDM: What do you want for Christmas?
T&S: NOTHING. I beg, beg, beg everyone I know, all my parents and everybody, like please don't get me anything. I don't want anything. I sorta gave up, maybe five six years ago on Christmas. I can buy whatever I want for myself. The whole idea of having someone buy me something is less relevant than it once was. If people do need to buy me things, I always tell them to give me money or buy me a books. That's all I really need. I spend a ridiculous amount of money on books.