Tegan and Sara
Sainthood
The Duo's most exquisite album to date

By Jeff Niesel

Some 13 years ago Canadian twins Tegan and Sara started off playing together in a ragtag punk band called Plunk. Since that time, their music has morphed into something far more refined. Produced by Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, their new album, Sainthood, is their most exquisite to date. Commencing with the hushed beauty of “Arrow” it escalates into its centerpiece, “The Cure,” a tune about longing to help someone struggle through a difficult time. And even though numerous tunes were left on the cutting room floor, the album features several songs they’ve written together — a first for the duo. Calling in from rehearsals in Vancouver, Sara talked about the new album, a set of new books they have coming out, and, of course, her obsession with relationships.

You live in Montreal?

I do, yes. Well, that’s what I put on my taxes. I was putting together my tax stuff and realized that I spent six months of the last year in New York which was weird to see on paper. I spent the rest of the year on tour. I was having an identity crisis. I had to ask, “Where do I really live and what am I?” I’ve always been happy to be nomadic. I love to travel and sleep in hotel rooms in places that I don’t really know.

I know you started out as a band called Plunk. Is that true?

That is true. We were what we considered a punk band, except that it was just the two of us with electric guitars. We were like a lighter version of punk. It’s so strange. You are who you are. I’ve heard early, early demos of artists who are friends of mine and you can see how they’re horrified just like I’m horrified. And yet you see them and you can hear the artist they’ll become in early, early moments. You can hear the equation or whatever it is going to make them sound like them. As horrific as Tegan and I were, we were good songsmiths. We can still recall choruses from songs we wrote when we were 15 or 16 years old and we will tease each other that we should get the band back together.

What has changed in the way you relate to each musically now as opposed to then?

Well, as much as I think it’s changed, I also think there’s a strange incubation. It’s much like a romantic relationship. Whatever bothers you about that person when you first start dating them goes away when you’re in love jail and then you’re suddenly dating the person you hate and all you see is the annoying habits. In a strange way, that’s how Tegan and I are. We have moments where I love being in a band with her and for all the bickering and jabbing, we have managed to complete almost 13 years in band together and truly love working and collaborating together. We have the least functional band I know and in other ways, I think we’re so dysfunctional and she’s so controlling. Then, I will suddenly think the opposite. There’s a give and take.

I’ve read about various tunes that didn’t make the album, which leads me to think you had a wealth of material for Sainthood. Was that the case?

I think it was, and I would blame me for that. I generally submit far less material. I had more time on my hands. I wasn’t dating was spending more time writing. We had wanted to work with Chris Walla again and last time we gave him the demo and that really worked. This time, we gave him 51 demos. He needed a month or two. I thought it was funny because he asked us to alphabetize them and then would tell us what letter he had made it to.

I know the title is from a Leonard Cohen song. What made you think it fit the songs so well?

One of the demos was a song we had written together in New Orleans and we had used some Leonard Cohen lyrics in the song and called it “Sainthood.” Chris Walla loved the songs and felt that Sainthood would be an amazing title. We couldn’t get the rights to use the lyrics, so we decided not to include the song. But the title stuck. As an inspirational piece of work those lyrics sum up what I read into as an unrequited love situation and it really inspired me. It also set this bar that we wanted to write material that spoke to that idea and it was very inspiring, so we hung onto the title.

Do the songs have thematic unity?

Well, I could just say yes, right? It depends on what day and what I decide to talk about. The interesting thing about music — and I’m fascinated with interviews with people like Tom Petty and Bob Dylan — is what in the heck do you talk about after 30 years. Do you tell the same story? Do you use it as an analogy for what’s happening now. These songs were about individual experiences in our lives. We’re in this transition stage where it’s about how the songs relate to you. They’re material for the people and not our personal music anymore. And that’s exciting to me.

You went to New Orleans to try to write. Did that work out like you planned?

We ended up with about seven songs that didn’t make the album. I think they are cool as a piece together. I think about releasing that and Tegan gets this look of horror on her face when I see it and I think she thinks I’m insane. The songs are so cool and weird. She plays drums and I play guitar. I keep telling her our fans would truly love it, though I don’t know if they really would. I just keep saying it.

Have you done a writing seminar like that before?

God no! I don’t like to do anything with other people. I can’t even go to a yoga class. There’s a seriously damaged part of me that would need therapy to get back into group activities. Once I got out of high school, it was like don’t ever put me a social situation again where I have to work with people I don’t know. It was a great experience to write with Tegan. We were able to work through our very special process and we could collaborate. But I wouldn’t want to do it regularly. It would be like whenever a comet comes around. That gives us like 60 years, right?

The most compelling song on the album is “The Cure.” I know it’s a song Tegan wrote, but tell me about its origins.

It was a song that Tegan had written with Hunter Burgan from AFI. I don’t want to say it was cheesy but it was a like a computer piano ballad. I loved in because it was like this robot love song way. I remember emailing her and saying it’s one of my favorite lyrics and melodies. I was applying pressure for her to let some of the songs be submitted for our record. She had written this interesting music. I was envious. I wanted to play it. I didn’t care that she wrote it with somebody else. I was struck by the emotion of it. I know she was writing that song during the writing process for The Con. Its content is similar to The Con. She was in pursuit of someone and was having a very difficult time. The relationship was over and it was a raw period of time for her. She was very emotional and really vulnerable. She felt uncomfortable about submitting that material because her life had changed. She had got back into that relationship and was as happy as could be. But I loved it and it had more to say about where I was at. It’s one of my favorite songs to play from the album.

I think that when you wrote The Con you were in a serious relationship and she wasn’t.

It’s true, we have flip-flopped. Even when I’m in a relationship, I feel like I’m not writing about how happy I am or how many dishes I washed last night. I’m writing about the conflict and the confounding aspects. This record, I was thinking from a single perspective and reflecting on the evolution of relationships. I was thinking a lot because I was alone. I was inspired to write these songs that seem sort of sad, but I was writing them during a six-month period when I felt quite optimistic.

I love that bit in your bio that says you are “committed to seek and obsessively discuss love until the end of time.”

It’s a funny thing because we as a group all talk about relationships and everyone in the band or crew is in a relationship except for me. We’re constantly talking about it. I think we’re part of an interesting generation because most of us are not going to get married to the first person we date and pop out kids. That’s not what most of us have in the cards. We talk about it and preface it so much because it’s really new. It’s confusing and it’s complicated and it doesn’t feel natural. It doesn’t feel natural to be with someone and be married and having kids for 60 years either. There’s this cyclical dialogue where we’re asking each other what we want.

You have a series of three books coming out called On, In and At. What’s the deal with those titles?

We were looking for something to connect the books together. We wanted to package them as a box set and have themes independent of one another but similar enough that we would connect them together as a project. I’m really proud of the project. They turned out amazing. Tegan really stuck with it. When she initially approached me about doing this, I thought she was crazy because we were about to take some time off. I don’t know why she would want to start something that was much complicated that we could ever imagine. We ended up enlisting a lot of help and decided to self-publish. It was a great learning experience, and I love the book. We accomplished something we set out to do. I kept asking, “How do we make this different from a blog and make people want to buy this?” It’s about getting things in a compact form. It’s a specialty item, but I think our fans will love it. It’s really beautiful and has great pictures and we’ve collected wonderfully written essays and contributions from people who have worked with us and toured with us. I feel like we have really accomplished something.

I never think of your songs about relationships as being gender specific. Is that something conscious or just how they come out?

I think it’s a combination of both of those things. When I was younger, I was writing what was most natural. Most of the music I grew up listening to was generally not very gender specific. Now, I feel like the importance of what I’m saying is not devalued in any way because I don’t include gender specific content. It’s the nature of what Tegan and I are trying to do. We’re not necessarily writing music anymore for us as much as it is for the fanbase. There’s something about keeping it universal that allows people to connect like the way they connect to Bruce Springsteen, U2 or Leonard Cohen. I really like doing that.