Tegan and Sara recently played the , Third Annual Pop Music Fest in Montreal as they start promoting their newest release “So Jealous.” The young twenty-something twins sat down with Lluvia to banter through topics ranging from “selling-out” to Nov. 2. Lluvia: So let’s start with talking about your ' audience and all the indie rock kids, the women and the eclectic mix that you draw to your shows. Tegan: Well yeah, I would say our shows are really 60/40 these days, it's actual- ly quite mixed. Sara: Listen, when guys see us, they always think that it's all women Tegan: They're like in aroom with 10 women and three boys and they’re like “THERE'S NO MEN HERE!" Sara: It’s a really interesting societalthing about men who want to appear so straight, but when they are around a lot of women __ they are completely threatened. God knows if aman had a.whole women audience it would be like “ah;..he's a stud! He's a babe mag- ‘ net." (sarcastically) But [for] us it’s like shamefitl. It’s such a shame that all those women come out all the time. Lluvia: So you guys have been doing “this” for some time and this is the fourth disc now. So compared to the last couple, is thisbetlter — as far as musical growth, maturity? Tegan: I think the major difference between So Jealous and If It Was You is the obvious one, that we wrote it separately on different sides of the country. It took a lot of conf1- ' dence and maneuvering and.crazy emailing and stuff. I think it has an intense energy on it. I also think that we have mastered our sound. At least closer to our sound than ’ If it Was You. I think If it Was You was really going in the right direction. But we still weren't confident enough to say “No, no don’t hire your cousin to come play the 0rgan,'we can figure the chords out." I think that this record is a deliberate attempt on our part to really make a Tegan and Sara record — with some help from some amazing people, of course — but it was our choice in the end. Lluvia: I guess that is what separates you from a lot of musicians out there. Tegan: A lot aren’t penning their lyrics or , oujtzjjirt the mountiains Pop Band in an Inieold Lluvia Mulvaney-Stanak talked with Canadian lesbian sister-duo Tegan & Sara at the Pop Music Fest in Montreal. doing the production or getting involved on the level we are involved in. We are making pop music in-an indie world. sara: Which is so hard. Tegan: With an indie label, with some major attributes to attach to it but we _still sleep in the van sometimes and Sara still doesn't get a per-diem yet — but we're close. We have these pop tendencies but we live in an indie world And I am not really sure it that helps us sometimes. Sara was saying that if we were cracked outand just on _the out- side and people were telling us what to do, we probably would have sold a million records by now. But because we are so incredibly resistant... Sara: and stubbom. Tegan: You know? We don't want to be i on samplers -with other bands that aren’t set- ting a good example or going on_ tours with bands we don't respect not just doing it for the money. - Sara: And we're not trying to be a jerk... Tegan: we're just trying to stay attached to our audience, ‘cause that is our major goal. Write music we like. Write music our friends like. Write music our family likes. Write music our fans like. Write music our. label likes. We do believe that our label believes in us — they haveproved, it by not dropping us when they really could have. So I it is our job, Tegan and Sara, to make sure" .. ‘ _ we don’t alienate everyone who is with us ' right now. We are a pop band in an indie world and we want to grow out of that, even-- tually, but not right now. __ Sara: You know even’ if this just blew up tomorrow... Tegan: there would be a lot of strangers in the audience. Now at the same time, we .r..z..:.) 3./..eI.;r'*.r.i‘.‘7r.) .. run into people that say “I never want you to get big and famous." And I say, “You are basically saying ‘I want you to be poor and live in a 400-square-foot apartment.’ Please let us get bigger than that!" But that doesn't mean millions of records and that doesn't mean Tegan and Sarah with boob jobs on the cover of Maxim, even if we are giving the finger. LIIIVIII: What about the “pressure" of that cliché of “selling out"— what do you think about that possibility of really “hitting it big” . and the bands that do? Tegan: They just get massive and just do everything because you're basically on a train. Even on our'level, you sell a few records and get a few interviews and every- thing starts piling up It is really tough to say no to anything. And when you do say no, people start getting mad at you. They tell you, “do you know what you're doing?” “You're cutting your own throat." “Look at all the work I've done." “Do you know how hard__I’ve worked on this’?"... and you really ' 3.! And sobands _lil> changed was that instead of Tegan 9;; M A: fps 9 s,-33.39 j'E§t§.1£-"V -