‘We want to be around forever,’ says Tegan and Sara

There I was, in a coffee shop in Makati, about to interview twins Tegan and Sara, who were here recently for a concert.

I’ve read a lot about them and know for a fact that they’ve been asked about being twins or siblings and working together so much that you wonder if they can muster up answering another question about it.

Tegan and Sara Quinn are an indie act from Canada, formed in 1995. Their songs have been covered by The White Stripes and they’ve collaborated with DJs Tiesto and David Guetta to bridge the pop, dance and indie worlds.

‘Almost-perfect single’

They’ve sold close to a million records and their song “Closer,” from their seventh album “Heartthrob,” has been called “the almost-perfect single” by Spin Magazine.

When they sat to talk to me, I was struck by how alike they were, style-wise—both petite, with short hair and wearing all-black clothes—that I could only imagine how it would magnify their power on stage.

Before we began the interview, I took a mental note of who was who to help me transcribe the interview. But, initially, the twins answered questions alternately as if by an unspoken agreement.

More on their to-do list

Now that they’ve been hailed as bonafide pop stars, how did they view their current success and what’s next for them after their tour?

Sara spoke first. “Even though we’ve had a really successful year and feel like we’ve achieved a lot of what we set out to do, I’ve already had a whole new list of things that I wanna do.”

She added, “A lot of them are just mostly creative. People I wanna work with, what kind of album I wanna make, I think at that some point, whatever Tegan’s list is and whatever my list is, we sort of figure out a middle ground.”

Like a reality show

I took little swipes on my notebook like a scoreboard marking X for Sara and O for Tegan in case they stopped alternating answers between questions. It did get a bit confusing eventually and it just seemed to help that they’d mention each other’s names occasionally, helping me keep tabs.

I couldn’t help but ask what they didn’t like about each other, as it seemed that they were so in sync.

“People always ask us if we drive each other crazy. The truth is, I’m driven crazy by everyone,” Sara said.

“We spend our whole life on the road. It’s a bit like a reality show: you’re in these circumstances that’s very unusual, there’s an intimacy that’s not normal for adults to have to go through all the time, so you learn everybody’s irritating tendencies.”

The angstier twin

When they were growing up, how did their musical tastes differ, if at all?

“I remember when we were teenagers I loved Smashing Pumpkins and Tegan became much more focused on Nirvana,” Sara said.

“Her room, every inch was covered in Nirvana posters.”

“I’m more angsty than her,” Tegan admitted.

'Our most extreme change'

“I thought Nirvana was amazing but I found them very messy. I liked the way that Smashing Pumpkins was very like, surgical and strategic,” Sara added.

With their new album “Heartthrob” receiving the most acclaim and winning Canada’s prestigious Polaris Music Prize, what do they think of how different they’ve become?

“I think this is our most extreme change,” Tegan said. “We want to be around forever, and in order to be around forever, you have to change. We don’t want to be boring.”

Thanks to Warner Music Philippines for arranging the interview.