The Canonization of Tegan and Sara: Exclusive Interview

With the recent release of their sixth full-length album and more than 10 years of touring behind them, there’s no doubt that Tegan and Sara have more music left in them. The prolific indie-rock band wrote like mad for more than two years to chisel out the perfect tracks for Sainthood—narrowing it down from 51 songs to the chosen 13 that made the cut. Deeply inspired by their time spent in the Big Easy, everyone’s favorite sisters from Canada laid down tracks born of love and devotion a la Leonard Cohen’s “Came So Far For Beauty.” They even managed to throw in “Northshore”—a Tegan and Sara-style throwback to punk—which is reminiscent of the days when T&S would arrive home from a mosh pit and have to safety-pin their clothes back together for the next show.

Before embarking on a five-month tour through Europe, Canada, and the United States, Tegan and Sara played four special shows—two in L.A. and two in New York. We caught up with Tegan just after she’d finished belting out “Jolene” by Dolly Parton alongside Sara who crooned Jon Bon Jovi’s “Dead or Alive” in a New York karaoke bar for MTV News. When we talked to Tegan, we got her to dish on her obsession with hot dogs, becoming more mainstream, and slowly becoming licensed to drive.

SheWired: When I last talked to you, you were working on getting your driver’s license. Did you get it yet?

Tegan: I didn’t. God. That’s so embarrassing. I studied for the test and just got really busy. I have a lot of things I was hoping to get done, and as I was leaving Vancouver a week and a half ago to start this six-week run, my mom and I were going over the list—because my mom acts as a contractor for me sometimes. There’s so many little things that I just get bogged down with and I am such a workaholic, I just end up doing work stuff. There are these little, simple, stupid things like getting the toilet fixed or doing this or doing that, and Mom’s always like, “I’ll do it, I’ll do it.” She doesn’t work on Fridays, so she’s like, “I’ll do it on Friday.” So maybe I could just get my mom to go and take my driver’s test for me and pretend she’s me.

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