This September, Canadian indie pop duo Tegan and Sara are coming out (pun intended) with a double whammy (also intended) of material.
The twin sister act is not just releasing their upcoming album, Hey I’m Just Like You; but they’ll pair it with a new memoir, titled High School, out September 24th. Tegan and Sara Quin’s memoir traces the beginning stages of their illustrious music career: long before they released their 2004 breakout album, So Jealous, got covered by the White Stripes, and made it to the Grammy Awards, they were just two kids kicking around in Calgary’s garage band scene. A collection of songs they wrote during their teen years, the new LP serves as a soundtrack to their stories. The title track, Sara says, was the first song they ever wrote together.
“The original song, ‘Hey, I’m Just Like You,’ was called ‘Plunk,’” she recalls in Rolling Stone‘s latest edition of “The First Time.”
“We found a guitar in our basement, when we were 15 years old,” adds Tegan. “[We] both started sneaking it out and [wrote our own songs]. Sara would press play and record for me, I would do the same for her. Sara’s first song was called, ‘Tegan Didn’t Go to School Today.’”
“[Tegan’s] first song was called “Condamnation,” says Sara with a laugh.
The Quin sisters recount many other firsts — from the time they met New Kids on the Block (“I think we creeped them out”) to the time they met Courtney Love (“She said, ‘You have real balls to do this’). Both openly gay and champions of the LGBTQ community, Tegan and Sara also discuss their very first protest, which they attended with their mother in the Eighties. “It was a Take Back the Night [march],” says Tegan. “It was about women coming together [against] sexual assault.”
“I remember mom telling a police officer to ‘Fuck off’ because they were laughing at us,” adds Sara. “These guys came out of the bar and yelled, ‘Your mom’s a dyke!’ We had no idea what that was, but we were like, ‘Shut up!’”
