Tegan and Sara: A Psychological Evaluation Sibling in Music Together
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In this era of prefabricated pop stars like Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and Kelly Clarkson, Tegan and Sara Quin have slowly but surely carved out a niche for themselves as talented and thoroughly captivating singer/songwriters. Their songs touch upon subjects that anyone — man or woman — can relate to, and it’s not difficult to see why their fan base has increased exponentially over the last several years.
Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin were born on September 19th, 1980, in Calgary, Alberta. The identical twins’ formative years seemed to be entirely free of musical aspirations; Tegan harbored dreams of eventually becoming a clown or working as a veterinarian, while Sara wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up. Both girls did possess a certain passion for music, which they were exposed to varieties of music such as Bruce Springsten and Prince by their parent. That passion manifested as a preternatural ability for songwriting and playing instruments.
The two got their start at the age of 15, when Sara got her hands on her mother’s boyfriend’s guitar. Even though they had taken piano lessons as children, the pair had never taken the idea of pursuing music as a career seriously until they started learning the guitar. Tegan and Sara eschewed formal training in favor of a self-taught approach, and though they cut their teeth on covers, the two quickly began writing their own songs and performing them for friends and family.
They initially called themselves PLUNK, but without a drummer or bass player, Tegan and Sara quickly found that they weren’t making much progress as musicians. Fate intervened when their amplifier broke during one of their many garage parties. The duo subsequently dropped the PLUNK moniker and began to take their fledgling musical career more seriously. During their 1997 high school year, the two worked extensively in their school’s recording studio and eventually emerged with a pair of albums: Who’s In Your Band? and Play Day (the latter of which was submitted as a project for their Broadcasting and Communication class).
Tegan and Sara’s first taste of success came in 1998, when the duo entered Calgary’s Garage Warz Battle of the Bands and subsequently achieved the highest score in the history of the competition. Their prize was a substantial amount of studio time, which they used to record their first professional demo tape (entitled, appropriately enough, The Yellow Demo). Under the name Sara & Tegan, the sisters followed that up with two more demo tapes (The Red Demo and The Orange Demo) and soon found themselves amassing a small but loyal fan base.
sara and tegan become tegan and sara
When the time came to record their debut album, Tegan and Sara decided that a name change was in order. “When we called ourselves Sara and Tegan, it didnt work because of they way our names blended together,” says Tegan. “So we switched to Tegan and Sara. It wasnt like all of a sudden I had to have my name in front. It was just easier to pronounce that way. Under Feet Like Ours was released independently in 1999 to almost universally positive nods, with Torontos Eye Weekly singling the album out for its “songs that are simultaneously smart and full of youthful naivete.”
tegan and sara and the neil young factor
Tegan and Sara quickly discovered that they had a fan in Neil Young’s manager, who quickly signed the pair to Neil’s Vapor Records label. The sisters quickly got to work on their major label debut, and — on July 18, 2000 — they emerged with This Business of Art. They followed that up with 2002’s If It Was You, though it wasn’t until 2004’s So Jealous that Tegan and Sara finally found themselves being embraced by the mainstream. Songs from that album went on to appear on hit TV shows like Veronica Mars and Grey’s Anatomy, and “Walking with a Ghost” was covered by The White Stripes on their eponymous 2005 EP.
With the 2007 release of their fifth full-length album, The Con, and a worldwide tour to promote it, the sisters are positioned to reach an even wider audience than ever before.
Like many twins, Tegan and Sara possess a number of similar personality traits — though the two are also dissimilar in a lot of ways: Tegan has gained a reputation as someone who generally gets her way, while Sara is known to be a more easy-going and affable figure. The two spent much of their lives living together, and it has only been recently that they’ve branched out and started to experience true independence (Tegan lives in Vancouver, while Sara moved to Montreal).
Although both Tegan and Sara dabbled in piano during their respective childhoods, it wasn’t until the girls first picked up a guitar that they began to see the musical possibilities before them. Their initial audiences consisted of high school buddies and family members, but the duo soon found their appeal spreading further than they ever imagined it would go.
On the surface, Tegan and Sara possess many of the same physical attributes — including dark, choppy hair, inquisitive brown eyes and an irresistibly attractive smile. But a closer examination does offer some small but important differences: Tegan’s piercing underneath her bottom lip is certainly the easiest way to tell the two apart, but there’s little doubt Sara’s preference for a simpler, less punk-oriented look sets her apart from her sister.
Tegan and Sara have managed to succeed within an increasingly treacherous and cutthroat industry, due in no small part to their unexpectedly honest lyrics and inventive musical style. They’ve been celebrated in the mainstream media many times over, and their record So Jealous was named one of the best albums of 2004, receiving a Juno nomination (the Canadian version of the Grammy) for Alternative Album of the Year (it lost to Broken Social Scene’s self-titled disc).
Their burgeoning fame south of the border has been represented by appearances on several high-profile talk shows, including The Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and Jimmy Kimmel Live. The two have also emerged as positive role models within the gay community, as they have refused to let