Catching Up With: Tegan Quin

Tegan and Sara have been busy.

After the twin sisters released their sixth album, Sainthood, in October 2009, they set off touring. Almost a year later, they’re still at it. The occasional breaks have been filled with producing albums—Sara worked with Fences and Tegan with Char2d2—as well as working on comedian Margaret Cho’s upcoming album, Cho Dependent. Plus, the duo recently supervised the creation of a vinyl box set featuring five of their albums and a bonus album of demos, slated for an August 31 release. Tegan Quin recently talked to Paste about the group’s busy year, working with Death Cab’s Chris Walla and their plans to record a new album.

Paste: You’re about to release a box set of all of your albums on vinyl, plus a bonus record of demos. How did that project come about?
Tegan Quin: When we signed our record deal like 12 years ago, we signed to Neil Young’s record label, and they pushed us to do vinyl right off the bat. They were like, “Do you want to do vinyl?” And our first record, we were like, “No, why would we do vinyl?” And then when we put out our second record, we did a small run of vinyl, and it was just so cool, and people snapped it up really quickly. After that, with every record, we’ve always done a small run of vinyl. We’ve noticed over the years that it just keeps getting more popular. Warner Bros. approached us and said they wanted to do a box set with all of our vinyl in it. As an incentive for people to buy it all together, we included a recording of eight of our demos from the last seven years and put that on vinyl as well, which is the piece I am the most excited about because I’ve heard all of our records on vinyl, but I’ve never heard our demos on vinyl, so it’s pretty cool.

Paste: Is that a normal way for you to work? Do you always demo the songs first?
TQ: Yeah, since about 2002 or 2003, we’ve had home recording studios. So, we demo all of our stuff at home, and then we sort of send it back and forth together and get a blueprint going, and once we pick a producer, we send them all the demos so they can hear what the songs sound like.

Paste: So you do most of your writing separately?
TQ: Exactly, we write the majority of our music separately. So I’ll write a song and then record it and send it to Sara, and then she’ll record vocals and guitars and send it back to me, and I’ll put more stuff on it, and then we’ll call it a complete demo.

Paste: It has been almost a year since Sainthood was released. Are you thinking about making a new album yet?
TQ: We’re definitely talking about it. We had a busy year because we worked with Margaret Cho, and we are writing with a few other dance artists right now. We have been doing all these collaborations and side project things. Sara produced an album for this artist Fences, and I produced a record for Char2d2. We got so busy, and there was this moment about a month ago where I had a mini freak out meltdown, and I emailed Sara and everybody in our management like, “When are we making another record?” And they were like, “You still have six months of touring. Like, relax.” My instinct is to say that probably it will be a year before we go into the studio and record, just because we tour until Christmas, so realistically we’ll need four or five months to write. But I definitely feel this itchiness. I always describe songwriting as an itch. I definitely am starting to feel itchy.

Paste: You probably need some time to let the muse reload.
TQ: Yeah. Different records have caused different effects. After The Con, I kept writing for a year. I just kept writing and writing and writing. I had so much to say. After Sainthood, I haven’t written anything. I think it just depends on what my muse is. Right now, I don’t know what my muse is.

Paste: Are there any producers you would like to work with for the new album?
TQ: I get very overwhelmed when I think about that. I love working with Chris [Walla], and there’s this part of me that would want to work with him again, but we’ve done two records now, and I feel like it’s probably time to figure someone else out. I know the record company would love for us to use a big producer. I think they feel like we sell ourselves short a bit because we don’t want to work with mainstream producers. They’re like, “Use a big producer, and be famous, and sell records, please!” And we’re like, “I don’t know.” I’m torn. There were so many amazing records this year. I’m definitely making my short list. No one specific yet. I think Sara and I are the kind of musicians where, once we start writing, we’ll know.

Paste: Do you pay attention to other people’s albums and who produced them?
TQ: Absolutely. When I hear a record that I love, I always make note of who made it and where they made it. I’m that nerd that wants to know, like, where did the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s take their record? And who made it? And were they happy? And did they live together? And do they write together? And how much money do they make when they’re writing?

Paste: What records did you love this year?
TQ: The three records I cannot stop listening to are the National’s new record, Goldfrapp’s new record, and Beach House’s new record. But I also love The xx’s record, and I think that both Against Me! and Gaslight Anthem put out amazing records. We’ve been on tour with Paramore for a month, and I’m like, “I could write pop songs.” So, I’m pretty inspired right now about music, and I wasn’t that inspired when we were making Sainthood. I felt like just writing and not listening to anything, and now I’m really overwhelming myself with music. So, I don’t know what the hell’s going to happen. We’re going to make a hip-hop record or something.

Paste: How did the project with Margaret Cho happen?
TQ: The Margaret Cho thing was so interesting. She’s such a huge artist in the comedy world. She’s a powerhouse. When she approached us about the record, she was like, “I’m putting out a record with Ani DiFranco, and Andrew Bird, and Jon Brion and Ben Lee. Would you like to be a part of it?” And I was like, “Please, God, yes.” The songs are all amazing. I mean, they are comedy songs, but I think what’s truly amazing about Margaret Cho is that she uses humor to deal with a lot of pain and a lot of her issues. The songs are all actually really deep and intense. The record comes out and then we’re putting a video out with her as well. I’m really stoked. It was only the third song that Sara and I have ever collaborated on, so that was cool.

Paste: Did you write the music and lyrics?
TQ: She sent us basically what I would describe as a poem, and then we took those lyrics and created a song. So, we recorded everything and then she came and sang.

Paste: For Sainthood, you used Death Cab’s Chris Walla as producer. It sounds like you let him kind of take on the old, traditional model of producing where the artist writes more songs than needed and the producer shapes the album from those songs. Is that how it worked?
TQ: We’ve made five other records, and we’ve never been so hands off, but we’ve worked with Chris before, and we really trusted him. His vision for the record was that we’d record as a band, and because we would be recording every take, we wouldn’t be sitting in the booth micromanaging so much. And then it was funny because Chris decided he wanted to play bass on the record, so then none of us were in the booth. So, then Howard Redekopp, who had produced So Jealous, he came on board. It was really a co-effort between Chris and Howard – which sounds we were going to get and how the record was going to play out. Sara and I are very hands on. We’ve always been really sensitive about making that known, because there are so many artists – and a lot of women – in the industry who just end up being the puppet for their producer or their record company. And, obviously Sara and I are only each other’s puppets.