Tegan and Sara

Tegan and Sara

Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Kiersten Quin (born September 19 1980, identical twins) are Canadian singer-songwriters, performing as Tegan and Sara.

Biography and musical career

Tegan and Sara were born in Calgary, Alberta. The duo initially played as PLUNK, and lacked a drummer or bass player. In 1997, the two used their school’s recording studio to record two albums: Who's in Your Band? and Play Day. In 1998, they made an early breakthrough by winning Garage Warz Battle of the Bands, a local music competition in Calgary. Since then, the two have toured extensively with many artists, including Neil Young, Rufus Wainwright, The Pretenders, Ben Folds, The Killers, Rachael Cantu, Vivek Shraya, Cake, Gogol Bordello, Hot Hot Heat, Ryan Adams, Veda Hille, Little Birdy, Iron On, Little Brazil, Bryan Adams and Weezer and on Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair. They are signed to Neil Young's Vapor Records in Canada, and to Sire in the U.S. as their previous label, Sanctuary Records, is no longer releasing new music in the U.S. Currently, Tegan lives in Vancouver and Sara lives in Montreal.

When they were competing in Garage Warz, the duo was known as "Sara and Tegan" because their mother submitted the form at the last minute with their names in that order. Their first album, Under Feet Like Ours, was initially released under the name "Sara and Tegan"; copies are now a sought-after commodity among their fans.

The twins tell comic stories on stage, a throwback to when they didn't have a lot of material but still wanted to give people a full show.

While both twins are similarly involved in vocals and playing instruments, the singing of the lead melody often goes to whichever twin wrote the particular song. Sara has been quoted saying that Tegan writes songs prolifically, "like a fish lays eggs," eventually discarding most of them. Sara's songs, on the other hand, evolve slowly and methodically and almost always make it onto the record.

Their fifth album, The Con, was released on July 24, 2007. It was co-produced by Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie. Jason McGerr of Death Cab for Cutie, Matt Sharp of The Rentals, Hunter Burgan of AFI, and Kaki King appear on the album.

Cover songs and collaborations

In 2004, Matt Sharp and Maya Rudolph of The Rentals recorded a cover version of Tegan and Sara's song "Not Tonight" and released it for free on the World Wide Web. [1] Sharp also played moog on "So Jealous".

In 2005, The White Stripes did a cover of Tegan and Sara's song "Walking with a Ghost" which was released on the Walking with a Ghost EP by the group. "Walking with a Ghost" was also used in a mashup dance remix bootleg by Party Ben[2] with a song by Mylo, "Paris Four Hundred," under the title "Walking with a Ghost In Paris", which became a sought after club track after an influential dance radio station in the United States, C-89.5/KNHC/Seattle, Washington, started playing the song. Also in 2005 from the album So Jealous they did a cover of Cyndi Lauper's version of Prince's "When You Were Mine".

In 2006, the duo also contributed a track to Australian radio station Triple J's "Like A Version" radio programme - a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark". The track was released on a compilation disc of that programme's songs, "Like A Version, Volume 2".

Tegan has contributed backup vocals to "The Alphabet" by Vivek Shraya, "Never Give Up" by Melissa Ferrick, "La Le La La" by Kinnie Starr, "Hey Kids" by David Usher, "Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart" by Against Me!, and "Saturday" by Rachael Cantu.

In 2007, Sara contributed backup vocals to The Reason's "We're So Beyond This" and Vivek Shraya's "Your Name".

In 2007, Motion City Soundtrack covered "You Wouldn't Like Me" live at the State Theater in St. Petersburg, Florida and live at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania .

TV and film

Tegan and Sara have made many television appearances, including Vicki Gabereau's Canadian talk show, The Late Show with David Letterman, Brad Tv, Sonic Temple, Jonovision, Late Night with Conan O'Brien (on more than one occasion), Jimmy Kimmel Live (March 23, 2005) and The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn (November 11, 2004). They also played "Monday Monday Monday" on ZeD, and thus the song appeared on the 2003 CD ZeD: Live Off The Floor.

Their songs have appeared on several soundtracks, including those for the films Monster-in-Law and Sweet November, and television shows Grey's Anatomy, The L Word Season 3, and Veronica Mars Season 2. Their songs have also appeared on episodes for several of these shows: "Not Tonight", "Take Me Anywhere", "Fix You Up", "You Wouldn't Like Me", "I Won't Be Left", "Downtown", and "Where Does the Good Go?" have appeared on Grey's Anatomy, while "I Know I Know I Know" and "So Jealous" were on Veronica Mars. Their music also appeared on the show One Tree Hill, with songs including "Want to Be Bad", "Time Running", "Walking with a Ghost" and "Don't Confess".

Tegan and Sara also had a guest appearance on the The L Word. The episode was entitled "Last Dance" and aired on March 19, 2006. They played Love Type Thing while Dana (a.k.a. Erin Daniels) was high and dancing on stage near them.

Their song "Walking with a Ghost" has received considerable TV airplay, including a 2006 NBC commercial for the TV series Medium and montage footage on the UK football entertainment show Soccer AM in May 2007.

Accomplishments

Tegan and Sara have been profiled in a number of magazines and had their albums included on several notable "best of" lists. In the fall of 2003, they graced the cover of ROCKRGRL magazine issue #49, which focused on a tribute to duos. In late 2004, Rolling Stone magazine named their album So Jealous on their list of the best 50 albums of the year. Tegan and Sara were also nominated for a 2006 Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year alongside Hot Hot Heat, Metric, The New Pornographers and Broken Social Scene. Spinner.com placed them at #7 on their list of Women Who Rock Right Now.

Band members

• Tegan Quin – vocals, guitar, keyboard and piano
• Sara Quin – vocals, guitar, keyboard and piano
• Ted Gowans – guitar and keyboard
• Dan Kelly – bass guitar
• Johnny Five Andrews – drums
• Chris Carlson – bass guitar (until 2006)
• Rob Chursinoff – drums (until 2005)

Discography

Albums

• Yellow Tape (1998, cassette only)
• Orange Tape (1998, cassette only)
• Red Tape (1998, cassette only)
• Under Feet Like Ours (1999, initially released under Sara and Tegan, re-released under Tegan and Sara in 2001)
• This Business of Art (2000)
• If It Was You (2002)
• So Jealous (2004)
• The Con (2007)

Singles

• "Time Running" (2003)
• "I Hear Noises" (2003)
• "Monday Monday Monday" (2003)
• "Walking with a Ghost" (2004)
• "Speak Slow" (2004)
• "The Con" (2007) (Canada)
• "Back in Your Head" (2007) (US)

DC Shoes also released a three song sampler of So Jealous as a promotional offer during 2005. DC Shoes will also be selling Tegan and Sara DC Remix shoes in the Spring of 2007.

Music videos

• "The First" (2000)
• "I Hear Noises" (2002, directed by Sean Michael Turrell)
• "Monday Monday Monday" (2003, directed by Christopher Mills)
• "Living Room" (2003, directed by Kaare Andrews)
• "Walking with a Ghost" (2004, directed by Troy Nixey)
• "Speak Slow" (2005, directed by Tegan Quin/Angela Kendall/Brian Dutkewich)
• "Back In Your Head" (2007, directed by Jamie Travis)

DVDs

• It's Not Fun, Don't Do It! (2006)
• The Con - The Movie (2007) — (the DVD portion of the CD/DVD The Con)

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	For	Position
2000	YTV Achievement Award	Band/Musical Group	Won
2003	Western Canadian Music Awards	Outstanding Pop Recording (If It Was You)	Won
2006	Juno Awards	Alternative Album of the Year (So Jealous)	Nominated (lost to Broken Social Scene)
2007	Juno Awards	DVD of the Year (It's Not Fun Don't Do It)	Nominated (lost to Sarah Harmer)

See also

• List of bands from Canada

External links

• Official website
• Template:Myspace
• Official fansite
• Upcoming Tour Dates
• Audiojunkies Interview with Tegan and Sara
• Official fansite forum
• Another fan forum
• The Tegan and Sara blog
• The Tegan and Sara lyrics & video
• Tegan and Sara discography site
• I Bet It Stung - a Tegan and Sara fan site
• Tegan and Sara at Rolling Stone
• German fansite