- Win a pair of tickets to see Tegan and Sara live in Vancouver, details at bottom of page -
That Tegan and Sara’s fifth album, The Con, was a fan favourite, is ironic says Sara Quin.
Reached by phone before The Con X Tour, celebrating the 10th anniversary of their break-out album, Quin told Westender about the personal struggles that dominated the writing, recording and touring of The Con.
“[Ten years ago] I was totally and entirely miserable… writing the record itself, my life was just starting to get a bit unstable,” she says. “So there's a kind of irony that it was our fans’ favourite record.”
There had been several deaths in the family, explains Quin. Then 27, she had just bought a house with her partner but the relationship was coming quickly to an end. She fell into a depression. Her twin sister and bandmate, Tegan, was unable to pull her out of the depression, and a thick tension permeated their relationship.
Meanwhile, the world around her couldn’t be more thrilled for her existence and her art.
On tour, “after the shows we would stand out by the bus, and there would be 100 kids,” she recalls. “We would talk to every single kid, and we would take pictures and we would sign things and [after] I would get on the bus and get into the bunk, in my clothes, and cry.”
Thankfully, things have changed. The sisters, now 10 years wiser, have achieved mainstream success and, in a slightly unusual but welcomed move, have resurrected The Con – a melodic, sometimes awkward, but deeply personal album – to tour it across North America.
Building on the nostalgia, they have also released a cover version of the album. The Con X: Covers features 17 different renowned musicians – including Cyndi Lauper, Ryan Adams, Sara Bareilles and Mykki Blanco – all of whom identify as LGBTQ+ or are significant allies. Proceeds from the album go toward the Tegan and Sara Foundation, supporting LGBTQ+ women and girls.
Suffice to say, the original album was highly influential.
Vancouver-based pop singer Louise Burns says she remembers being inspired by The Con’s use of melodies.
“I am a melody person and I think this is kind of one of the first records where I'm like, ‘Oh, this is not just a lyrically based band, this is like melody, and this is pop music and this is what it could be if you put the two together,’” she says.
Sara says that, at the time, she and Tegan were unaware of the magnitude of the album’s impact.
“I don't think we knew we were having the biggest success of our career,” she says. “There was a feeling like, ‘Oh my god there are people coming to all the shows, we're playing way more cities in Europe, OK, we're on our own tour bus, we don't have to share it with the support bands.’ Even though now I can see now it was a very large jump, to us it felt very incremental.”
As queer artists, their success was hard-won, with occasionally homophobic and misogynistic press coverage describing them as “wiccan lesbians” and “tampon rock.”
“Whether it was conscious or not, [there was] some bias and discrimination around being gay,” Sara says, with some hesitation.
“I think if we had been straight, or even male, I think we would have been embraced, and probably would have seen our career [take off much earlier]… I think we sort of got fucked by the press, and [that] kind of marginalization ended up delaying a lot of the success that would come after The Con tour.”
Given the hardship surrounding The Con’s original release, it’s a small miracle for fans that Sara has been willing to pick it up again. At the end of their original two-year tour of The Con, they had to cancel a few shows due to exhaustion and sibling conflict.
“We were just completely burned out, we were fighting, we got into a physical altercation, and I remember us being like, 'this is absurd,’” Quin says. To preserve their relationship, they took some time apart, and lived in different cities.
Revisiting the album has been transformative, Quin says.
“It’s allowing me to sort of ... fix or mend my feelings about it all and it's actually been very healing … [and] performing these songs, not from a really super depressed place, is going to be really exciting.”
Although diehard fans in Vancouver will be readying themselves for one of the most nostalgic weekend of their lives, it comes with some unsettling news: In a tweet earlier this month, the pair announced that after this tour they’ll be “taking a long break from touring.”
Our intention is to take a long break from touring after this fall run. For those coming to the shows we'll be so happy to see you.
— Tegan and Sara (@teganandsara) October 10, 2017
•Tegan and Sara perform on Saturday, Oct. 28, at 9 p.m., at Queen Elizabeth Theatre (630 Hamilton St.) Tickets start at $47.50.
•Visit our Facebook page to enter our contest for a pair of tickets to see Tegan and Sara live in Vancouver. Winner will be chosen randomly, contest closes Friday Oct. 27, 12 p.m. pacific time.
