Another lesbian duo
 

These two twin sisters are lesbians and had shared some stuff about tatu. They were on MTV: You hear it first, just like t.a.t.u.

Tegan and Sarah
by Rodrigo Perez

At Rock 101 etiquette school, one of the most elementary rules they teach you is "don't shoot yourself in the foot." Self-deprecation might be disarming, but let the critics launch the slings and shoot the arrows.

Clearly Canadian imports Tegan & Sara were asleep in class that day. Sitting with acoustic guitars in their laps and performing in front of an audience of employees and channel programming execs at MTV, the self-effacing identical twins were anything but self-assured salespeople trying to sell their new video "Monday, Monday, Monday." "We saw part of [the video] today and I'm going to be honest with you — I was just like, 'No, we can't show it,' " Tegan stated matter-of-factly. "It's got animation and it's weird and we're just gonna hold off." Talk about burning bridges before you even get to the bridge.



Teeming with charming manic energy, the sisters speak at a mile-a-minute pace, spilling into shameless non-sequiturs and generally having a hard time taking any parts of their promotional appearance seriously.

After a long and rather embarrassing rant about their mother's sex life, Sara tried to cut her sister off, but in her typically antagonistic fashion, Tegan resisted. "No! I've been on the road for two weeks and the only people I get to talk to are you and all those stinky people in our band, and I desperately need attention. And you just f---ing ruined it for me."

Natives of Calgary, Alberta, Tegan & Sara began their careers by annoying their therapist mom, strumming their guitars too loudly in their bedrooms. After mom realized that writing songs and playing the guitar wasn't just a passing teenage phase for the duo, she encouraged them to go from their bedrooms to the garage, where they started working with their own P.A system. From there, the enterprising singer/songwriting team started borrowing audio-visual equipment from their school and recording their own material.

After winning a battle-of-the-bands contest when they were 17, the girls' raw, punky-acoustic demo — reminiscent of an angsty Ani DiFranco — found its way to the legendary Neil Young and he quickly signed them to his Vapor record label.

"It was really, really intimidating meeting Neil for the first time," Tegan said. "Just 'cause he signed us to his label and it was kind of like, 'I hope he likes us. I hope he's not doing this because he has to or something.' "

Skillfully mixing punk, pop and folk to create driving songs about love and heartbreak, Young wasn't the only one who took notice of the sisters' talents. Soon the young women found themselves playing on prestigious tours like Lilith Fair, as well as performing with the Pretenders and Ryan Adams, who wound up developing a crush on Sara.

"Ryan heard the record so he called us and asked us if we would play with him on his American tour," Sara said with a creeping smile. "So we said, 'No, absolutely not.' And then he called us and cried and begged and so finally we were like, 'OK, fine, finally we'll go with you.' "

Although If It Was You, is technically their second record, there's some debate over where it falls exactly in their chronological discography. "This is our second record, kind of," Tegan said. "It's really our third record, but we're supposed to say it's our second record, maybe to appear younger than we really are, but there's no shame in being 38," she joked.

Set in a zoo, the bizarre video concept for the duo's first single, "Monday, Monday, Monday," is better left explained by the women. "The concept is that there's this monkey 'Mush-Mush' and he used to be really popular, and then there was this baby walrus that was born 'Waldo.' The wonderful concept is Mush-Mush [is] no longer popular and Waldo steals all the attention," a straight-faced Tegan said. "Sara and I are zookeepers cleaning Mush-Mush's cage and [he] has a dream fantasy where he is playing in a band with all these other zoo animals."

Don't worry. We don't know what that means either.

"[So far] I saw a three-second clip of it and I was scared," Sara said. "Petrified more than I have ever been in all my life for reasons that I cannot explain within the constraints of this interview."

Thanks to their similarly contagious pop hooks and their shared nationality, the siblings attract comparisons to Avril Lavigne, but in their perennially sarcastic manner, they insist that there's an elder statesman of pop that they find themselves more closely linked to.

"We get Phil Collins constantly. It's unbelievable," Sara said wryly. "A lot of people that met Phil think that Tegan and I really ... I don't know if it's like a soul thing, [but] people think we share a soul with him."

But one of the little-discussed facts about the duo is their understated sexuality. Both sisters are lesbians and have drawn dubious comparisons to T.A.T.U. despite clearly being anything but a manufactured pop outfit.

"There's some pretty distinct differences," Sara said directly. "A, we don't make out with each other, b, we write our own songs, c, we don't have a really expensive record deal, d, we don't make out with each other."

"I think that also the other big focus about T.A.T.U. is their sexuality," Tegan said. "Sara and I don't [address our] sexuality because my mom watches TV and reads the Internet, [and] the idea of [my mom] discovering [my] sexuality along with me is almost worse than Sara's hot-dog breath. Almost."

Although they don't necessarily endorse T.A.T.U., they do admit some good can come of their popularity. "I'm not much on the politics of these things, but maybe it's ... making people a little more open-minded. If 2 million people go out and buy a record with girls who are apparently together, maybe that's a step in the right direction towards equality."

Having already won over critics and fans alike with If It Was You in their native land of Canada, their label has its sights set on the U.S., but the modest twins are characteristically skeptical. "I think that it's gonna take us longer than one record to break in the U.S.," Tegan said. "That's the feeling I get inside of me. I just don't see it happening like — Whoosh! — cover of Rolling Stone. I think we have too big a mouth. I think we're way too rude for that to happen. Sara can't kiss ass. She's unable to do it."

"I'm not even talking. You're projecting on me!" Sara screamed in protest. "It's like you're talking [and] you have a big mouth. I'm not even talking!"

Well, they might stand a chance in the U.S. — if they can stop squabbling first.

http://www.mtv.com/news/yhif/tegan_sara/

I like Tegan & Sara...I've heard some of their stuff. :)

Thanks for the info.;)

Interesting girls. Twin sister lesbians? Now I've seen everything:D

lol yea freddie I agree with you on that. Sounds like they respect Tatu for what they've got but I'm not sure about that "Both sisters are lesbians and have drawn dubious comparisons to T.A.T.U. despite clearly being anything but a manufactured pop outfit" comment......

Oh. I know them's sisters. Heard 'em some years ago that I can't recall anymore. o_O Liked 'em. ^_^ Didn't know they were lesbians though. Lol. Hey, ya learn somethin' new everyday. Thanks for the article, SalsaChick. ^_^

~Echo.

LoL Cool article SalsaChick :)

I agree 'Twin sister lesbians' isn't that common a sight.. :D

They aren't real lesbians. It's probably just an act:D

I wonder if they get asked the same questions all the time... :rolleyes:

What do you mean? If they're really twin sisters?:D

so, let me get this straight: they are lesbians with each other???...... or do i have a really dirty mind? *it's tATu's fault!!!!* :D

but anyway, i can't be bothered with anything that comes out after tATu and smells 'lesbian'. i was sure things like that were going to appear just as soon as tATu got into the western mainstream: there was Britney with her army (jessica simpson, mandy moore, Xtina, avril), bsb with their army (nsync, bla bla bla - too much to mention). bleah.

I agree with you KQ. I'm just like blah... don't bother trying to get my attention off t.A.T.u. :rolleyes:

tatu r way tooooooo far compared to twin lesb...
wats with twin lesb anyway? i prefer avril lavinge...

:laugh: They might possibly make up 3 different scenario's to confuse the people..

Its true though, who's image are they trying to bite..? :D
The music industry better not now become this bandwagon for 'Lesbian acts'. Although I should really listen to them before I go too far :p

You obviously don't watch enough Springer.:D

Echo, I had no idea they were lesbians either. I just thought they attracted a large lesbian fanbase. Well now I know why.
:p

Anyhoo, I heard of them way before Tatu, so I wouldn't really say that they are replicating Tatu's appeal.
If they do break into the States it would most probably be because Tatu opened up the markets for overt lesbian sex appeal.

you know what the thing is with these armies 'appearing like mushrooms after the rain', as we say here in romania? the bad thing about the countless acts which follow an inovative one, is that the first one, the muse, so to speak, gets lost in the frenzy. people start turning their attention away from the original act.

if, for example, we have tATu - "the Russian lesbians", as 'people' call them, if the brainless twats to follow them would be something like: fukU - "the American three-some" their motto being: "no, we don't imitate umm tATu, but Jessica and Kelly here *really* love each other and i'm just Bob, the one who *loves* them and guides them (a futuristic perverted Ivan)" (no offence if someone here is called Jessica, Kelly or Bob), so if something like this appeared, then the idiotic media/people would start going like: tawho? tatu? hey, man, fukU!!! lol. or should i better pout at this one?

everyone in the west thinks tATu is yet *another* manufactured POP ACT. and i am deeply hurt by that. deeply. it makes me believe yet again that tATu are NOT for the western culture, and that we, the Eastern Europeans, are the only one who can truly understand them and their message.

to the western market they are just: "the Russian lesbians" supporting the GAY people (one of the best cases) or simply "the pseudo-lesbians band" (one of the worst cases alongside "paedo-pop"). to us here they mean liberation, something that the western media will never understand. sadly.

My thoughts exactly!

But they are a manufactured pop act. There is no shame in it, really. What they are doing is great for young people realising themselves and a lot of people here see that.

Maybe we don't regard them in the same way as Eastern European people because we already had gay icons to look up to.

ETA: By "we" I don't mean everybody in the West.

KillaQueen, Tegan and Sara have actually been around a while, so I don't really think they're quite following the "trend" so to speak. Plus, they lack that certain edge Tatu has: Making out.

I just don't want to see Tegan and Sara get pigeon-holed as some followers when, if you think about it, ALL they and Tatu have in common is sexual orientation, and even then we STILL don't know for sure about Tatu. LOL.

Though I won't be surprised if some other bands try and follow that path.

I know KQ, I wish I lived over there... ::sigh:: But now that I think about it, I don't think Tegan and Sara are marketing their sexuality...