NYC VIP!

If you come to VIP soundcheck's you get to submit questions!

Hi!

New York was such a fun night. Pier 17 was totally mind-blowing. It was a particularly lovely day, the sun was in our eyes at soundcheck, but it felt good on the face. I went and got an IV that day, I had a tickle in the of my throat, and was feeling low energy. I had an amazing time on stage that night, but the next morning knew something was wrong. The tickle had turned into a sore throat, and my nose was stuffy. By soundcheck, I had almost lost my voice. Laryngitis the doctor said. A fancy word for inflamed vocal cords.

Someone sent me this. Was it you?

Singing outside in 50-degree weather, after two straight weeks of rehearsals, press and shows had done me in. Still, when I think about New York I think about the sun on my face, the Brooklyn bridge behind my back, all the friendly faces in the audience for VIP soundcheck, and the incredible gratitude I feel to do what I do. Here are some answers to questions we didn’t have time to get to that day.

-Tegan

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Tegan Answers for 10/29 NYC Q&A Submissions

Yasmine Dias Raslan

·       What is your music composing strategy? Is it lyrics or musical arrangements first? Do you two approach each part separately or together? Or do you instead leave each alone and do your own thing?

·       Are you guys going to be doing international shows? My home country of Brazil would absolutely love to see you guys perform. Let me know and I’ll book my tickets right now.

Tegan: We always start songs separately. We’ve never sat down together to start a song. When I sit down, I often start on the guitar. But sometimes I will build a track with keyboards and drums and bass to inspire myself. I have other writers that send me tracks that sometimes get my creativity flowing and a song comes from that. For me, it’s a combination of lyric and melody that inspires me to finally sit down and record something.  I cannot just write lyrics. I have to have a melody and a basic structure to start writing. So a lot of my writing process is just humming and strumming until inspiration strikes!

We have no firm plans to tour internationally at this time. We are looking at Australia as they have been supporting the album.  With High School out there and in the UK, it’s possible we would also hit up the UK. The honest truth is that it is just so expensive right now to tour we aren’t sure how to make it work.  We’d love to go everywhere but we can’t really afford it. We don’t get tour support and with Covid and inflation if a tour gets cancelled or we have to cancel or postpone dates and we’re abroad it could be incredibly stressful and financially detrimental to us personally.  At this time, like a lot of bands of a certain size, we have to manage what we want to do with what is responsible to do.  But we will go on tour internationally again, just not sure when. This was one of the perks of being on a major label, robust releases and support in other countries.  Although we never really took tour support, there was a lot of support around a release to get us over there.  Sadly, we have to take it one country at a time and be responsible in a different way.  But it’s really got a lot more to do with the cost of things and the threat of illness.  We don’t like to burden our audience with the realities of touring and the costs but it’s absolutely insane how expensive it is to keep a tour on the road. We’ve cut our band in half, our crew is running ragged and could use 2-3 more people to put up the current show. People just aren’t seeing as many shows, ticket sales are low, the markets are competitive in ways we’ve never seen. It’s just so crazy right now. I think we will look into a live stream. We definitely want people to see this show. We definitely want to connect to fans outside America and Canada. So we’re thinking about all this. Working on a plan! Promise!

Ashley Lilly

·       Hi, this is my fifth time seeing you perform in New York (including last week at Rough Trade). Each time has been at a different venue. How did you end up choosing Pier 17 for this particular show?

·       Your performance on Jimmy Fallon was fun to watch (I watched it on YouTube a few times 😄). I loved your outfits 💗 Does preparing to perform for television feel any different from preparing to perform for your shows on tour?

Tegan: Thank you, first of all, for supporting us five times! I love that you have seen us in different size venues, and different kinds of shows, and you keep coming back! Thank you! We chose Pier 17 because it was beautiful, the offer was strong, and it was a new venue we’d never played! We thought it would make for a memorable night!

And preparing for TV is a whole different monster. For sure.  We have a musical director who helps prepare the tracks as we shorten the song for TV.  You must compress things differently and mix things differently for TV or it will sound AWFUL. So, there’s a lot of technical preparation.  In terms of lights, it’s a weird one. Most tv shows are union. So, our lighting person cannot touch the lights. So, it’s a bit of a crap shoot. Luckily, we always have someone great who seems to get the song and so it’s never been a total disaster. You get to give some feedback. And we paid to have our ice cream cone hung up. I won’t tell you how much because it pains me. But we felt it was important to have it be there. LOL. Regarding the outfits. We always go bold on tv! Gotta pop! Overall, I find doing TV so stressful. But Fallon and Seth were both so fun. These past two TV experiences were worth it! But it was all about the preparation. We prepared more than we ever have, and I think it shows. And I made us more confident. Poor Sara though! All the pressure was on her! She killed it! But still! I’d be happy to NEVER have to play one of my songs on TV. Too much pressure.

Kelly Caviness

·       Are there talks of developing Jr. High into a show like High School? If not Jr. High, do you have any other film/tv endeavors?

Tegan: We are exploring the option of expanding the Junior High Universe to other formats, like an animated show.  I think we are also really excited at the prospect that people would just love the fictionalized story of young T&S (set in current times) and maybe we could write more of them. We’re open to all paths right now. Trying not to overload ourselves, but also being curious about other avenues!  First and foremost, we just want people to love the books, and support their releases!

Clair Rock

·       What was the experience of making the High School tv show and how did it differ from creating the book?

Tegan: Well, the biggest difference is we had 100% creative control over our book. We were in charge of writing the story and approving everything to do with the release and marketing of the book. With the show we were heavily involved in developing the idea, and we are executive producers, and everyone has been wonderful about letting us express our opinions and share ideas, and nix things that really bug us, but ultimately, we aren’t writing or directing the show, so we don’t really have the same control. It’s given us the opportunity to learn a lot though, same as when we wrote the book, and we’re leaning into the opportunity.  I think the other big difference is that our memoir was based on our memories, whereas the show veers into fiction since Clea and Laura (the writers) have to fill in the details of all the characters, giving them depth and emotions, feelings, thoughts, things we didn’t do in our memoir because, well, you can’t do that in memoir! You have to stick to what YOU felt and saw and did.  So, the show is really fun in a new way because the characters can really do anything, go any direction, and be anyone Clea and Laura want them to be.  Which is pretty cool!

Theodora Von Arnim

·       Your High School memoir reveals some deeply intimate experiences for both of you - what drove you to share these experiences and was it difficult to manage the emotionally vulnerability?

·       Will you release any more books about other chapters of your lives? (please do!!)

Tegan: You know, for two decades now, people (fans, journalists, and strangers) have consistently seemed to want to know two things about us.  When and how did we start our band, and when and how did we come out.  We saw that as our Origin Story.  And that’s what we pitched when we sold High School.  If you want the answers to those questions, you have to go back to High School.   Though some of the stories felt very personal, and some of the details were hard to share, it felt worth it if it brought comfort or connection or relief or inspiration to people reading the book.  And something about putting our story into our own words made it feel less intrusive.  I think we have always been delicate about how much detail to share with the public and what lane we use to share about ourselves.  And a long-form book, written by us, in our own words, felt like a safe place to share about our youth!  For me, I found it quite easy once we started.  I trusted the process.  And I trust our audience to get it.

Antonio

·       Ciao! How does the "tour bubble" exactly work?

·       Ciao! What's your song you guys have the most divergent opinion on in terms of personal preferences?

Tegan: Generally speaking, we have created a “tour bubble” by restricting guests backstage, on the busses, and not doing any up-close photos, hugs, or personal meet and greets with people on the tour.  We aren’t doing any indoor hellos with anyone.  We wear masks even outdoors doing hellos.  And we have encouraged everyone on the tour to be diligent when seeing friends or family on days off or show days to do the same. All commonsense stuff: masks, outdoor eating, lots of hand washing etc.  It’s inevitable that someone will get sick (it’s always me) but with these restrictions in place, we hope to slow/stop the spread of a cold or flu to the whole crew/band and hopefully avoid Covid and a full week of cancellations.

I think Sainthood was the album where Sara and I’s styles diverged the most. Sara was starting to get into electronic music and was getting more and more experimental and I was in a pop-punk-alternative wave.  But I think we always find the middle. That’s ultimately T&S.  Two extremes meeting in the middle.

Katerina Katakalides

·       If you could create any piece of Crybaby merch, what would it be?

·       What was the inspiration behind the Crybaby cover art?

Tegan: I suggested a t-shirt with the “this shirt ain’t black it’s yellow” line.  Sara and Emy made it better. But I definitely make suggestions for merchandise.  We always say that if WE love a design, it doesn’t do well. I think we probably veer towards something less commercial and doesn’t scream TEGAN AND SARA. Whereas I think if you’re buying band merchandise you want the shirt to promote the band. So. I often don’t play a HUGE role in choosing the designs because I always choose wrong! Ha. I love all the current Crybaby designs! This week my plan is to take photos in all of it and put it on socials. I think it’s so good! Emy is a genius.

Her inspiration for the album cover (the ice cream) was so special. I think we’ll try and interview Emy about her artwork in the next month or two. She’s been very busy with other design work, but I’d love for her to talk about her process! I could never do it justice!

Jahaira Benavides

·       How do you feel when people sing your songs at shows? Has it changed your experience as concert audience? Thank you! From Peru :)

Tegan: It is my absolute favorite thing when people sing and dance at our shows.  FAVORITE. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people caught up in the moment. I love hearing people sing with us. I love when people move to our music.  I also love to make people laugh! A great show to me is one where I can hear the audience singing, see them moving, and I make them laugh!