The Canadian sibling duo also oversaw an all-star tribute album ("The Con X: Covers") for it that features Ryan Adams, Sara Bareilles and others and arrives in stores Friday. Check out what Sara Quin had to say about both during out recent interview below.
Q: When you start "The Con: X" acoustic tour will you be playing guitar again? You’d sort of set them aside for the last couple albums and tours.
A: I have broken out the guitar. I don’t know how much I’ll play. You know what’s funny? I just don’t have the [same] passion for that instrument. It was always was a great songwriting tool for me, especially when I was younger. Tegan I spent most of our adolescence and early adult years playing and writing on guitar. It came so naturally. I didn’t understand a lot about the guitar, but as soon as I started fiddling around on it, the songwriting started. I have more of a theory background on piano.
We did the Royal Conservatory growing up. I actually feel I understand more about the piano than I do about the guitar. At some point, I decided I was better at piano than I am at guitar. With 'The Con,' when we were doing that album, I had a lot of tricky tunings and I was trying to be more experimental with the guitar. Now I sit down and know that the songs are fairly simple. The way I was performing them was more complicated and lent itself to the time and sound of the record. Lately, I’ve just been siting down at the piano to practice these songs. They’re very simple. Not difficult arrangements or too complicated. It’s actually quite nice. I think I’ll end up playing a lot of piano on the tour, which I normally don’t do live. I’m excited about that.
Q: Who’s idea was it to do "The Con" covers album?
A: Tegan and I were talking about how we could tie in something with the anniversary of the album with the foundation we launched last year. We thought about what would be a fun way to talk about the record and tying it in, maybe repackaging it with some behind the scenes stuff. I think Tegan said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we could get people to cover the songs?’ We do a lot of remixes, but to actually have people cover the songs would be really unique...It’s very exciting to do something about our album that isn’t about us.
Q: Was "The Con" an album that helped increase your fan base and a really important element in the trajectory of your career?
A: I always say 'The Con' couldn’t have been what it was without the momentum that was built on the back end of touring So Jealous. We finished up that album cycle touring with The Killers. A lot of 'So Jealous' ended up on the first season of Grey’s Anatomy. Jack White talked about 'Walking with the Ghost' and The White Stripes were performing it live.
I feel [the reason why] 'The Con' is so special to us and our audience is for a lot of people, it was the record that was really 'theirs.' It was like, ‘Ok, we’re a fan of this band.’ Then we dropped something that really related to them at that time. Tegan and I were 26-27 when that came out and I think a lot of our fans were that age [too].
The Con X: Covers - Track Listing
1. Ruth B. - I Was Married
2. MUNA - Relief Next to Me
3. Shura - The Con
4. Mykki Blanco - Knife Going In
5. PVRIS - Are You Ten Years Ago
6. Ryan Adams - Back in Your Head
7. City and Colour - Hop a Plane
8. Kelly Lee Owens - Soil, Soil
9. Bleachers - Burn Your Life Down
10. Hayley Williams of Paramore - Nineteen
11. Sara Bareilles - Floorplan
12. Shamir - Like O, Like H
13. Trashique (GRIMES X HANA) - Dark Come Soon
14. CHVRCHES - Call it Off
Digital Bonus Tracks
15. Cyndi Lauper - Back in Your Head (Bonus Track)
16. Bleached - One Second (Bonus Track)
17. Vivek Shraya - I Take All the Blame (Bonus Track)
18. Tegan and Sara - Miami Still (Bonus Track Demo)
TEGAN AND SARA - THE CON: X TOUR:
10/20 San Diego, CA Balboa Theatre
10/21 Las Vegas, CA Palms Casino Resort - The Pearl Concert Theater
10/23 Los Angeles, CA The Theatre at Ace Hotel
10/24 Los Angeles, CA The Theatre at Ace Hotel
10/25 San Francisco, CA The Masonic
10/26 Portland, OR Revolution Hall
10/27 Seattle, WA Moore Theatre
10/28 Vancouver, BC Queen Elizabeth Theatre
10/30 Calgary, AB Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
10/31 Edmonton, AB Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
11/2 Winnipeg, MB Pantages Playhouse Theatre
11/3 Minneapolis, MN State Theatre
11/4 Chicago, IL Oriental Theatre
11/5 Detroit, MI Masonic Temple - The Cathedral Theatre
11/6 Toronto, ON Massey Hall
11/8 Brooklyn, NY Kings Theatre
11/9 Boston, MA Orpheum Theatre
11/10 Upper Darby, PA Tower Theatre
11/11 Washington, DC The Anthem
11/13 Atlanta, GA Tabernacle
11/15 Austin, TX Paramount
11/16 Austin, TX Paramount
About the Tegan and Sara Foundation:
The Tegan and Sara Foundation fights for economic justice, health and representation for LGBTQ girls and women - three areas where LGBTQ girls and women face the biggest challenges. Tegan and Sara launched the Foundation in October 2016, with a nationwide "listening and learning tour" where they met with LGBTQ young people, researchers, legislators and nonprofits who've been at the forefront of supporting the LGBTQ community.
The Foundation's initiatives have included a partnership with Coalition and Orlando LGBTQ Center to expand their counseling services for LGBTQ youth in response to recent spikesin calls to suicide hotlines, rallying against anti-LGBTQ legislation in North Carolina by supporting Equality North Carolina,supporting the Audre Lorde Project's community support initiatives for LGBTQ people, partnering with DonorsChoose.Org to increase access to LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in public schools nationwide and supporting Egale Canada's Two Spirits, One Voice initiative, which supports individuals identifying as both LGBTQ and Indigenous (Two Spirit people). Learn more about the Tegan and Sara Foundation HERE
For the rest of my interview, see elsewhere on this blog.
www.teganandsara.com
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