Tegan and Sara – HuffPost 8.26.10

Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?

Tegan Quin: When we started playing music, our mom kept saying “go to the University and have a back up plan,” and we probably should have done that but we didn’t. I’m glad we didn’t because I think what we had going for us is that we were so young and we were willing to sleep in the car every night or take the greyhound bus between shows. When I meet artists right now, it is one of the things I really focus on–how old they are and what they have in their life. When I sit down with a bunch of artists that are in their thirties that have houses and dogs and responsibility and debt, it’s like going to be really hard to do what you have to to make it in this business. You have to be able to sacrifice everything, and you have to be willing to go on the road for hundreds of days a year and make nothing. We made nothing for so many years.

We meet these bands and there are like six of them and they want to have a crew. Even bands that sign record deals, they go out and sign with a label and they get put on the back burner. You have to be smart, creative, keep your budgets low. You have to be driven and be willing to get out there and work your project and be willing to give up everything to have it succeed. Only one in a million get the deal they really want. It doesn’t happen very often. So, the advice that we give is pretty dark, but if you love what you do and want to do this, then just get out there and do it. I think you should do it if you want to do it. But I always tell artists that you have to be prepared. I don’t glaze it over for anybody because I have seen too many amazing bands fail. Too many incredible artists not have it work out. We are not delusional. Sara and I are very lucky that we started out as young as we did because it took a long time.

Sara Quin: Well, it’s difficult. I work with a lot of young artists. I know a lot of bands that I’m just friends with, and I’m also working with a band called An Horse out of Australia, who signed a record deal with Mom And Pop Records in New York just last year. They’re just making their second record, and I’m just sort of working as their A&R, I guess. I like to think of myself as a liaison between them and the label. I feel like I struggle from feeling like I know exactly what to tell them, and then other days, I have no idea what to tell people. It is just so specific now. I really feel like each band has a specific set of needs, and there are so many different ways to tackle a career. It’s this weird cocktail of what you want, what you think the audience wants, what sort of career you imagine, how long you want to be doing this, how hard you actually want to work. It can be really, really complicated.

For a long time, I thought that was what Tegan and I had accomplished, and the approach we used to accomplish it was not a foolproof formula or anything like that, but we had ten years of experience. I thought if I gave people this succinct explanation of what we did, and a plan to execute it for their own career, how can they fail? Well, it doesn’t always work. Each band has to figure it out on its own. I definitely think that what Tegan and I have done by touring relentlessly and trying to be transparent and authentic with our audience–really trying to connect honestly and truly with people–has meant that every time we go back to a city, I know those people are coming back.

MR: The bond that’s made between the artist and fan during live performances.

SQ: I think that that’s really the future of music, the connection that is made in live performance. Hopefully, it translates in the recorded music, but I don’t think that’s what people should count on in the coming years. I don’t mourn it the way other people do, but I think the record industry is really going to change in the next ten years. It’s not because I think we’re not selling as many records anymore so the record industry has to change. I just think that people want the experience of live music, and that’s ultimately what’s going to outlast videos, the internet, and Twitter, and whatever fancy-dancy thing that people like for a month. Ultimately, what people really want to experience is me standing on a stage, playing music. So, I just tell bands all the time, “Be as good as you can, and tour as much as you can, and be as versatile as possible, and just tour your ass off.”