The Advocate proudly presents its fifth annual list of the up-and-coming LGBT leaders in politics, science, the arts, and more and musicians Tegan & Sara, with their seventh album, Heartthrob, and a decade-plus experience under their belts, lead the pack of accomplished leaders in politics, sports, science, religion, and the arts. The dynamic pair recently sat with The Advocate’s editor in chief Matthew Breen to talk about
their skyrocketing careers, the struggles on whether they should come out
publicly, and separating their music and politics.
Tegan
& Sara, gay twin sisters from Western Canada,
are seasoned professionals at the age of 32. Known to many queer and folk/indie
rock fans for over a decade, Tegan & Sara have been writing music for a
full half of their lives. They were signed to a record deal at the tender age
of 19. Almost immediately upon signing with Vapor Records, the label run by
Neil Young’s manager, Elliot Roberts, they saw press requests flooding in and
they had to contend with being out publicly. That is when the pair had an
illuminating conversation with Roberts that would shape the trajectory of their
career.
“We
were almost asking for permission from him, like, ‘Is it OK? Are we going to
hurt our career?’” Tegan told The
Advocate about the possibility of being openly gay in their professional
lives. “It’s so significant to me now to look back at that moment because what
Elliot said to us could have steered us in a very different direction. He just
said, ‘Be yourselves. If you’re gay, you should be comfortable, you should talk
about yourselves. These are your experience and your stories and your songs.
And being authentic and being transparent with people is what’s going to
connect them to you.’ And so off we went…I’m so glad that Elliot said that,
because if he had said, ‘Let’s play that down let’s get you on dates with Tobey
Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio,’ I actually probably would have been straight
then, if he’d said that.”
Since
making that decision, Tegan & Sara have been constantly bombarded by
journalists looking to interview them about being gay, and they are more than
happy to field those questions. “I want to be able to be gay and be a girl, and
this shouldn’t mean that I’m marginalized. I should be able to be a universal
musician and appeal to both men and women, straight and gay.”
And
with LGBT news and current events dominating the headlines, Tegan & Sara
still believe that the stage is for music and that they do not have a political
agenda when performing. “As a political person who makes popular music that has
nothing to do with politics,” Sara says. “I think it’s important to be visible
and have my politics be visible in appropriate ways offstage. I don’t want to
make a political record, but I’m going to leave a political record offstage.
That’s the world I want to live in. I don’t do it all the time and I would
never be reckless about my opinions, and we don’t necessarily give ourselves
rules, but when something’s important to us, we talk about it.”
