'We were not simple people': Tegan and Sara revisit their 'High School' years for new memoir
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Not many of us would want to revisit our toughest times in high school, let alone expose the angsty things we wrote back then to the world. Music duo Tegan and Sara are doing that on multiple platforms this fall. They're releasing their memoir High School at the same time as Hey, I'm Just Like You, a newly recorded album of songs they wrote as teenagers. In the process, they’ve found both empathy and admiration for their high school selves.
"I don't think stories about women, especially young women, get taken very seriously very often," Tegan Quin told Build Series host Noah Michelson. "Young people are often patronized and oversimplified. We were not simple people, not even when we were teenagers."
For the twin sisters, who grew up in Calgary, Alberta, 10th through 12th grade was a time of discovering their queer identities and their ability to express themselves through songwriting. By 18 they were signed to Neil Young’s record label and were gaining a following in the indie rock scene of the late ‘90s and early 2000s.
But before they got to that point, there was a time of drug experimentation, which they felt was just as important to include.
"In no way is the book [granting permission to] go out and try drugs when you're 15 years old," Sara said. "In the queer community, it's important for us to talk about this linkage between shame, fear, trauma, and self-medication. Statistically, we drink more smoke more take more risks. A lot of times we don't talk about what is the root of that."
At the root of that, they say, was a lot of the homophobia they had internalized growing up — so much that they took some time to come out to each other. It wasn't until they found music that they were able to stop self-medicating and start being more open.
Tegan and Sara are adamant that this is not a "tell-all" but rather a memoir focused on those themes: their relationship, their sexuality, and their music. They went back through their old journals, photos, tapes, and other ephemera they saved from their teen years and wrote the book in alternating chapters.
Though they've had a very successful two decades since then — first as indie rockers, then as pop stars — this process has done something healing for them, too.
"Going back and writing about that, discovering all our early songs, releasing them out to the world, I think it's the final step in releasing all of that trauma and sometimes insecurity and fear and anxiety that we felt then that we still feel now," Tegan said.
Shop it: High School, $13.50, amazon.com
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