High School 44:03

Hello, everybody. It's a channel and a podcast. Welcome back. Caitlin and Adam are here. Hey, welcome back. It is October, and it's hard to believe that this year has gone by as quickly as it has. I remember having my birthday at the end of March, and it was really COVID-y back then. It was so scary because we'd only been locked down for a week and a half, and we were waiting for the spaceships to land. Anyway, it's October.

I cannot believe that Christmas is coming. Like it's Thanksgiving weekend. I don't know how that happened. And Thanksgiving weekend is always the marker to me of like, okay, so September we get away with a bit of maybe extended summer weather. But Thanksgiving weekend to me always feels like, okay, we're in serious fall now people. Get your sweaters, bake your pies, try a pumpkin beer if you want, whatever you do, but it's fall now. Try a pumpkin beer.

I mean, do we want to try pumpkin beer? Even when I drank, I didn't drink any weird flavored drinks. And believe me, I would have drank anything anybody set in front of me. What's that? A gin and coke? I'll drink it. Oh, gin and coke. Ouch. There's a brewery called Great Lakes Brewery that does a pumpkin ale that I actually don't mind. I like it. She said Great Lakes, not Great Licks, everybody. Just so you know.

Yeah, it is very pumpkin-y. I'm going to go out and hang my, it's a little premature, but I have a gate because I live in the country and I'm going to put my ghouls out there. I have some really fun, like ghosts, but I never have had a kid here like for Halloween. And I don't know what's happening with Halloween this year. I know it's a little premature to talk about, but our kids trick-or-treating in Ontario, like, I don't know if it's happening here. Someone told me it was canceled. Is that, is that happening? I don't know. All

I don't see it happening because they've just recently, like leading into this weekend, the messaging, at least here in Toronto, was that you were telling people to really restrict the number of people you get together with at Halloween if you get together with anyone from outside your household at all. And we've had quite a few questions

quite a few cases of COVID related to schools in Ontario, you know, not just little kids, but teachers as well. So I can't imagine residents wanting a bunch of little kids coming and knocking on their door and going door to door and sharing candy. So I think it's going to be a year of Halloween, maybe like small Halloween gatherings. Like maybe you get together with like one other family in your bubble or something at that point. And I honestly don't know if I think that's almost worse than,

having, you know, the kids come up, like set your, if I lived in town, I'd get my big bowl of candy individually wrapped, like little chocolates or stuff individually wrapped and set it on a fricking step and say, take one.

It's like, come up, grab your candy. You know, you know, some kids are going to take five mittfuls and fill their pillow sacks up and kind of do it that way and not even come near the door, like literally set at 10 feet from the door. Why can't kids do that? And then leave the bag for three days in a closet.

We've been so hardwired now about like touch and hand sanitization that again, I just don't see, like, I just don't see people doing it. And I don't see parents saying, Oh yeah, reach your hand into this bowl kid. Like that again, I hate like Adam over to you parent of the show, but would you be like, you know, Hey, jam your hand into this bowl that other kids have been jamming their hand into. Yeah.

So spoiler alert, we're not going to do Halloween traditionally this year, but we're bubbled with my wife's sister's family. They conveniently live in our same neighborhood. And typically for the last few years, they have young kids and I have two girls, as you know. We get together pre-trick-or-treating for a pizza party at their house and then go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. So this year we'll do the same thing. We'll get together with them.

pizza party and we'll maybe set up rooms around the house and like the adults will be in different places and the kids can go trick-or-treating around the house we could chuck crap at them like the kids are down there and you're just like hey yeah you and then just hurl like a uh twizzlers well i what i was saying initially is that i was gonna put my ghouls on my gate when the gate opens you know they're little capes they blow in the breeze and they have like red eyes and

I have never had a kid here until like 10 years ago. My neighbors who don't live there anymore, they're like a quarter of a mile from me. They brought their two kids and my gate buzzer went and I'm like, hello? And so they came, I opened the gate. They said, Halloween apples. And it's Lindsay and you know, whoever it was, they're cute little kids. No, that's the mom's name. I forget what the kids names were, but they came in and I think I gave them CDs and

I didn't have any, I didn't have anything. I'm just like, what the hell can I give them? Like, would they, would they know this was a dog treat? Probably. I wonder, I wonder if they'd like a scented candle. So I ended up giving them my CDs because I had some wrapped CDs. Did you sign it at least? I did not. I just was like, they just looked at it and left like the most disappointed little faces. Yeah.

that you ever saw in your life. Well, I mean, if school is still on too, of course, there would likely be stuff going on in school because the kids are there anyways. So maybe with their class, they'll do stuff like dress up for that day or, I mean, there's never been a more appropriate time to wear a mask. So...

They might be doing that in classes. I don't know. I feel for kids and university students and everybody where you're just having this wonky year. But, you know, I think it'll be super different this time next year. It's just everyone warned us about the quote unquote second wave. And wouldn't you know it, it falls right around to favorite fall holidays of Thanksgiving and later Halloween. Well, I have ordered my vegan toe turkey thing.

I don't think it's Tofurky because that's a brand and I don't order from them. There's a company in Calgary called Charcuterie YYC.

and they do vegan meats. Like they literally wrap them up in brown wax paper with masking tape. Like it looks so great. And they do donair meat and pepperoni and they do like a turkey and a mock beef. This is all fake meat. And this is a treat. Like this isn't an everyday thing. I just want people to know that. No more what I eat. If I ate meat every day, I wouldn't do it that way. I know cold cuts are like danger. Anyway, it's so disturbing because my dog is staring at me.

But I ordered this tofurkey. It was $29.95. And it's like a loaf of like turkey, like white turkey meat. And I think I get a little thing of gravy and all kinds of stuff. So anyway, I'm very excited about that. And I'll probably be eating it by myself.

And that's the truth of it. Yeah. I am not having my brothers here. I just don't feel like I've come this far to go. Okay. Cause it makes no sense. The numbers are getting worse. Why would I, why would I back off my, what I've been doing for seven months? So. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's kind of been the messaging too, at least here for a lot of people. I think if people do get together with someone from outside of their household, it'll be like not the 10, 14 people gatherings. It'll probably be, I'm guessing six or less, similar to like the dining limits we have for indoor dining in Toronto. If they do that at all, and a lot of people are canceling it altogether, there's just so much darn mixed messaging going on.

people for just saying, you know what, I'm going to make up my own mind and I'm going to see the friends and family who I know are like me and being as safe as I am for Thanksgiving dinner. And it just depends on, it really depends on your individual comfort level and also what you've been doing and what you know your friends have been doing.

So if you've been playing it super safe and you know that your four other people in your life that you might see are as well, then I think at least here in Ontario, they seem to have deemed that to be like more or less okay. Slightly different here in Toronto. We're in a bit of a significant uptick. So I think there'll be even less celebrations. I was thinking of you, Jan, that we were talking about Thanksgiving meals on the morning show this week. And I thought, this is a

great holiday. And I know it might sound ridiculous to people, but it's a great holiday if you're vegan or vegetarian, because I would say that the sides are like almost what people look forward to as much as the turkey or the roast chicken themselves. Like everyone loves mashed potatoes. You can do a great vegan, vegetarian gravy. Peas and carrots.

I make a killer dressing. The only thing I swap out, I just use vegan butter. It's the bread crumbs that you leave out overnight. I remember mom having the big roasting trays that were covered with two loaves of bread. They would just be drying out. My dad would make his mother's stuffing. It was nothing fancy. There was no sausage or walnuts or cranberries or this or that. It was butter,

onions, like two big onions he would chop up. And I remember his eyes just watering over the counter. And then the bread would go in and then he would dump milk. Well, I just use oat milk or almond milk. You'd never... And then a giant bag of sage. Powdered sage. And

And I, we would eat dressing sandwiches, which is a bit redundant to have two pieces of bread, eating, uh, stuffing and just cranberry. That's what we had with lettuce. Like I didn't even want the Turkey. Great. And then is there a more, uh,

vegan appropriate dessert than pumpkin pie. I mean, no, it's just, it actually, I had never, you just eliminate the eggs. Like you eliminate the eggs out of it, but yeah, it's super easy to veganize anything. It is anything that people don't think of it when they think of Thanksgiving. Cause everyone's like, Oh, the big bird, whatever. I feel like I look at plates more and more when we're out and I'm like, okay, like you've got like, you know, a small amount of, of Turkey on it, but people go for the gravy and they go for the stuffing and they go, they go for the potatoes.

It's the best. I'm really looking for, I'll let you guys know next week how my, my vegan Turkey is. I've never ordered one before and I had to order it in advance because the guy makes them specially.

You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. We've got a whole lot of stuff coming up. We've touched a little bit on high school and Halloween. Tegan and Sarah are going to be my special guests today. They're coming to talk about their book, High School. Don't go away. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. Come on, let's do it.

Welcome back to the Jan Arden Show and Podcast. I'm with Caitlin and Adam. Tegan and Sarah are coming in today. They're going to be speaking with us from their respective homes in Vancouver. So I think Sarah is in North Van and Tegan is in just regular Vancouver. But yeah, they're in the same city. They're talking about their new paper. Their book is out in paperback.

Their book, there's lots of bizarre things in that book. Like they're coming out, so there's sexuality stuff. There are experimentation with drugs, which is really funny and interesting. I don't need to tell you that drugs were much different 20 years ago than they are today. But yeah, when I read this book, it made me think about high school guys and just how I went to a really, really small high school. There was 42 kids in my school, in my class, sorry.

And we knew everybody. It's such a different experience than the kids that have 1,200 people in a high school.

Yeah, that was me. I had a big high school. I don't know if it was 1200. I actually don't know how many students were in my high school, but it was fairly big. And by Toronto standards, it was like tight knit. I live in like, I grew up in a small community in the East end of the city called the beach or beaches, which is very isolated from the rest of the city. Cause it's like right on the lake and it's like super far in the East end. But I had a, I had a funny and I think great high school experience.

but I do love, I don't know why, and I don't know what this is, but think of all the movies in Hollywood and just think of when people get together and talk about high school and they still remember their high school crushes. I don't know what it is about high school, but it sticks with people. It really, really does. It does. It can be traumatizing. And there's things that you draw on and you think back on your entire life to moments where

something happened or somebody said a comment to you, or you're in the changing room getting ready for PE and someone sees you with your sports, your training bra on, or you start getting pubic hair or armpit hair, or it's just like, oh my God, is this really happening to my body? So there's a lot of reasons why I think

And it's a weird time in our growth as people. Physically, we're growing like maniacs. We're like human chia pets. And, you know, so there's a lot to unravel. There's a lot to unpack from high school.

There is. And like, it was cool to hear them kind of like, you know, and, and read them, read about them talking about their stories and, and the stuff that they went through. And it's just relatable to, it's relatable to everybody. And I think, again, people are always interested in it. They're always interested in talking and thinking back and, and,

you know, wondering where, I mean, look at social media, how many people go back through social media, probably the first time you ever got a Facebook account back in the day. Yeah. My space. And you went back and what did you, what did you do? You thought about the people you went to frigging high school with, even if you haven't seen them in however long. Um, I,

You go back looking for people. You go back and look for the captain of the high school football team. You go back and look for the cheerleader that was so popular. And you see them and you see their lives and you're going, well, I think they peaked early. Yeah.

It's true. Like maybe just someone who you weren't even close with in high school, but was like one of those like figures in your high school. You know, you could have had very little interaction with them, but you look them up before, you know, Ted and marketing who you see probably every single day at work, but you, it's just something about it. Something about that time in your life. I have lots of fond memories of high school, to be honest. I didn't have a lot of moments that I,

you know, I regretted or the kids, we were all, there was such a small group of us that we were kind of forced, listen, we need to figure this out and we need to get along.

There wasn't a whole lot of drinking. Everybody smelled like farm animals because they took the bus to school. So there was the young family that they were the last family we picked up on the bus and they were like Russian dolls. There was like a really tall one and they were all in sizes. And whenever they ran to the bus, they were late every morning because they had chores. So I think back to it now, they had to work hard. They had probably two things.

sat 2,500 chickens in their barns at any one given time.

Oh my gosh. I can't, that's like unfathomable to me, like growing up in a city where I didn't even take the bus to school. Like you, you know, you, you walked and it was no big deal. Or, you know, if you went to go see a friend at most, you would get on the street cart. It would still be only like 10 minutes, but yeah, like real urban, I guess like a real urban high school experience. There was a lot of drinking. There was a lot of partying. I do. What year did you graduate?

So graduated, oh my gosh, I hope I get this right. I think it was 2001. Wow. I was the last year to have what we in Ontario called OAC. So it was grade 13. So we had an extra year designed for like prep for university. So it meant that I went to school a little bit later than kids in the rest of the country. I love that. I honestly think we benefited from it. Yeah, what an idea.

I was still too young to go away. I was so focused on drinking and like having fun. So one thing I kind of regret, I didn't focus enough on like what I really liked about school school, like classes. I should have paid more attention to the fact that I loved drama and not gone into school for a bachelor of arts, which I failed miserably at the second I got to Dalhousie. It doesn't matter. Look at, look at where it took you. Like all those things are just as important, Caitlin, as getting it right.

Like even my dad said, well, when you go to college, you'll figure out what you don't want to take. Yeah. Which for me was anything outside of a bar. So,

Well, the culture is there, the peer pressure. Adam, how many kids were in your high school? It was a big school. I don't know, 700 maybe, 8,000. Like it was a huge school. Did you know everyone who graduated or did you just hear their names for the first time when they got their diplomas and you sat there? I knew people in my class. I mean, Caitlin, I remembered like you're saying OAC. That was for me too. I was in OAC and that year was like, I think I was only taking it.

I'm with two young ones here on this podcast, everybody. It's me, Jan Arden. Oh, I can hardly, I hardly know how to work this computer to do this podcast, but these kids sure know. I mean, I graduated in 1980. So when you guys were saying crap about, yeah, 95, I was just going into. I remember the 80s. I remember 1980. But I was playing video games. You barely. I was playing Pac-Man on my friend's Atari in 1980. Oh.

Well, I will say video games have come a long way from the 80s. I mean, it was ping pong for the first three years of my life. You just sat there and pinged a little ball back and forth. We thought that was the greatest thing that ever happened to our TV set.

that you plug that thing in. Anyway, I, um, high school is, it's challenging. And when I talked to Tegan and Sarah today, just about how they got through high school, it's really interesting because I asked them about, you know, the, the whole being gay thing, you know, twins to be twins is one thing because everyone does know you in school. Oh, it's the twins. They look exactly identical twins. Right. But then to both find out that you were queer, but not tell each other,

So they were living these secretive lives that must have been so complicated, but they write about it so elegantly.

I hope you guys will stick around today to listen to the back half of our show to just hear Tegan and Sarah. And I've met them many, many times over the years. I saw them when they were 17 years old singing in a bar. They were terrible. They know that I've said this about them before. They were playing their guitars and singing loud and, and doing music. And, and it's so great to see these fellow Calgarians come as far as they have. Anyway, keep, keep, keep listening. And, um,

Yeah, we'll be right back with Tegan and Sarah. This is Jan Arden Podcast. We are so excited to welcome another new sponsor, our friends at Cove Soda. Have I pestered Cove enough to come and join us here at the Jan Arden Podcast? I love them so much. They are Canadian, first of all. They are a natural, certified organic, zero sugar soda, which includes, get this, one big

I kind of sounded like Dr. Evil there, didn't I? But seriously, you can get 80% of your daily vitamin C in just one can. Cove Soda is on a mission to promote gut health for all, and you still get to have a delicious treat...

while putting a gut-friendly, guilt-free drink in your body. Cove Soda is available in 12 delicious flavors all over North America. So for our American friends, you can find it. They've got this fruity lineup that's fantastic. I drink those all the time. They've got the classic lineup if you like

A cola or a cream soda, root beer, yes indeedy. And they've got their limited edition summer flavor, which will take you right back to the second grade. You gotta try the ice pop one. Head to janardenpod.com to find out where the closest place to you is where you can go and buy Cove. Go right now. ♪ That is a little bit closer, no it's ♪

Can you come a little closer?

Tegan and Sarah are, I'm not going to launch into their Wikipedia accolades. They started a band like in the 90s and they have done so many albums. They're like, they're on my heels, people. Anyway, Tegan and Sarah are here with us today. Their new book, High School, which I have read.

More than once, I have flipped through just to make sure I was reading the actual words that I thought were written down. It comes out in paperback. It's out in paperback. High school is out in paperback. So Tegan and Sarah, join us. Hi, you guys. Hi, Jan. Hi. Where are you coming to me from? Tegan, you are in... I'm in Vancouver, and Sarah's in North Vancouver. Oh, well, you guys are conspiring each other. I just didn't know if you were still home or traveling the world or...

Imagine we're traveling the world. We're like, you know, it's weird. I don't know what's happening here, but we put a hundred city tour on and we're just out there. I mean, no way, no way.

We'll get back to it. I feel very confident about that. So paperback is a pretty big deal. It almost feels like the official release of a book because I feel like suddenly your audience is now, the price point comes down. I mean, let's be honest. And a lot of people fall asleep reading and often injure themselves whilst dropping hardback books on their foreheads. Yeah.

I agree. I would often wait for a paperback. So I think, I don't think you're wrong here. We definitely hope that there's, you know, if there was an audience that was waiting for the paperback, this is your time, audience, who's waiting for a paperback. This also feels like it's even the redesign of the book, you know, the intended, the sort of, well, the intention of redesigning the book was to also draw in a different audience. And I feel like the, you know, the paperback,

This is, I think, an opportunity to pop off the shelf a little bit. It's kind of got like a bit more of a youthful look to it. It's not as, you know, sophisticated, serious, Tegan and Sarah wrote a book looking type of object, which, you know, was strategic and we're hoping to reach more people with the paperback. Oh, you absolutely will. I mean, I want to dig in right away because I think people are a bit perplexed as to how two people write books.

a memoir. I hold the pen and then Tegan holds my arm and then we just see, it's like, it's like we, it's like doing a Ouija board, but like, we just see what happens. And that's how I had sex in high school with, you know, that's sort of what I had to go through. So, I mean, obviously you guys,

must have discovered that the same experiences that you had were frigging such different perspectives. You'd be like, that is not what happened, Tegan. So I'm curious, when you started comparing and putting these stories together, it must have been a bit surprising as to how the perspectives were so askew. Yeah, I think, well, going back to the beginning part of your question, it was definitely a case of

while we were writing the proposal, we wrote in our own voices, which was our agent said, just write your own stories. We'll just get like six or seven chapters written and then go sell the proposal. And, um, in our meetings with almost all the publishers we met with, they loved that format. So we didn't have any conversations about how to do it. We just, I think we fell into it thankfully really easily by, by writing the proposal in that format. Um, but as you were just, um, leading up to, uh,

when we kind of got the first, basically once we'd sold the proposal that Sarah and I did was we created a timeline for grade 10, 11, and 12. And then we put the stories we wanted to tell on the timeline. And then we basically just were like, okay, see you in a month. And Sarah and I both went separately to write grade 10. And when we swapped chapters, there were definitely some, some,

where I was like, that did not happen. And I had so many journals and notes and like I had proof, Sarah, jokingly, which I don't know if this is an appropriate joke. She's shaking her head. Well, Sarah would call me the Brett Kavanaugh of our band because I kept extensive notes, like a calendar, but with like no personality at all. It was literally like,

went to movie with, you know, Naomi and Alex went here with this person. So I was like, that did not happen. I have the proof that did not happen that year. It happened in grade 11. So there was definitely some like timeline issues in Sarah's stories initially, but yeah,

Our editors right away jumped in and said, don't edit each other. Don't critique each other's timeline. Like, we like the idea that this is memoir. This is memory. Your memories are different. Your memory of certain experiences are different. Your, you know, insular experience, Sarah's coming out was very different than yours. Your shame around homophobia, like those kinds of things. Lean into it. Lean into it. So we did.

I think this is such a battle cry. And, you know, you're talking about rite of passage in high school. High school is difficult enough as it is, you

you know, with sexuality. And then you throw in the queer aspect of it, where you're trying to navigate how you feel about yourselves. And what I found so interesting when I was reading high school, and I highly recommend it because I freaking laughed my ass off so many times, because I was just like, oh my God, these knuckleheads. But getting back to that of

The earnestness of talking about your sexuality and how it was just kind of surprising to both of you guys. And the fact that you didn't know. People think, oh, they're twins. They share everything. They know what's going on. That was a part of your story that really surprised me was the discretion you had between the two of you for a while. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that's, I think, you know, that...

significant part of wanting to tell this story was to sort of untether, you know, the two of us from each other. I think a lot of people, you know, we can, we talk about this all the time. Every time we put out an album, I mean, we talk about what are the differences? What are the similarities? What do we share with each other? Do we have the same brain and we just pass it back and forth, you know, those types of things. And, and I think,

But I think, you know, one of the most significant pieces of information, you know, when we're figuring out in adolescence, sometimes it's in adulthood. Sometimes it's when we're, you know, over the hill and on our way out. But when we finally really connect with ourselves,

and we really figure ourselves out. You know, this idea that the first person I would run and tell that I had figured out I was gay, you know, most people assume it was Tegan. And, you know, for me, for me, you know, like the person who I struggled to tell was myself, you know, I was having I was having relationships with women. And I was doing, you know, doing the dance of like, well, I'm

I'm not gay. I just like this girl. I like this girl. And, you know, so the book is less about, you know, what I don't share with Tegan, but it's more about my, you know, my journey to figure out how to, how to admit what I was, what I am to myself. Yeah. I, like I said, it was so interesting that that wasn't a given that you just ran to each other with every intimate detail. I think a lot of people will really have some laughs with, I mean, your mother, I think about her so much.

Well, I do. Well, I love your mom too. She's been very kind to me over the years, as have you guys. But if we can just touch on the drugs a little bit and the drug use. I went to a very small high school. There was 40 kids and there was a lot of acid being dropped, but drugs were different. Even in your generation,

they're not the drugs of today. And I want people to understand that they were much, they really were recreational. Yeah. Things we worried about when we, when we started writing the book was how much of our drug use, how much of our experimentation to put in. And, you know, there were other things we were doing too. I mean, sneaking out, lying, stealing money from my stepdad. I mean, we were, we weren't great at times. We were, we were definitely on the edge of the spectrum where we were really pushing boundaries and acting out at times. And,

And I feel so grateful that, you know, our publisher Simon & Schuster really encouraged us to tell this, that part of our story and to embrace that. I think as, I know you'll relate to this Jan, but there's pressure, especially on women in our industry to present only the perfect side of yourself. And that's just,

untrue. And, and for Sarah and I, especially as queer women, we feel like there's only this, there's always this pressure to only tell like the great coming out story, the great story of how we became musicians. And so the drug part of our story was absolutely our, our sort of acknowledgement that we, that we were not perfect and drugs were different then. It's totally true. And Sarah and I are really quick to say, like, we're not advocating for people to be experimenting with drugs, especially young people. It's really dangerous out there. I mean, the overdose numbers

pandemic is proof that the drug supply is not good and there's lots to be done to legalize and make safe the drugs that are out there. But you know, this was the nineties and acid apparently was very popular in Alberta. That's like a well-known acid in Alberta, hand in hand.

And so we did a lot of acid, but we turned out fine. I have. You turned out better than fine. Listen, we're going to be right back. You're listening to the Jen Arden Podcast. My very special guests are the incomparable Tegan and Sarah. We'll be right back. Everything is real.

Hi there, you're back listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm with Tegan and Sarah. I know you've been so excited about this and so have I. I wish you could see them right now. We're doing a Zoom call. A lot of us that are podcasting like to Zoom in with our folks so we can see each other. So I know who's talking. I know when Sarah's talking. I know when Tegan's talking. But yeah, their book High School is now out in paperback. So I'm going to show you a little bit of it.

So it's such an exceptional read. We were talking before we went to break about the use of drugs. And Tegan did offer that warning. Like, folks, drugs are a lot different now than they were in 1996. Like, there's a whole different set of rules. So we just hope, you know, to be sensible about

When you're out there doing your gummies and eating your cookies and that type of thing. How would you compare this, Tegan, to writing music? And I know I get asked that a lot about prose. I'm going to ask both of you that same question.

Yeah. Well, I don't know if you felt this way, Jen, but I think for me, there were so many parallels. And so I really feel like, I mean, it was by far the hardest thing I've ever done because it wasn't like, oh, we're going to take a couple of years, learn how to write again, learn how to write a book. We sold the proposal and had to jump in. So it felt very overwhelming, but there were so many parallels. I write a lot of my music in the nine to five

like window and the same went for the book. I spent a lot of time writing music in the box, i.e. the computer and working in logic. And so for me working on the computer all day, these were, there were like familiar parts of this process. And, and, you know, Sarah and I see ourselves not just as songwriters or performers, but, but as, as storytellers. So this was just a new format to tell stories. And I actually really loved it as you know, because you were friends with us and you've interviewed us before. We're incredibly verbose. And so to have the opportunity to write stories,

tens of thousands of words about my story and explicit detail was a true joy. So I embraced it. I love it. Yeah. No, but there is comparative. I know what you mean. It's just like in music, we're kind of limited in pop music anyway, to like that three and a half minute format that you kind of keep in the back of your head. But when you're writing prose, Sarah, you're just like, you have time to develop this

not worry about that. You know, one of the things that Tegan and I talked a lot about was how it wasn't as rewarding to write a chapter and then ask your girlfriend if you could read 4,300 words unedited at dinner. You don't get the same response. Stop me. That didn't stop me though. It just doesn't elicit that same thrilling response as when you play a three-minute demo, which requires

It requires so much less of the person that you love. So that part made it a little bit more insular and a little bit like more challenging. I had to find sort of satisfaction just in doing the writing and sort of having it live in my own mind. I also went to a lot of therapy while I was writing my section of the book, which I don't do when I make albums. Like I find, you know, I find making music very therapeutic.

I find it really soothing and calming and exciting. But I found that I was, yeah, I was super emotional. I really sort of dug out a lot of stuff that I hadn't thought about in many years. And so I would actually go to the library to write. I was living in Los Angeles. And I would go to the library in South Pasadena because that's where my therapist was. And so I would write in the library, go to my therapist,

to the library. And it doesn't, it doesn't surprise me, Sarah, that, you know, you kind of took the lid off Pandora's box. I did. And I don't find that surprising at all. It was really helpful for me to sometimes, you know, I think, I mean, I'm curious if you relate to this, but you know, you're, you get as a storyteller and as a,

funny person, you're used to telling stories and getting a laugh, but to sit in the space sometimes for eight hours, there's no laugh. And also it forced me to really think about how I felt, not just to hit the marks of like, oh, here's an anecdote. It was like, wow, I remember feeling fear. I remember feeling desperation and shame, like a shame that lived in me until the

you know, I really dealt with my stuff in my 30s. Like, I mean, stuff that happened to me in high school that I had sort of compartmentalized and hadn't really considered how deeply impactful it had been. And so, yeah, I would go to therapy and cry and then

put all my pieces back together and I would go back to the library and write. So yeah, it was definitely an experience. High school really touches on these cringe-worthy moments. Like, I'm sorry, like I'd be lying if I wasn't reading, you know, some of these chapters going back and forth between Tegan and Sarah, Sarah and Tegan, and flopping back into these timelines.

and I was like cringing sometimes at some of these experiences because you really made yourself vulnerable. I'm sorry about my dog. Mitty, you're going to be put down again. I can do it. I have. I'm so glad you threatened death to your pets. That's why I'm out in my girlfriend's studio right now because I'm like, I will cut your little, you know what?

Yeah. Well, whenever I talk to anybody, she does this because they're so freaking smart. But anyway, just the vulnerability that you guys took that choice to go, I'm going to write this down. Was there anything that was revealing about your sister that you really didn't know? Like, I didn't know you felt that way when that happened with my friend and you loved her and I didn't know. And like, yeah,

Obviously, you bring this material together, and I was thinking, oh, my God, are they, like, doing reveals every frickin' second Wednesday here? You know, honestly, there was definitely context and nuance to some of Sarah's story that I...

became aware of by reading the book for sure. I think there were the one, it's the easiest one here, but you know, over the last 20 years, we clearly get asked about our coming out story a lot. And when Sarah would talk about the trauma or inner homophobia, or I just would bristle sometimes because I just didn't remember it that way. Or when people would ask about when we started our career and Sarah would talk about how we'd gone from having this youthful, exciting,

hobby like thing that we were passionate about playing for our friends playing in garages to like adults coming in and turning it into you're gonna get a record deal and and you know 40 year old men when we were 17 years old interviewing us about our relationships and and you know like all that stuff and Sarah would talk about it and I you know on paper I've looked at it in a totally different light and

And I think probably because I was in that same mindset where I thought like, oh yeah, this was hard. And we compartmentalized it differently and reframed it differently. And so I don't think there was anything in the book that I didn't know, but I think that it added a layer of compassion and empathy and understanding to that time. And it colored my own memory too, because all of a sudden I was like, oh yeah, I, for me, and I don't know that I even got into it in the book, but I have always felt like I had to hold up our band, like the positive part.

I always had to be the one out there being like, but it's going to be great and it's okay. Or like, you know, Sarah was always just like flat out, like this is hard or this, like she was so honest. And I feel like sometimes I've had to be the sales guy, you know? And I feel like it's where I feel like I was the one always sort of smoothing things over. And, you know, so there's been revelations post-writing for sure. You guys seemed like you were popular with a lot of different clicks, right?

Like, I think kids now, I feel like they fall under their one category. They walk into the school, the high school or whatever. And there's someone standing there with a sign that says, here's your word, stand under it. You know, and I feel like you guys bridged a lot of different groups together. I feel like you pulled friends in from all these. Like when I was reading it, I thought this is really cool that they're

like the jocks and the nerds and the chess people and that you seem to have this ability to kind of unite people. And maybe it was just because of your blatant ability to throw it all out there. Even though you thought you were being secretive, you still, people were envious of your energies and maybe that there was two of you that you had each other's backs. You know, the easiest way that I've learned to think about it is in some ways, even before we knew how to play music,

we were celebrities, you know, we, we, because we were twins, but we were really, we were, we were cool. We were original. We were unique. We, we always dressed and did things that were a little out of step with other people. You know, we always like what, even in elementary school, we had our hair real short. We looked like little boys, but we kind of had the like confidence to just sort of

brush off any questions or curiosity or weirdness about it. Like we just always did our own thing. And while we weren't like traditionally popular, we were really likable. People always liked us. And that really comes across in the book, that likability. And we were, I think this is why I link it to the celebrity thing. Because as soon as I remember this conversation with my mom, when we got out of high school, we were in a value village.

And I remember a girl came up to us in the Value Village and said, you're those twins, those singing twin people. And she was like, I have your yellow tape or whatever. And I'll never forget this because it was one of the first times I was recognized like outside of like school or whatever. And I remember my mom saying like, oh my God, that's, that was so cool. Like, wasn't that so cool? And I was, I remember telling my mom, mom, I've been recognized my whole life.

My whole life. Like, Tegan and I have been treated like we would go to the mall and people would be like, are you twins? Are you guys twins? Are you the twins? Like, you know, we always were treated that way. So it wasn't, it was, it was something I had just become used to. I was used to controlling that energy of people looking at us, people thinking something about us before they knew us.

I never thought about that. Yeah. So that you kind of had a reputation that preceded you, right? Always. And we would, even when we didn't think we were popular, like we used to go to raves in the nineties. And I remember my mom worked with, she was a social worker working with girls who were high risk. Sometimes they, it was related to sex work or drugs or whatever it was. And,

And I remember her saying, telling us that her, one of her clients had seen us at a rave, like had seen, had described seeing, um, you know, the twins, the twins who used to go to raves or whatever. And like, these were normal incidents, like things that, you know, we, we already sort of had that sensation that we couldn't quite blend in. People were reporting about you. People were reporting back to your mother all the time. Um,

I just, I'm telling you right now, you need to read high school. It's funny. It's poignant. I think the coming of age, coming out, the sexuality, the honesty with navigating queerness when you are a teenager and trying to find your place is a really, really important, timely story. And it takes a lot of guts and I appreciate it. I wish we had like 19 days to talk to God.

Guys, thanks for being such an advocate. Your foundation is changing so many people's lives, the Tegan and Sarah Foundation. You should be so proud of the philanthropic work that you've done with the LGBTQ plus community. I'm extremely proud of you. The book is exceptional. It's beautifully written. You're great writers.

You both have your own voices, but it's great writing. High school is out in Simon & Schuster. Go pick it up. Buy it wherever you buy your books. And I wish you guys just safe travels. And I can't wait to see you again and hear you play your great music. Thanks for being with us today. Thank you, Jan. Thank you, Jan. Tegan and Sarah, listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. Totally do.

This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.