Two sisters, two guitars. On-stage banter about diarrhea, the ever-present possibility that friendly bickering may suddenly erupt into bloodshed, and rockin' pop songs that will blindside you as surely as a soccer Mom in an SUV yakking on her cell phone. Ladies and germs, please welcome Tegan and Sara.
All joking aside, Tegan and Sara - who finally came of legal drinking age last year - were very serious when it came to making If It Was You, the follow-up to their 2000 U.S. debut This Business of Art. "It feels like the first thing we've done that we were ready to do, whereas before it was like, 'We've got ten days to make an album!,'" says Sara. "In the past, there's been some apprehension about recording. This time it was fun."
The hard-edged yet hook-laden If It Was You is as different from This Business of Art as, well, Tegan is from Sara; the two are obviously related, yet distinct in character. "We went back to our roots: Punkier, poppier, and louder," says Tegan. It wasn't a huge stylistic leap, since the Vancouver residents, who started playing guitar at 15, cut their teeth in a high school punk band, and only became an acoustic duo after they tired of losing drummers and blowing amps.
