You both are so politically active and socially aware, and over the past year there have been so many watershed moments. But if you’re just asking if we have weird fetishes and like the same girls? Fuck you. If you have thoughtful questions, I’ll answer a million.

Same with being queer and being women in the industry. But if you have other questions, yes, we’d love to talk about it. So if that’s the only question you have about the complex nature of our sibling relationship, then no. Sara: It’s kinda like how we don’t like to talk about being twins if the only questions is “Can you read each other’s minds?” Yeah, we’re super telepathic. Why are we ‘chick music’? ” Love You to Death was a return to being clear, but emotional - not masking anything we wanted to say. But there was a moment when I thought, “Why is it so bad to talk about your emotions? Guys do it all the time. It’s so ‘femotional.’ ” It annoyed us, so we tried to separate ourselves from that.

Tegan: There’s a huge chunk of our career where the response to our music was “It’s a page out of their diary. Why is my sexuality so less interesting and mysterious and cool? They never get tired of writing think pieces about them. When men talk about sex or feelings, they’re Drake or Kanye and they’re geniuses. I’m interested in why, when women talk about sex and their feelings, it’s embarrassing. They don’t think of me and my girlfriend watching the Vanderpump Rules show with a bottle of wine. Sara: To talk about being gay still feels very sexual to people. Tegan: Oh, they bare their souls so hard! I was just talking to another singer-songwriter who said she was so aware of how a woman singing about her emotions was received as opposed to a male artist. Tegan and Sara Get Stuck in a Love Triangle on Poppy New Song ‘Boyfriend’: Listen But one complaint that stayed consistent was “We missed the vulnerability.” And lyrically we wanted to tear open the wounds and make sure we were giving enough to hold onto. We noticed that some of the diehard fans who initially had been like “Heartthrob, ugh,” came around. So I think we both took different paths to try and set ourselves apart from that and there was a moment when I was like, why is it so bad to talk about your emotions? Isn’t that what music is? Guys do it all the time, why does it ultimately make us “chick music”? We’re loving making pop music, but we wanted more of the emotion and depth and intensity. Tegan: There’s a huge chunk of our career where we felt like the way people would write about us was, “It’s a page out of their diary, it’s chick music, it’s so femotional,” and it annoyed us. Sara: With Tegan it’s usually clarification: she’s like, “This is too busy” or “Get to the chorus, don’t bore us.” Whereas I think more about what is the song saying and is it a new message. I don’t know how I could bear getting onstage and playing some of those songs the way we’ve played them for 14 years. It takes a little bit of extra work but for us, if we didn’t change it, we’d be so bored. That’s a skill set we’ve built over our entire career and we can now work with people who can help us change without alarming anyone. It’s about finessing them so that before people ask themselves if they’re okay with it, they’re finding themselves really enjoying it. It’s not just about dumping new music on people. It’s our job as artist to make the change as pleasurable as possible. Once you know and like something, it’s hard to force yourself to change and accept whatever come with that change. Sara: I think new things either really excite people or they really stress them out. For me it was nice, because Sara has a very different way of writing lyrics and it was nice to get her voice on my songs. We did a little more collaborating in the studio than we’ve ever done. Tegan: We reference a lot of ‘90s stuff-it’s funny because everyone’s picking up on the ‘80s vibes, but we actually used a lot of ‘90s keyboards. Tell me a little about the new album, Love You to Death, the people and conversations that inspired the songs.

Tegan and sara