Twenty years into their career, indie-pop powerhouse Tegan and Sara have recorded a new album that is based on the first songs they ever wrote. “Hey, I’m Just Like You” – their ninth studio album overall and first since 2016’s Love You to Death – will be released on September 27. The album was inspired by a find Tegan and Sara made while they were writing their first memoir, “High School”, which will be published by Simon & Schuster Canada on September 24, three days before the album arrives.
Tegan recalls:
“While working on our memoir, we discovered lost cassette tapes that had been unheard for over 20 years. They contained dozens of our first songs, written between the ages of 15 and 17…we immediately recognized the songs as an essential part of our high school story.”
“High School” is the revelatory and unique coming-of-age story of Sara and Tegan Quin, identical twins from Calgary, Alberta, who grew up at the height of grunge and rave culture in the nineties, well before they became the celebrated musicians and global LGBTQ icons we know today. While grappling with their identity and sexuality, often alone, they also faced academic meltdown, their parents’ divorce, and the looming pressure of what might come after high school. Written in alternating chapters from both Tegan’s and Sara’s points of view, the book is a raw account of the drugs, alcohol, love, music, and friendship they explored in their formative years. A transcendent story of first loves and first songs, High School captures the tangle of discordant and parallel memories of two sisters who grew up in distinct ways even as they lived just down the hall from each another.