October 14, 2024 • 51 mins
Canadian pop duo Tegan and Sara know a thing or two about twinning and winning.
The identical twins don't only share DNA, they also share a love for music and a past they were forced to overcome.
Find out why they were once pitted against each other, how they decided to stop generational trauma, and what transpired after they both came out as LGBTQ+.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I am Kate Hudson and my name is Oliver Hudson.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
We wanted to do something that highlighted our.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Relationship and what it's like to be siblings. We are
sibling railvalry.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
No, no, sibling. You don't do that with your mouth, revelry.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
That's good. I'm a very unprofessional podcaster in the sense that,
you know, you look at all these other podcasts and
everything's like Neon signs and it's their set deck and
all their mics are like sort of you know, just floating,
and you know, the production value is amazing. I'm in
(00:55):
my fucking kitchen. You know, half the time my family
was walking through. I put all my podcast shit in
like this cupboard and it's all tangled up. You know,
I'm a mess. And I've been doing this for much
longer than probably most people. You know, we started four
plus years ago. I think back when they're only nine
hundred thousand podcasts now, I think, just like seven million.
(01:17):
What am I fucking doing? What am I doing? I
don't know. I like to talk. I don't know I
got you know, I'm in a mood, all right, I'm
in a fucking mood whatever. You know why I should
be in a great mood. I'm on the last day
of my liver cleanse. You understand what I'm saying. I
have been marching through this cleanse with you know, this
(01:41):
and this and that and bank bank bank and eating
and not eating, and I actually feel pretty good, lost
like six pounds. Yeah, I don't know, I'm just annoyed. Anyway,
I'm gonna stop talking. It's not the greatest way to
get into I guess, but I'm gonna come out of it.
Right now. I'm gonna come out of it. I'm gonna
talk about my cleanse with my next guests, Teaking and Sarah,
(02:04):
identical twins, uh Canadian indie pop sensations. I think they
toured with Neil Young, which is pretty fucking rad actually,
and excited to talk to them. Bring them in. Let's
have a convo.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Tremendously. Even though I went into preferences and said, start
with my video on.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Failure, No you're not. I'm a failure. I'm a failure.
You know why because in my family, I'm a failure.
Even though God, yeah, even though I'm not meaning like
I'm a successful actor. I've made a life for myself.
(02:52):
I have an amazing family. There's no world where anyone
would see me as a failure. Zero people. But the
bullshit that I put on myself, the expectations, this black
sheep mentality that I have sometimes where parents are famous, sisters,
huge brothers me and then I'm the fucking oldest kid
(03:16):
that is trying to get a job. You know what
I mean. Yeah, So I just gave you a little
bit of my internal psychology as to why sometimes I
see myself as a failure and why I have to
sort of meditate and go into a bigger space understand
that we're all going to be a big ball of
fire someday and none of this is going to matter.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
It doesn't matter. Anxiety is a waste of time.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So how's that to start off the podcast?
Speaker 5 (03:46):
I've always thought about, like, because Tegan and I are
friends with we're friends with some twins who didn't end
up choosing to do have a career together and do
everything together, and I I think we've sort of like
avoided this idea of competition with each other by just
doing everything together and sharing everything. And even though I
(04:07):
think Tigan is more successful than I am, because if
you just look at you know which songs are more popular,
you know, even some of her instincts, her instincts to
decide to do things. Even if I was fully involved
in the thing that we ended up deciding to do,
even if we had sort of like equal partnership, I
would never have made the choice to do the thing.
So in some ways, it shows that she's been much
(04:29):
more successful and her instincts are more successful than mine.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
So I'm also the I sort of have a black
sheet mentality in my mind.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
That's so interesting. But Tigan or do you feel the
same way. I mean, are you like, well, no, that's bullshit,
because here, here's why, you know, here's why Sarah is.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, well absolutely, I think my narrative, I mean it's different,
but it's you know, lives in the same family for sure,
you know, Like I always thought Sarah was Sarah's more credible.
She's the more artistic and more niche and is more
intelligent and more studied and academic feeling. And I was
a little more like you know, I remember as a kid,
(05:07):
I was the messier one, Like my hair. We were
in karate, and like when I look back at the photos,
like I just kind of looked like a disaster. And
Sarah was always was like very put together, but now now,
I yeah, I do feel like a bit of a disaster.
I mean, I think Sarah's very measured and controlled, and
(05:28):
she is much better with privacy and having boundaries. And
you know, we've lived our entire adult life in the
public eye, and I think that she's just better at
managing that. And I'm a people pleaser and so I
get myself into trouble a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
So interesting, you know, it's just so interesting from an
identical twins standpoint, which of course I don't know much about.
But how you know, you grew up together. You I'm
sure were raised the same way, yet there are parts
of your personality this goes back to sort of nature nurture,
you know what I mean, that are completely different, which
(06:06):
is just so interesting.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And do you do you have kids?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
I have three? Yeah, I have seventeen, fourteen, eleven.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Woh wow, that's cool. I have a two year old.
But I am amazed I didn't.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
I sort of like just thinking about the nature and
nurture thing, Like I look back at videos of him,
even like a year ago, and he's like like they
come out with a personality like they just like even
when he was just a sack of potatoes blobbing on
the couch or whatever, Like I just look at him
now and I'm like, oh, I already see the personality.
And he's got such a big personality already at two,
(06:43):
and he talks a lot, and he he's he just
I mean, I think my wife and I are really
smart and funny, but like he's so funny and smart already,
like he's just and I just am like that's got
to be Like we didn't get a dud. But I
don't think it's because we've put a lot of energy
into making him not that, Like it just feels like
he came like I feel like out of the box.
(07:04):
He's pretty like baseline extra and and I just think,
you know, in some ways, like the thing Tigan's talking about,
like there was no forget nature nurture for a second,
Like we came out of my mother, and Tegan looked messier,
like she just her bangs were a little messier, and
she just she literally came out of the womb like
(07:26):
oh shit, like we're I'm here, you know, Whereas I
sort of came out and I was like I'm here, mother,
you know, and.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It's like, I just feel like I feel like we
came out like that.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
No, I know, I mean it's so true. I guess
when you're thinking about you guys coming out at the
same time, you would assume that there would be more
similarity there as far as that goes, But maybe not.
I mean, I couldn't agree more. My kids raised all
the same way, you know. I mean we're still raising them,
of course. You know there's nuance to it. I mean,
(07:57):
you know, everyone's different, so you're going to sort of,
you know, alter the way that you do things for
each child based on who they are. But you know,
my first one came out three weeks early. He looks
like a little baby bird. We didn't know what the
fuck we were doing, you know what I mean. And
we were trying to sleep train him and we feed
(08:17):
him then he can't sleep. It was just such panic
all the time. And you know, he's, of course my
most sensitive. That's why the first borns are mostly the
most sensitive, because we coddle the shit out of them
because we have no idea what we're doing. And then
Body Wilder Wilder is my first kid. Then Bodie's my
second kid. He literally came out with a tan and
(08:38):
like a joint and ray bands on, you know what
I mean. Like his first picture, he's smiling and he's
he looks like he just came back from Hawaii. He's
like tan and uh, super chill and stubborn as fuck.
And he still is that way. And then I've got
Rio Ye, my daughter, who's just you know, pure performer, fabulous,
(09:00):
just she's just all sugar. She's just the most beautiful,
loving human being of all time. Yeah. All three different,
but I will say this humor. Their humor was super connecting.
You know. They all have the same idea of what's funny,
how to make you laugh, understanding jokes, and they've had
to deal with me as a father too, So I
(09:20):
feel like humor.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I don't have kids, but I feel like if I
didn't have a funny kid, it would be away. Yeah.
I have a question all her just going back to
the hell has all started. But you're saying that you
felt like a black beef and you you know you
mentioned I think you said you're the oldest of your siblings. Yeah,
do you feel like you've always been even though you
admit that you're not a failure and from the outside,
(09:43):
of course, no one else would be that way. But
it was that a thing that you've always had, like
since you were a kid, or was it something that
came in oulhood as you guys pursued the career.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Now, I think this is deeply psychological. You know, everyone
deals with trauma or pain in different ways. You know,
my dad bailed when I was like five or six.
It was good for until I was like eleven or twelve.
Then it just went off the rails. And you know,
mom was single for a minute. Then she met Kurt,
and Kurt became my stepdad, and who was amazing. He
(10:14):
raised me. But it's just it was just a tumultuous
sort of childhood for me, you know, you know, and
I think it hurt my self esteem when it came
to work for some reason. From a social standpoint, I'm good,
I'm confident, and I'm happy, and you know, I love
(10:35):
being social, so I think it stems from that. But
it's funny you asked this because I was on a
walk yesterday and I was just going back and reflecting
upon my life, which I do often, and I started
to get really emotional because I have this strange need
(10:58):
for people to like me, and if they don't like me,
it almost is a dagger in a strange way. I
don't want to offend anyone. I don't want to hurt
anyone's feelings, of course because I don't want them to
feel bad, but also because I don't want them to
think bless of me or bad of me in any
way whatsoever. I'm not a confrontational person because confrontation to
(11:20):
me as a kid was just devastating and ruined me,
you know, and it's been a bit detrimental to my life,
you know, to where I can't step up, you know,
basically say what I feel and say what I want.
You know, I'm always sort of couching it in something. Yeah,
and I'm forty eight, you know, And it's a forever journey.
(11:41):
But it's beautiful and self reflection is amazing, and I've
been doing it for a long long time. You know
where Kate went the other way, She was like, no,
this is my pain. Fuck this, I'm going to have
the greatest work ethic of all time. I'm going to
be famous, I'm going to be outible. Whatd I do?
(12:01):
Nothing is going to get in my way so we
just went at it differently, you know. So yeah, and
then you try not to pass any of that shit
onto your kids.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yeah, I think it's I mean, it's so interesting too,
because I mean I wouldn't suppose that it's the same
with you and Kate, but like, you know, because Sarah
and I are twins, and because we are with each
other all the time. You know, there have been years
in our career, me touring, you know, and on the road,
traveling for hundreds of days at a time, so we
almost use each other as mirrors and that can be
really helpful, Like if one of us is being an
(12:35):
asshole or stepping out of line or just kind of
being a jerk, it's like the other one is there
to be like, like, you know, but it's also this
thing where it's like when I see a strength of Sarah's,
it's sort of magnifies that that's a weakness in me.
And we used to say that we felt like as twins,
it was like they took all the things you can
be good and bad at and then divide it up,
(12:57):
so like the thing Sarah's really good at, I just
can't get good at, and the things that Sarah is
really bad at, Like tend to be things that I've
been really good at. And one of the things I
think I'm really good at is putting people at ease
and being very liked. And it has become a compulsion
where I really relate to what you're saying, Like I
absolutely I will do anything to avoid being disliked. I will,
(13:20):
Like there's just an example of people from our past
that we haven't had a relationship with in decades, you know,
but like when they message, like to come to a show,
or they message to like connect, it's like I will
take the time and I'll respond and I'll make time.
And Sarah's just like being like who fucking cares? Like
get over it, Like we don't know that person, we
(13:41):
met them once, Like why do you feel so bad
You've met that person one time. You don't owe them anything,
And I just it's weird. I feel the same thing
like when you said, like it's like a dagger if
someone doesn't like you. It's also like a dagger for
me if I think I've heard someone feeling a total confrontation.
It's like my wife, my wife and we don't fight.
(14:01):
We started going to a couple of causing. The therapist was
like watching us back and forth and was like, well,
that's lovely that you guys get along so well. But
I'm assuming, I mean, you're avoiding talking about things.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
That are hard. You're here for a reason, You're there
a reason, right, Like what are you avoiding?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
But I think that comes from I think that's a
product of being again like in a band with my
sister for twenty five years, Like I can't have conflict constantly,
so it means I've had to learn how to compromise,
and sometimes it's like a lot, you know. And but
I don't want to fight with there. I don't want to.
I don't want the two of us to be at
each other's road. So you cause you've just learned to
(14:40):
avoid things and you learn to let it go. But
if you're not really letting it go, it's like building.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I know, yeah, and that resent meent. You don't want
that resentment to build either, you know. No, that's that's
why the communication is great. That's why. And vulnerability has
been an issue for me too, with just being able
to talk about my feelings and the things that I
really am, especially with women interestingly enough, you know, with
(15:07):
men and with my kids, I'm right there. But with
my wife and with my mom and with my sister,
you know, it was really difficult for me to just
express how I feel about them in a positive way,
meaning like, hey, I just want to tell you, I
fucking I'm so in love with you and you're incredible.
And here's why I get scared. I'm like, yeah, my god,
(15:30):
it's like, you know, cringe as they say these days,
and it's just it's a protection. I'm just almost protecting
myself from you know, getting annihilated, even though that it's
completely irrational. You know, It's funny how the mind and
emotion can totally separate. I consider myself a pretty evolved
person sort of intellectually, but that I'm still a fucking
(15:51):
child when it comes to sort of my heart and
my emotions. You know.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
Yeah, ah, I have a lot lot more empathy for
men now in later years.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Like I think we we grew up with a fairly strong,
you know, sort of like feminist perspective on things, and.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
We and because I think also because we were gay.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
I mean, we always were surrounded by men, but I
think that there was a sort of like like it
just it's it's always been like a second language or
something to speak to men and just like be like, Okay,
I guess I'll change my expectations, not necessarily lower, but
just I have to expect something different from men and
the relationships I have with men than I.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Than I have with women.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
And I feel like I have a lot of really wonderful,
substantial connections with men that I love, but it's always
felt different. And now I'm raising a sun and I
am just completely obsessed with like, how does how do
I change that? You know, like how do I? And
and not necessarily with him, because right now it's like
he doesn't know any you know, we don't know anything
(17:05):
at that He's like it's he doesn't understand gender and
he doesn't understand all of these things.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
And so it's so beautiful because we're just like having
a relationship.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
But it's made me re contextualize so many of my
relationships with men in my life and see their sensitivities
and see their sort of like differences in a really
empathetic way. Because already, even with my son, I can
see the way people treat him and change the way
they treat him when they know he's a boy. Like
I don't know if you experienced this between your sons
(17:33):
and your daughter, but like every people constantly talk about
my son's body. They'll say, look at that little boss,
look at his legs, or look at his cheeks, or
look at his hair. And the people will like come
up to him on the street and they constantly are like,
you know, like commenting on his physical his physical being,
(17:53):
and and I'm like, I don't think they want to do
they were, I mean when I'm around my friends with girls.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
But then I think about, you know, me and Tigan.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Everybody thought we were boys until we were like you know,
well very different ages depending on what our hair looked like.
But we spent a good chunk of our childhood being misgendered.
And I think about like the way that we were
treated often as if we were boys, Like whether we
even understood it or not, we really passed through the
world when we were little almost being treated like boys.
And I think that has like a huge has had
(18:25):
a huge impact on how we feel in our bodies
and how we feel, you know, in our.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Like our presence, Like we weren't like.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Not to say that we would have been like weak
or more vulnerable or emotional as girls. But like you know,
my dad was giving us a hammer and nails at
like five years old and was like, go whack this
in the backyard.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
You know, we weren't playing with princesses or whatever.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
And I think that there's just like something about like
the way I'm experiencing.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Are you blank? Dad didn't know that we were girls.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
I don't know, it seemed like it when he was around,
you know.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Right, No, No, I couldn't agree more. I mean, you know,
getting into sort of the male species, and I think
that we all have vulnerabilities and sensitivities that we were
just more afraid to sort of let come to the surface,
you know. And I think now it's it's it's it's
(19:26):
almost allowed it. It's easier. It's not weak anymore. In fact,
it's strength to me. I mean, being a vulnerable man,
being someone who can talk about his feelings and you know,
be extremely candid about my life and the way that
I feel in my emotions. I mean I feel power
in that, honestly, you know, I do, because you're yourself
(19:48):
number one, and then you're also allowing other people around you,
other men around you, to you know, to feel those
same things as well. You know, the minute you put
your shit out there, it just opens the gates for
other people to put their shit out there as well.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
You know, it's interesting you're saying that because I think
back to like the early part of our career when
we were mostly surrounded by men on the road. You know,
it was just that was who mostly was in our
band and crew. It was just easier to We used
to say men were kind of like dandelions in our
industry because like the head off one and like forty
would grow, you know, whereas like finding a woman and
was like impossible. And we just have spent like an
(20:29):
absurd amount of time in the company of only men,
and you know, at really pivotal and important times in
terms of brain development and emotional development in our early twenties,
and you know, compounded with the fact that we were
dealing with like becoming known people and public figures and
success and failures and criticism and like you know, the
(20:49):
Internet and social media, like all this was happening, and
we were often processing a lot of our insecurity in
the company of men, and it was hard, Like I
think about something more dramatic or isolating or lonely moments
and it's you know, sitting in a room with this
family that you create to go out on the road
with for years at a time and crying and being like,
(21:09):
you know, sitting magazine called us the folk wickan nightmare,
and they're just like they'd laugh, like they were like
who cares, you know, and we're just like twenty somethings
that are like wickeds don't deserve you know this, and like,
you know, we're not folk, and like it's misogyny and
hopefully like you know, having just so wildly emotional and
(21:32):
you know, being this in the presence of all these
men who were like not ros the thing, the feeling
part of it, the emotion part of it. They were
just like who gives a shit? And how awful that was.
And it's so funny now because we, you know, have
crested forty and so a lot of the men in
our lives were getting older, and obviously our dad, our stepdad,
who's you know.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Helped raise us.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
They're all in their sixties now and they fucking cry
and talk with their feelings and it's always like about
their emotions and feelings and now their childhoods and I'm like, God,
this is exhausting, Like.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right, get it together, Jesus, I'm done enough of the tears.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Boys.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
But it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I mean, it's amazing. But I just think, like how
funny it is, Like we go through that at different
times in our lives, you know, and like our family
now is just full of men who want to talk
about their feelings and all of those women who've been
like overprocessing for few decades, they're just like, uh.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
No, no, I know. And then and then you know,
it's also watching my boys. My daughter is very expressive,
you know, I mean, she's very emotions are right there,
you know, right at the tip. But watching my sons
and it's been really cool because they're very communicative with
(22:50):
their friends. Sometimes with their parents, it's like I was
school fine or whatever, you know what I mean, It's
just normal teenage bullshit. But watching them deal with their
friend is very communicative and they're not sort of holding back.
And you know, he's had a girlfriend now for a
year over a year and a half, and he's in
eleventh grade, so he's child love and you know, watching
(23:13):
him sort of navigate, you know, his whole world with
his girlfriend and her friends, it's it's interesting and and
and hearkening back to sort of my childhood and reflecting
upon it, it was it was not like that. It
was different. There's much more synergy now, there's much more
communication now, feelings it's okay to to talk about. So
(23:34):
it's it's it's cool.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I dig it. When did you guys know that you
were both gay? I mean, how did that? How did
that happen? And did one know before the other?
Speaker 5 (23:54):
Yes, I I think circumstantially because I happen to meet
someone as a young person, you know, my best friend
who you know, eventually became my first girlfriend. It sort
of put me into a knowing place a lot sooner
than Tagan. So I was, you know, I was like
fourteen when I started having this relationship with my best
(24:17):
friend in secret, you know, from from most everyone, though
after years of sort of being together and not being together,
it was pretty obvious to I think most people in
our life that there was something extra going on.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
But I knew.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
I sort of had a sense of myself very young,
like I recognized that the way girls made me feel,
especially contrasting that with the way boys made me feel
like I was really into boys.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Like actually, my mom has all these really.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Funny journal entries in our baby books that are like,
you're obsessed with boys, you love boys, like, but she misunderstood,
Like our obsession with boys was like we were like
we wanted to be boys, you know, we were like
boys with the I want to hang out with Colin
and Cameron, and like I was like, I want to
hang out with boys, and my mom was like, you know,
(25:06):
you little, you're gonna get pregnant, you know, like whatever,
and I was just like, you know, yeah, so not.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
But like she.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Totally misunderstood, you know, like that my obsession with boys
was about finding kids that I wanted to feel like
or look like, or play with or whatever, and girls
would just sort of undo me, you know, like I
just my mom's friends would come over, you know, she
was in school like when we were kids, Like she
got back to college and all her like cool hipster
college girlfriends would come over and taken, and I would
(25:38):
like hide in.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
The bedroom, like we were just it.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
And I didn't know quite how to like put it
into context except to say that I felt completely comfortable
with my dad and stepdad and they're like construction hockey player,
macho friends. But if one woman wearing like a doc
boots and like lipstick came over to the house, I
was like, I wish I was dead, and I don't.
I couldn't figure that out, you know, I just had
no idea. So yeah, once I found a girlfriend, I
(26:05):
was like, oh, oh, I understand what's happening. Like this
is like, this is what this whole thing was. So yeah,
and Tigan I looked at As soon as I figured
out this thing about myself, I was like, well, obviously
Teagan is gay as well.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
It just was so obvious to me. There was no
confusion for me.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
So you almost knew before Teagan. You're like, no, not
just because you're my twin sister, but just knowing who
I am now and seeing who you are, I can
see that this.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I just thought we were the same. Like, I just
was like it didn't even occur to me.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
I wasn't like I wonder if Teagan also is gay,
Like I was like, she's gay, right, Like I was like,
she's gay, there's no question.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And I think for me seeing Sarah, like I was
clearly aware that what was going on behind the scenes
in Sarah's private life, but we didn't talk about it,
which I do understand is kind of odd. Like I
think people make an assumption because we were the same
age and we were going through the same things that
we confided in one another, but we didn't.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
We were, you know, really interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
We were kind of like possible to each other when
we were teenagers, Like there was you know, I think
because we were going through so many of the same things,
there was like a desperate need for privacy, and we
antagoni one another around fectuality. Actually, like you know, I
think that there were breaches on my vulnerability.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Yeah, it was a vulnerability.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
It was like don't yeah, yeah, I think. I think
we struggled. We struggled to understand it and be comfortable
with it, and so we took it out on one another,
and so it didn't feel like necessarily a safe place
to go talk about it. But I know, for myself,
I really relate everything Sarah said about women growing up.
I knew that there was something that was different about me,
Unlike Sarah, though I didn't have any shame about it.
(27:40):
I never felt like I wasn't laying in bed thinking
about girls and then being like, you know, giving myself
lashes or something like that. Like there was no there
was no homophobia in the world, at least in my
world really. But once I did start to act on
my feelings with girls and establish crushes and talk about
(28:01):
it out loud and have relationships, I definitely felt really,
really nervous to kill Sarah. I was so worried to
she would think I was copying her, Like I mean,
we were teenagers. It was just like the weird thing
where it was like, this is Sarah's thing, and again,
like we were sort of ustle when it came to
this sort of stuff and each other, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Where that was like Sarah's like, that's bullshit. I was
gay first, yeah, Or she'd be like, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
My best friend would come over and it was clear
we were hooking up, and Therapy would just antagonize up
like she'd be like, clearly, Jamie's your girlfriend, and it
was like, you know, we would be like, you know,
we'd all be like fighting and screaming and slamming, and
so I think it was not until we were older
that we and really it was when we started our
(28:46):
career and we started to do press and people were
acting us about our sexuality that we sort of listen
to each other talk about what it was like, which
again is a full theme and in therapy both for
both of us. It's just so much of our life
when unspoken, and we do this thing where we talk
about things that matter to us in the press or
on stage, and that's how we learn about each other.
(29:07):
It's like insane. But yeah, we never really talked about it.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
That's really interesting. But it was there a moment where
it was like, all right, here's who I am, here's
who's here's who I am. I love you, love you great.
We could do it.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I guess we could do it right now. We could
do it like T and I love you. I know
you're gay.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
You're doing right.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
No, I came out.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
I came out when I was eighteen, and he didn't
come out for another year or two, and there was
no you know, there was no coming out card and
gifts or anything. It was just kind of like, again,
this is such a different time, right, like we're talking
about nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
It was so tumultuous.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
I was trying to establish my identity and privacy and
I was I was like fighting with my mom, who
you know, initially had a really difficult reaction to me
being gay.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
And so she did, what if, Sorry, where did you
guys grow up in Canada? What part all great? We
grew up in com Okay cool and my mom had
been like she was.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Like, it's a great town.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
We had like a very liberal, very cool, open minded family.
Very my mom's friends were gay. Like half the time,
I felt like my mom was grooming us to be gay.
She'd be bringing home like indie movies with gay people
in them, and I'd be like, does she know, like
what's happening? So I was very surprised by her reaction.
But then I think, you know, it's like contextually I
(30:31):
understand now, like there was a real sort of like
she was caught off guard.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
There was a morning of like what she imagined for me,
you know.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
So that was difficult, and I wasn't looking for comfort
from Teagan. I found comfort in my girlfriend, you know,
Like I was like I was like in my own
world where I was like I'm not I was sort
of trying to break away.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
From the family unit. And then by the time Teagan came.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
Out, it was so different like her, the reaction from
our friends and family. It was like everybody got to
do over, you know, So whoever had sort of stumbled
or got it wrong with me, yeah, I was able
to do a much better job with Teakens.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Oh yeah, no, I that's so true. You were like
you're a bit of the You're the guinea pig, you know.
I mean I can relate to that with my kids
because I had a conversation with Wilder, my oldest, and
we were going through something and I said, look, man,
you know you're figuring it out as a young man,
as a young teenager with your hormones raging. I'm fucking
(31:29):
forty seven at the time, now forty eight, and you
are my first so I am equally figuring it out.
I'm going to make mistakes, and you're going to make mistakes.
And I said, and and you are my and the
other kids are lucky, body, and real are lucky because
I'm going to have better knowledge of knowing what to
do because of you, you know. So it's I can
(31:52):
relate to that, and like you're the guinea pig. And
now it's like, okay, well we figured Sarah out. Now
we know now Teagans.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
My mom gave me a couch i'n't been with my
girlfriend forly three seconds, and my mom bought up a couch.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Don't It's beautiful to.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Be able to recognize, though, that that you're wrong and
come to your kids and say that. And I think
that's a huge generational change because, certainly in our adolescence,
multiple timess in our you know, in our.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Teenage years where things were really tumultuous.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Really really pivotal, like seminole moments, our parents were able
to come to us and say, wow, we really handled
that wrong, or you know, I read there specifically, I
remember when Tegan and I were writing our memoir about
our high school years, which is when we launched our
career and when we came out, so it was sort
of covering a lot of those kind of topics we're
kind of talking about right now. One of the stories
(32:47):
that sort of was unearthed was this moment where our stepdad,
who we adored and who was extremely maternal with us
and loved us and adored us, and you know, he
was he was wonderful, but he was also like, you know,
a guy a like thirties playing hockey working on a
construction site didn't always have like the most liberal politics,
or certainly didn't have the most liberal language at that time.
(33:07):
And I remember him using a disparaging word, you know,
to talk about Kirk Cobain, who we were obsessed with
Nirvana and obsessed with Kirk Colebain. And Tigan tells this
really beautiful story and the memoir about the confrontation invite
ultimately that they had about the way he was talking
about Kirk Cobain, and he came back and was able
to sit down and apologize and process that moment. And
(33:31):
those are the kinds of I think, those are the
kinds of stories and moments that are so new generationally.
Like I just don't think I can't even imagine my
grandparents sitting down with my mom I like nineteen sixty
whatever and being like.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
We are sorry or you know whatever we did. You know,
we're wrong, and we didn't.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
Have the institutional knowledge of like this would fuck you up,
Like they didn't have any of that, whereas like our
parents did. And it's so heartening to know to hear
you talk about it, and so I feel so fortunate
to be able to like, you know, I'll fuck up
my kid, but at least I'll be able to tell him,
how why I fucked him up?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Why I'm foxing up? Like people will be able to
share those things either.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
I say this all the time and on the podcast too,
I say, it's not about if you fuck up your kids,
it's just to what degree. I mean, that's it. You know,
we're all screwing them up one way or another. It's
just the way it goes.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
You know, it's validating in a way. I you know,
obviously our parents were really young when they had us.
So when we graduated high school, they were they had
just turned forty. And you know, I'm in a couple
of days, Sarah and I turned forty four, and like.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Wow, that's young. Had your parents had you guys young?
Speaker 1 (34:41):
They were children. The fact that we're alive, the fact
that we have been so successful, is actually insane really
to comprehend. But they were so young that they were
barely they had just turned forty when we graduated high school.
And when I think about that now, like when I
think about having eighteen year olds who I have just
set it into the world, I cannot. The other day,
(35:03):
we were at a photo shoot and the assistant on
set was twenty seven, and we started do math and
I was like, oh my god, I could have had you,
like I would have been young. But I'm like, you
know your I think your forties are really an interesting
time because it's when you start to remember your parents
and you start to remember like as children, as you
were a child, and all those feelings emotions. And they
(35:23):
know how cliche this is, but it's like all those
feelings emotions you had for them where you were like there,
my mom was not in high school, you know, she like, yes,
she was forty through her second divorce, you know, like
she was going to college and working and raising two
freaks who were doing acid and thinking out a pool constantly.
Like the fact that she didn't murder up is an
(35:46):
achievement that they should be about degrees at university before.
Like it just it's unreal. And I just think the
context that we have now, not just generationally, but just
as the age that we're all at, you can start
to look back and be like, being a human being,
it's hard. Every age is different, and developmentally you're constantly
under a new challenge because you're the world with new perspective.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Oh my god, it's so true. It's so true. And
the appreciation of your parents. I can't even explain how
much I can relate to that. Once you get older
and then you don't have kids, But once you do
have kids, you understand all of a sudden, oh my god,
they love me so fucking much. And now I understand
(36:27):
how they love me and why they love me so much.
I mean, it really opens up your eyes to sort
of the love and appreciation that your parents have for you,
and just they just want you to be okay, you know,
as far as LGBTQ and all that stuff, especially you
guys growing up in Canada. This could be a stupid,
(36:48):
weird question, but as opposed to America, like, is there
more leniency, is there more accepting? You know, are the
Canadian or is the Canadian cultures as broad the broad
idea of it, Yeah, because obviously everyone looks at the Canadians,
Oh they're so nice, and yeah, you know, I've met
a lot of asshole Canadians by the way.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, I think that all the bad parts of America
are in Canada too. I mean, you know, we've got
pretty much all the same problems and issues and bad qualities,
just on a smaller scale. I will say that because
we don't have entire networks devote it to twenty four
hour breaking news. It feels slightly less fire alarmy and
culturally here and we're clearly not as a stuffed with politics.
(37:30):
But I would say growing up career, we had as
little representation as American kids or any kids really around
the world. You know, we held on to the tiny
pieces of representation that would poke our head out. But
certainly as adults and like living in the city we
live in and having a career we have, we've certainly
experienced homophobia. But I think there's a more mind your
(37:53):
own business attitude to Canadians. Religion is not involved in politics.
You do not have you know, every politicians ing off
with God bless Canada. It's not like that. So I
don't feel that there's as much externalized homophobia hate, But
that's coming from a really privileged this you know can
you know, at times very fam like day person. So
(38:16):
I don't experience the kind of hate that some of
my friends who are trans or are more masculine, you know,
like I. But I would say, like generally speaking, I mean,
you know, we had equal rights in Canada nearly a
decade before America. So like you know, things have definitely
changed here quicker, but all of the trans rollbacks and
pushbacks on trans people and hate and paring down of
(38:36):
high flags like that all happens here. Just it's I
think it happens on a smaller scale. But we focus
a lot of our time and energy, Sarah and I
into philanthropy. We have a foundation. We spend a lot
of time funding left of center organizations that are overlooked
by the big funders. And you hear the horror stories.
I mean, it's all still bad, but we, you know,
are doing our part to hopefully make it better.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Right, Okay, so documentary, let's talk about the documentary. I
want to hear about it, and then and then the
cat if you can, if you can graze over the
cat fishing thing, it's so interesting to me. Yeah, I mean,
(39:20):
we spent so much time philosophizing that, I you know,
we did.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
It's great.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
I think it's everything else.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
But honestly, there's I'm excited for people to see it.
The movie is called Fanatical the Catfishing of Teagan and Zarah,
and it comes out on the eighteenth of October on Hulu.
So I don't want to give too much away, but yeah,
it was a crazy situation. You know. In twenty eleven,
some fans reached out to our management and said, one
of us has been talking to Teagan online. We've been
(39:47):
exchanging emails for years, but it's recently gotten kind of weird.
She's passed on unreleased songs, Cassport Scans gave me access to,
you know, an I disc which for the kids listening
is the old sc version of the cloud and it
seems wrong. Can you verify if it's Teak and that's
actually talking to us? And of course it was not me,
(40:08):
And it sort of started this unreal fifteen year journey
that we've been on to try to stop this person
who repeatedly has gotten access to, you know, people in
our world. At some point had access to an old
email of mine and was using it to fish people
I know, people I work with. And what has sort
of unraveled over the last fifteen years is just dozens
(40:30):
and dozens of people all over the world who got
into a friendship, in some cases a sexual or romantic
relationship with a person who's been pretending to be me
and is is not me and a couple of years ago,
and we never talked about it publicly. We did put
warnings up, you know, on our website, and we would
you know, we would warn people on social media and
(40:52):
remind them like we don't have personal accounts, like only
our official accounts. You know, we do what every band
and every public person does, and increasingly we just have
had less and less to do with social media. But
you know, we were definitely warned people, but we never
ever came forward and told this story. And a couple
of years ago, I just got into my head that
I wanted to write the story down and I wrote
(41:13):
a story called Fake Tagan about what happened and how
it affected Sarah and I and my life and my
friends and how I communicate and our relationship to our fans,
and how violating it was, and sort of posed the
question at the end of the story like did we
do everything we could have done? I feel guilty. This
is my appevement people pleasing. I was like, did we
do enough to help prevent this from happening? What are
(41:35):
the other victims feeling? Have they been able to move on?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
So this spread is it's not even about you, essentially,
I mean, of course it is, but this thing was
went viral. I guess, like it's a viral catfish.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
It's like people from all over the world came forward
and we're like I was talking to Tigan for four years.
We sent like nine hundred emails. I mean people the victim.
You know, there was a spectrum of people. You know,
some would talk to fake again three times and be
like this is her. Other people had long friendships and
then you know in a handful of cases that we
found people who had actual romantic, like sexual relationships.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Is just one person we I mean, I want to
ruin the movie, like, don't don't ruin it. Don't ruin
it because I am a huge documentary docuseries fan, Like
I'm nutty. When does it come out?
Speaker 1 (42:24):
By the way, it comes out on October eighteen, I'm
very excited.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
This sounds unreal. How did you decide to because you
were so private about it, how did you decide to
all of a sudden say, you know what, this is
a story I want to tell.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
You know, I've been thinking about it a lot, and
I had told the story. I hadn't told the story
start to finish to someone in a long time. And
I told a friend this, like what I remembered and
took like two hours, and he was just like, friend,
I'm freaking out, like this is crazy. You should write
this down. So I wrote the story and then I
was like, I want to make a podcast. I think
I want to investigate this again work In the beginning,
(43:01):
I've never talked to any of the other victims, so
I was like, I want to call the victims. And
I pitched it to this woman, Jenny Elish was a
writer and works at Serious Radio and it's just like
a legend in the music industry. And I was like,
I'm going to pitch this to Jenny Liskw and she
had just worked on Britney Versus Your documentary, directed by
Aaron Lee Carr. And Jenny called me like, I don't
(43:22):
know two hours after I sent her the story, and
she said, this is fucking nuts. I've never heard a
story like this before. I want to take this to
Aaron Lee Carr. So Aaron and Jenny and I got
on a call like a week or so later or something,
and Aaron was like, this is not a fucking podcast,
you guys. Yeah, And two.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Years later, here we are, Holy and Sarah, how did
you feel about all of it? I mean, I know
it wasn't you, but essentially it was was it? I mean,
or was it? There's the twist in the dock.
Speaker 5 (43:53):
I think that I think that film does a pretty
good job of really centering Teagan and her Rais obviously,
but you know this, this had a huge impact on
my life and really, like you know, our friends and
family are our business relationships, and you know, has has
definitely affected the trajectory of our band. I mean, we
have made really specific choices because of this situation. And
(44:18):
you know, in some cases, I think it was actually positive.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Like I think we.
Speaker 5 (44:23):
Needed to be more mindful of boundaries and our fan base.
I think we were a bit naive, you know, to
think that our fan base was so special that they
would never do the things that other fan bases sometimes
do to artists.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
And you know, I think this was healthy. Like I
think at some.
Speaker 5 (44:41):
Point maybe we needed to have a bit more of
a disconnected relationship from our fan base, Like we were
really in with our fans, like we were really like
we saw ourselves as being them. And I don't think
that that, you know, can be sustained even if you
don't have someone pretending to be you.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
For fifteen years.
Speaker 5 (45:00):
Like I think at some point it's healthy to say
I make things for people, and I love the people
who love our things. But we're not friends, you know,
like we are we are, we have a we have
a relationship, but it's not the one we think we're having.
So But I'm also really different than Togan, Like we
started a nice way to bookend this conversation.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
I'm not as worried about pleasing people.
Speaker 5 (45:22):
And I feel like it's okay to have boundaries and
set sort of expectations and if if people sort of
push that, it's okay to say no, thank you, or
I don't want that or that doesn't make me feel good,
or I don't want to, you know, sign autographs in
a dark alley at two am.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Anymore.
Speaker 5 (45:43):
I want to say nice to see you by and
walk into the bus, you know, or whatever.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Like I was more comfortable with that. And I also.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
Like living a really private life. I really admire people
who can manage fame and celebrity on a on a level.
I've seen it, and I've had brief moments of experiencing
some version of it. It's not for me, Like I
like my life. I don't want to be famous, and
I like that we are a well known band and respected.
(46:13):
But when I go home, I love that I just
completely disappear and that you know, that all sort of
was happening, like those conversations were happening around the time
that this started. So yeah, it had a huge impact
because it was like case in point, we have somebody
pretending to be teaing like, let's disappear, you know. It
was like kind of like I used it to explain
(46:35):
my own decision to kind of move away from that
sort of trajectory in our career.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah. Wow, I mean it's so weird too, thinking of
it's almost like this, whoever this person or people are,
you know, which may or may not be revealed in
the documentary, which everyone does need to go see because
it sounds amazing there. It has to be some sort
of a mental illness. I mean for someone to be
able to dedicate this much time to this picturing the
(47:01):
other side them sitting mine their keyboard being like, I mean,
there's got to be something fucking really wrong with that person.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah, I definitely think. Top of mind when we started
this project, you know, was how do we tell this
story ethically and compassionately because it's not just about fatigue,
and it's about the victims. You know, these people were
all online as diehard fans looking to try to find
my They wanted to be in touch with me, right, so,
you know, so it's like they were unsuspecting and they
(47:32):
got tricked. But many of them apologized when I interviewed
them and was like, well, what was I doing? I
mean I was a kid, but I was like online
looking for your personal phone number and email like I
you know. So there was like the sides for this,
like where it was like, we need to be really
compassionate and empathetic. We're going to tell this story. We
shouldn't be shaming anyone. But yeah, I think Aaron the
(47:53):
Carr who directed it, you know, she directed with ten films,
and I think this is her specialty is telling stories
in a compassionate and ethical way. And it was a
part of our whole team's conversation pretty consistently throughout was
what is appropriate to put in here? There is so
much that did not make it a movie, like wild
stuff that we were like, can we preparing like that?
(48:14):
Think gaming? Like Yeah, there was like some weird conversations
we had to have and ultimately, you know, I think
all of us as a team, but Aaron, as our
fearless leader, understood we sort of pivoted. This isn't a
who done it. The point was not to unmask or
ruin fake Tigan's life. You know. My personal feeling is
that many of the people who are involved with this
(48:36):
have some mental health stuff, and I think this became
a bigger conversation about parasocial relationships and you know, fandoms
and taking care of yourself and listening to your instincts.
Every single person I interviewed, everythingle victim at some point
ignored their instincts at some point was like something feels off,
(48:57):
and it's like, don't ignore your people.
Speaker 5 (49:01):
We do.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
We all do that. We all do that because there
is that little kernel of like, oh, it's that's the
addictive quality, that's that's the adrenaline rush, that's that that
release of that you know, chemical like, oh gosh, I
know it's wrong, but I have to go to the
other side. Really good to meet you guys, really fun.
Thank you for for coming on and I will be watching.
(49:25):
I'm very excited about this so much more. I wanted
to talk to you guys about next time, next time,
next time. I appreciate your candor you guys, and thank
you for doing this.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
You to thank us all.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Right later, guys. Cool. I'm in a better mood. Now,
see what happens. I come in hot, I come in
a little aggravated. I have amazing conversations with these two
amazing women who are so smart and so articulate and
(49:59):
so in touch. That was rat Podcasting is really an
interesting thing. Talking to people is interesting. I guess this
is why I love doing it. You know, would I
do it for free? No, I would not, But I
do love talking to you I I you know, people
(50:20):
come on to promote shit, and of course this is
the new medium sort of promote things on and half
the time you're kind of like, yeah, yeah, I check
it out. You know this I cannot wait to see.
This is crazy. This is a story like I've never
heard before, so everyone should check it out. Anyway, I'm
gonna go now because I am due for my mid
(50:46):
morning shake on the last day of my liver cleanse,
and then tomorrow, well I want to eat cheeseburgers and
pizza and drink beer and all that, but I can't.
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta maintain this beautiful fucking figure.
I'm out. Mm hm
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I am Kate Hudson and my name is Oliver Hudson.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
We wanted to do something that highlighted our.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Relationship and what it's like to be siblings. We are
sibling railvalry.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
No, no, sibling. You don't do that with your mouth, revelry.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
That's good. I'm a very unprofessional podcaster in the sense that,
you know, you look at all these other podcasts and
everything's like Neon signs and it's their set deck and
all their mics are like sort of you know, just floating,
and you know, the production value is amazing. I'm in
(00:55):
my fucking kitchen. You know, half the time my family
was walking through. I put all my podcast shit in
like this cupboard and it's all tangled up. You know,
I'm a mess. And I've been doing this for much
longer than probably most people. You know, we started four
plus years ago. I think back when they're only nine
hundred thousand podcasts now, I think, just like seven million.
(01:17):
What am I fucking doing? What am I doing? I
don't know. I like to talk. I don't know I
got you know, I'm in a mood, all right, I'm
in a fucking mood whatever. You know why I should
be in a great mood. I'm on the last day
of my liver cleanse. You understand what I'm saying. I
have been marching through this cleanse with you know, this
(01:41):
and this and that and bank bank bank and eating
and not eating, and I actually feel pretty good, lost
like six pounds. Yeah, I don't know, I'm just annoyed. Anyway,
I'm gonna stop talking. It's not the greatest way to
get into I guess, but I'm gonna come out of it.
Right now. I'm gonna come out of it. I'm gonna
talk about my cleanse with my next guests, Teaking and Sarah,
(02:04):
identical twins, uh Canadian indie pop sensations. I think they
toured with Neil Young, which is pretty fucking rad actually,
and excited to talk to them. Bring them in. Let's
have a convo.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Tremendously. Even though I went into preferences and said, start
with my video on.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Failure, No you're not. I'm a failure. I'm a failure.
You know why because in my family, I'm a failure.
Even though God, yeah, even though I'm not meaning like
I'm a successful actor. I've made a life for myself.
(02:52):
I have an amazing family. There's no world where anyone
would see me as a failure. Zero people. But the
bullshit that I put on myself, the expectations, this black
sheep mentality that I have sometimes where parents are famous, sisters,
huge brothers me and then I'm the fucking oldest kid
(03:16):
that is trying to get a job. You know what
I mean. Yeah, So I just gave you a little
bit of my internal psychology as to why sometimes I
see myself as a failure and why I have to
sort of meditate and go into a bigger space understand
that we're all going to be a big ball of
fire someday and none of this is going to matter.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
It doesn't matter. Anxiety is a waste of time.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So how's that to start off the podcast?
Speaker 5 (03:46):
I've always thought about, like, because Tegan and I are
friends with we're friends with some twins who didn't end
up choosing to do have a career together and do
everything together, and I I think we've sort of like
avoided this idea of competition with each other by just
doing everything together and sharing everything. And even though I
(04:07):
think Tigan is more successful than I am, because if
you just look at you know which songs are more popular,
you know, even some of her instincts, her instincts to
decide to do things. Even if I was fully involved
in the thing that we ended up deciding to do,
even if we had sort of like equal partnership, I
would never have made the choice to do the thing.
So in some ways, it shows that she's been much
(04:29):
more successful and her instincts are more successful than mine.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
So I'm also the I sort of have a black
sheet mentality in my mind.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
That's so interesting. But Tigan or do you feel the
same way. I mean, are you like, well, no, that's bullshit,
because here, here's why, you know, here's why Sarah is.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, well absolutely, I think my narrative, I mean it's different,
but it's you know, lives in the same family for sure,
you know, Like I always thought Sarah was Sarah's more credible.
She's the more artistic and more niche and is more
intelligent and more studied and academic feeling. And I was
a little more like you know, I remember as a kid,
(05:07):
I was the messier one, Like my hair. We were
in karate, and like when I look back at the photos,
like I just kind of looked like a disaster. And
Sarah was always was like very put together, but now now,
I yeah, I do feel like a bit of a disaster.
I mean, I think Sarah's very measured and controlled, and
(05:28):
she is much better with privacy and having boundaries. And
you know, we've lived our entire adult life in the
public eye, and I think that she's just better at
managing that. And I'm a people pleaser and so I
get myself into trouble a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
So interesting, you know, it's just so interesting from an
identical twins standpoint, which of course I don't know much about.
But how you know, you grew up together. You I'm
sure were raised the same way, yet there are parts
of your personality this goes back to sort of nature nurture,
you know what I mean, that are completely different, which
(06:06):
is just so interesting.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And do you do you have kids?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
I have three? Yeah, I have seventeen, fourteen, eleven.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Woh wow, that's cool. I have a two year old.
But I am amazed I didn't.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
I sort of like just thinking about the nature and
nurture thing, Like I look back at videos of him,
even like a year ago, and he's like like they
come out with a personality like they just like even
when he was just a sack of potatoes blobbing on
the couch or whatever, Like I just look at him
now and I'm like, oh, I already see the personality.
And he's got such a big personality already at two,
(06:43):
and he talks a lot, and he he's he just
I mean, I think my wife and I are really
smart and funny, but like he's so funny and smart already,
like he's just and I just am like that's got
to be Like we didn't get a dud. But I
don't think it's because we've put a lot of energy
into making him not that, Like it just feels like
he came like I feel like out of the box.
(07:04):
He's pretty like baseline extra and and I just think,
you know, in some ways, like the thing Tigan's talking about,
like there was no forget nature nurture for a second,
Like we came out of my mother, and Tegan looked messier,
like she just her bangs were a little messier, and
she just she literally came out of the womb like
(07:26):
oh shit, like we're I'm here, you know, Whereas I
sort of came out and I was like I'm here, mother,
you know, and.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It's like, I just feel like I feel like we
came out like that.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
No, I know, I mean it's so true. I guess
when you're thinking about you guys coming out at the
same time, you would assume that there would be more
similarity there as far as that goes, But maybe not.
I mean, I couldn't agree more. My kids raised all
the same way, you know. I mean we're still raising them,
of course. You know there's nuance to it. I mean,
(07:57):
you know, everyone's different, so you're going to sort of,
you know, alter the way that you do things for
each child based on who they are. But you know,
my first one came out three weeks early. He looks
like a little baby bird. We didn't know what the
fuck we were doing, you know what I mean. And
we were trying to sleep train him and we feed
(08:17):
him then he can't sleep. It was just such panic
all the time. And you know, he's, of course my
most sensitive. That's why the first borns are mostly the
most sensitive, because we coddle the shit out of them
because we have no idea what we're doing. And then
Body Wilder Wilder is my first kid. Then Bodie's my
second kid. He literally came out with a tan and
(08:38):
like a joint and ray bands on, you know what
I mean. Like his first picture, he's smiling and he's
he looks like he just came back from Hawaii. He's
like tan and uh, super chill and stubborn as fuck.
And he still is that way. And then I've got
Rio Ye, my daughter, who's just you know, pure performer, fabulous,
(09:00):
just she's just all sugar. She's just the most beautiful,
loving human being of all time. Yeah. All three different,
but I will say this humor. Their humor was super connecting.
You know. They all have the same idea of what's funny,
how to make you laugh, understanding jokes, and they've had
to deal with me as a father too, So I
(09:20):
feel like humor.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I don't have kids, but I feel like if I
didn't have a funny kid, it would be away. Yeah.
I have a question all her just going back to
the hell has all started. But you're saying that you
felt like a black beef and you you know you
mentioned I think you said you're the oldest of your siblings. Yeah,
do you feel like you've always been even though you
admit that you're not a failure and from the outside,
(09:43):
of course, no one else would be that way. But
it was that a thing that you've always had, like
since you were a kid, or was it something that
came in oulhood as you guys pursued the career.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Now, I think this is deeply psychological. You know, everyone
deals with trauma or pain in different ways. You know,
my dad bailed when I was like five or six.
It was good for until I was like eleven or twelve.
Then it just went off the rails. And you know,
mom was single for a minute. Then she met Kurt,
and Kurt became my stepdad, and who was amazing. He
(10:14):
raised me. But it's just it was just a tumultuous
sort of childhood for me, you know, you know, and
I think it hurt my self esteem when it came
to work for some reason. From a social standpoint, I'm good,
I'm confident, and I'm happy, and you know, I love
(10:35):
being social, so I think it stems from that. But
it's funny you asked this because I was on a
walk yesterday and I was just going back and reflecting
upon my life, which I do often, and I started
to get really emotional because I have this strange need
(10:58):
for people to like me, and if they don't like me,
it almost is a dagger in a strange way. I
don't want to offend anyone. I don't want to hurt
anyone's feelings, of course because I don't want them to
feel bad, but also because I don't want them to
think bless of me or bad of me in any
way whatsoever. I'm not a confrontational person because confrontation to
(11:20):
me as a kid was just devastating and ruined me,
you know, and it's been a bit detrimental to my life,
you know, to where I can't step up, you know,
basically say what I feel and say what I want.
You know, I'm always sort of couching it in something. Yeah,
and I'm forty eight, you know, And it's a forever journey.
(11:41):
But it's beautiful and self reflection is amazing, and I've
been doing it for a long long time. You know
where Kate went the other way, She was like, no,
this is my pain. Fuck this, I'm going to have
the greatest work ethic of all time. I'm going to
be famous, I'm going to be outible. Whatd I do?
(12:01):
Nothing is going to get in my way so we
just went at it differently, you know. So yeah, and
then you try not to pass any of that shit
onto your kids.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yeah, I think it's I mean, it's so interesting too,
because I mean I wouldn't suppose that it's the same
with you and Kate, but like, you know, because Sarah
and I are twins, and because we are with each
other all the time. You know, there have been years
in our career, me touring, you know, and on the road,
traveling for hundreds of days at a time, so we
almost use each other as mirrors and that can be
really helpful, Like if one of us is being an
(12:35):
asshole or stepping out of line or just kind of
being a jerk, it's like the other one is there
to be like, like, you know, but it's also this
thing where it's like when I see a strength of Sarah's,
it's sort of magnifies that that's a weakness in me.
And we used to say that we felt like as twins,
it was like they took all the things you can
be good and bad at and then divide it up,
(12:57):
so like the thing Sarah's really good at, I just
can't get good at, and the things that Sarah is
really bad at, Like tend to be things that I've
been really good at. And one of the things I
think I'm really good at is putting people at ease
and being very liked. And it has become a compulsion
where I really relate to what you're saying, Like I
absolutely I will do anything to avoid being disliked. I will,
(13:20):
Like there's just an example of people from our past
that we haven't had a relationship with in decades, you know,
but like when they message, like to come to a show,
or they message to like connect, it's like I will
take the time and I'll respond and I'll make time.
And Sarah's just like being like who fucking cares? Like
get over it, Like we don't know that person, we
(13:41):
met them once, Like why do you feel so bad
You've met that person one time. You don't owe them anything,
And I just it's weird. I feel the same thing
like when you said, like it's like a dagger if
someone doesn't like you. It's also like a dagger for
me if I think I've heard someone feeling a total confrontation.
It's like my wife, my wife and we don't fight.
(14:01):
We started going to a couple of causing. The therapist was
like watching us back and forth and was like, well,
that's lovely that you guys get along so well. But
I'm assuming, I mean, you're avoiding talking about things.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
That are hard. You're here for a reason, You're there
a reason, right, Like what are you avoiding?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
But I think that comes from I think that's a
product of being again like in a band with my
sister for twenty five years, Like I can't have conflict constantly,
so it means I've had to learn how to compromise,
and sometimes it's like a lot, you know. And but
I don't want to fight with there. I don't want to.
I don't want the two of us to be at
each other's road. So you cause you've just learned to
(14:40):
avoid things and you learn to let it go. But
if you're not really letting it go, it's like building.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I know, yeah, and that resent meent. You don't want
that resentment to build either, you know. No, that's that's
why the communication is great. That's why. And vulnerability has
been an issue for me too, with just being able
to talk about my feelings and the things that I
really am, especially with women interestingly enough, you know, with
(15:07):
men and with my kids, I'm right there. But with
my wife and with my mom and with my sister,
you know, it was really difficult for me to just
express how I feel about them in a positive way,
meaning like, hey, I just want to tell you, I
fucking I'm so in love with you and you're incredible.
And here's why I get scared. I'm like, yeah, my god,
(15:30):
it's like, you know, cringe as they say these days,
and it's just it's a protection. I'm just almost protecting
myself from you know, getting annihilated, even though that it's
completely irrational. You know, It's funny how the mind and
emotion can totally separate. I consider myself a pretty evolved
person sort of intellectually, but that I'm still a fucking
(15:51):
child when it comes to sort of my heart and
my emotions. You know.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
Yeah, ah, I have a lot lot more empathy for
men now in later years.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Like I think we we grew up with a fairly strong,
you know, sort of like feminist perspective on things, and.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
We and because I think also because we were gay.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
I mean, we always were surrounded by men, but I
think that there was a sort of like like it
just it's it's always been like a second language or
something to speak to men and just like be like, Okay,
I guess I'll change my expectations, not necessarily lower, but
just I have to expect something different from men and
the relationships I have with men than I.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Than I have with women.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
And I feel like I have a lot of really wonderful,
substantial connections with men that I love, but it's always
felt different. And now I'm raising a sun and I
am just completely obsessed with like, how does how do
I change that? You know, like how do I? And
and not necessarily with him, because right now it's like
he doesn't know any you know, we don't know anything
(17:05):
at that He's like it's he doesn't understand gender and
he doesn't understand all of these things.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
And so it's so beautiful because we're just like having
a relationship.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
But it's made me re contextualize so many of my
relationships with men in my life and see their sensitivities
and see their sort of like differences in a really
empathetic way. Because already, even with my son, I can
see the way people treat him and change the way
they treat him when they know he's a boy. Like
I don't know if you experienced this between your sons
(17:33):
and your daughter, but like every people constantly talk about
my son's body. They'll say, look at that little boss,
look at his legs, or look at his cheeks, or
look at his hair. And the people will like come
up to him on the street and they constantly are like,
you know, like commenting on his physical his physical being,
(17:53):
and and I'm like, I don't think they want to do
they were, I mean when I'm around my friends with girls.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
But then I think about, you know, me and Tigan.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Everybody thought we were boys until we were like you know,
well very different ages depending on what our hair looked like.
But we spent a good chunk of our childhood being misgendered.
And I think about like the way that we were
treated often as if we were boys, Like whether we
even understood it or not, we really passed through the
world when we were little almost being treated like boys.
And I think that has like a huge has had
(18:25):
a huge impact on how we feel in our bodies
and how we feel, you know, in our.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Like our presence, Like we weren't like.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Not to say that we would have been like weak
or more vulnerable or emotional as girls. But like you know,
my dad was giving us a hammer and nails at
like five years old and was like, go whack this
in the backyard.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
You know, we weren't playing with princesses or whatever.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
And I think that there's just like something about like
the way I'm experiencing.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Are you blank? Dad didn't know that we were girls.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
I don't know, it seemed like it when he was around,
you know.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Right, No, No, I couldn't agree more. I mean, you know,
getting into sort of the male species, and I think
that we all have vulnerabilities and sensitivities that we were
just more afraid to sort of let come to the surface,
you know. And I think now it's it's it's it's
(19:26):
almost allowed it. It's easier. It's not weak anymore. In fact,
it's strength to me. I mean, being a vulnerable man,
being someone who can talk about his feelings and you know,
be extremely candid about my life and the way that
I feel in my emotions. I mean I feel power
in that, honestly, you know, I do, because you're yourself
(19:48):
number one, and then you're also allowing other people around you,
other men around you, to you know, to feel those
same things as well. You know, the minute you put
your shit out there, it just opens the gates for
other people to put their shit out there as well.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
You know, it's interesting you're saying that because I think
back to like the early part of our career when
we were mostly surrounded by men on the road. You know,
it was just that was who mostly was in our
band and crew. It was just easier to We used
to say men were kind of like dandelions in our
industry because like the head off one and like forty
would grow, you know, whereas like finding a woman and
was like impossible. And we just have spent like an
(20:29):
absurd amount of time in the company of only men,
and you know, at really pivotal and important times in
terms of brain development and emotional development in our early twenties,
and you know, compounded with the fact that we were
dealing with like becoming known people and public figures and
success and failures and criticism and like you know, the
(20:49):
Internet and social media, like all this was happening, and
we were often processing a lot of our insecurity in
the company of men, and it was hard, Like I
think about something more dramatic or isolating or lonely moments
and it's you know, sitting in a room with this
family that you create to go out on the road
with for years at a time and crying and being like,
(21:09):
you know, sitting magazine called us the folk wickan nightmare,
and they're just like they'd laugh, like they were like
who cares, you know, and we're just like twenty somethings
that are like wickeds don't deserve you know this, and like,
you know, we're not folk, and like it's misogyny and
hopefully like you know, having just so wildly emotional and
(21:32):
you know, being this in the presence of all these
men who were like not ros the thing, the feeling
part of it, the emotion part of it. They were
just like who gives a shit? And how awful that was.
And it's so funny now because we, you know, have
crested forty and so a lot of the men in
our lives were getting older, and obviously our dad, our stepdad,
who's you know.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Helped raise us.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
They're all in their sixties now and they fucking cry
and talk with their feelings and it's always like about
their emotions and feelings and now their childhoods and I'm like, God,
this is exhausting, Like.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right, get it together, Jesus, I'm done enough of the tears.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Boys.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
But it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I mean, it's amazing. But I just think, like how
funny it is, Like we go through that at different
times in our lives, you know, and like our family
now is just full of men who want to talk
about their feelings and all of those women who've been
like overprocessing for few decades, they're just like, uh.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
No, no, I know. And then and then you know,
it's also watching my boys. My daughter is very expressive,
you know, I mean, she's very emotions are right there,
you know, right at the tip. But watching my sons
and it's been really cool because they're very communicative with
(22:50):
their friends. Sometimes with their parents, it's like I was
school fine or whatever, you know what I mean, It's
just normal teenage bullshit. But watching them deal with their
friend is very communicative and they're not sort of holding back.
And you know, he's had a girlfriend now for a
year over a year and a half, and he's in
eleventh grade, so he's child love and you know, watching
(23:13):
him sort of navigate, you know, his whole world with
his girlfriend and her friends, it's it's interesting and and
and hearkening back to sort of my childhood and reflecting
upon it, it was it was not like that. It
was different. There's much more synergy now, there's much more
communication now, feelings it's okay to to talk about. So
(23:34):
it's it's it's cool.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I dig it. When did you guys know that you
were both gay? I mean, how did that? How did
that happen? And did one know before the other?
Speaker 5 (23:54):
Yes, I I think circumstantially because I happen to meet
someone as a young person, you know, my best friend
who you know, eventually became my first girlfriend. It sort
of put me into a knowing place a lot sooner
than Tagan. So I was, you know, I was like
fourteen when I started having this relationship with my best
(24:17):
friend in secret, you know, from from most everyone, though
after years of sort of being together and not being together,
it was pretty obvious to I think most people in
our life that there was something extra going on.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
But I knew.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
I sort of had a sense of myself very young,
like I recognized that the way girls made me feel,
especially contrasting that with the way boys made me feel
like I was really into boys.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Like actually, my mom has all these really.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Funny journal entries in our baby books that are like,
you're obsessed with boys, you love boys, like, but she misunderstood,
Like our obsession with boys was like we were like
we wanted to be boys, you know, we were like
boys with the I want to hang out with Colin
and Cameron, and like I was like, I want to
hang out with boys, and my mom was like, you know,
(25:06):
you little, you're gonna get pregnant, you know, like whatever,
and I was just like, you know, yeah, so not.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
But like she.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Totally misunderstood, you know, like that my obsession with boys
was about finding kids that I wanted to feel like
or look like, or play with or whatever, and girls
would just sort of undo me, you know, like I
just my mom's friends would come over, you know, she
was in school like when we were kids, Like she
got back to college and all her like cool hipster
college girlfriends would come over and taken, and I would
(25:38):
like hide in.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
The bedroom, like we were just it.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
And I didn't know quite how to like put it
into context except to say that I felt completely comfortable
with my dad and stepdad and they're like construction hockey player,
macho friends. But if one woman wearing like a doc
boots and like lipstick came over to the house, I
was like, I wish I was dead, and I don't.
I couldn't figure that out, you know, I just had
no idea. So yeah, once I found a girlfriend, I
(26:05):
was like, oh, oh, I understand what's happening. Like this
is like, this is what this whole thing was. So yeah,
and Tigan I looked at As soon as I figured
out this thing about myself, I was like, well, obviously
Teagan is gay as well.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
It just was so obvious to me. There was no
confusion for me.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
So you almost knew before Teagan. You're like, no, not
just because you're my twin sister, but just knowing who
I am now and seeing who you are, I can
see that this.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I just thought we were the same. Like, I just
was like it didn't even occur to me.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
I wasn't like I wonder if Teagan also is gay,
Like I was like, she's gay, right, Like I was like,
she's gay, there's no question.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And I think for me seeing Sarah, like I was
clearly aware that what was going on behind the scenes
in Sarah's private life, but we didn't talk about it,
which I do understand is kind of odd. Like I
think people make an assumption because we were the same
age and we were going through the same things that
we confided in one another, but we didn't.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
We were, you know, really interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
We were kind of like possible to each other when
we were teenagers, Like there was you know, I think
because we were going through so many of the same things,
there was like a desperate need for privacy, and we
antagoni one another around fectuality. Actually, like you know, I
think that there were breaches on my vulnerability.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Yeah, it was a vulnerability.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
It was like don't yeah, yeah, I think. I think
we struggled. We struggled to understand it and be comfortable
with it, and so we took it out on one another,
and so it didn't feel like necessarily a safe place
to go talk about it. But I know, for myself,
I really relate everything Sarah said about women growing up.
I knew that there was something that was different about me,
Unlike Sarah, though I didn't have any shame about it.
(27:40):
I never felt like I wasn't laying in bed thinking
about girls and then being like, you know, giving myself
lashes or something like that. Like there was no there
was no homophobia in the world, at least in my
world really. But once I did start to act on
my feelings with girls and establish crushes and talk about
(28:01):
it out loud and have relationships, I definitely felt really,
really nervous to kill Sarah. I was so worried to
she would think I was copying her, Like I mean,
we were teenagers. It was just like the weird thing
where it was like, this is Sarah's thing, and again,
like we were sort of ustle when it came to
this sort of stuff and each other, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Where that was like Sarah's like, that's bullshit. I was
gay first, yeah, Or she'd be like, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
My best friend would come over and it was clear
we were hooking up, and Therapy would just antagonize up
like she'd be like, clearly, Jamie's your girlfriend, and it
was like, you know, we would be like, you know,
we'd all be like fighting and screaming and slamming, and
so I think it was not until we were older
that we and really it was when we started our
(28:46):
career and we started to do press and people were
acting us about our sexuality that we sort of listen
to each other talk about what it was like, which
again is a full theme and in therapy both for
both of us. It's just so much of our life
when unspoken, and we do this thing where we talk
about things that matter to us in the press or
on stage, and that's how we learn about each other.
(29:07):
It's like insane. But yeah, we never really talked about it.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
That's really interesting. But it was there a moment where
it was like, all right, here's who I am, here's
who's here's who I am. I love you, love you great.
We could do it.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I guess we could do it right now. We could
do it like T and I love you. I know
you're gay.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
You're doing right.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
No, I came out.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
I came out when I was eighteen, and he didn't
come out for another year or two, and there was
no you know, there was no coming out card and
gifts or anything. It was just kind of like, again,
this is such a different time, right, like we're talking
about nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
It was so tumultuous.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
I was trying to establish my identity and privacy and
I was I was like fighting with my mom, who
you know, initially had a really difficult reaction to me
being gay.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
And so she did, what if, Sorry, where did you
guys grow up in Canada? What part all great? We
grew up in com Okay cool and my mom had
been like she was.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Like, it's a great town.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
We had like a very liberal, very cool, open minded family.
Very my mom's friends were gay. Like half the time,
I felt like my mom was grooming us to be gay.
She'd be bringing home like indie movies with gay people
in them, and I'd be like, does she know, like
what's happening? So I was very surprised by her reaction.
But then I think, you know, it's like contextually I
(30:31):
understand now, like there was a real sort of like
she was caught off guard.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
There was a morning of like what she imagined for me,
you know.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
So that was difficult, and I wasn't looking for comfort
from Teagan. I found comfort in my girlfriend, you know,
Like I was like I was like in my own
world where I was like I'm not I was sort
of trying to break away.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
From the family unit. And then by the time Teagan came.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
Out, it was so different like her, the reaction from
our friends and family. It was like everybody got to
do over, you know, So whoever had sort of stumbled
or got it wrong with me, yeah, I was able
to do a much better job with Teakens.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Oh yeah, no, I that's so true. You were like
you're a bit of the You're the guinea pig, you know.
I mean I can relate to that with my kids
because I had a conversation with Wilder, my oldest, and
we were going through something and I said, look, man,
you know you're figuring it out as a young man,
as a young teenager with your hormones raging. I'm fucking
(31:29):
forty seven at the time, now forty eight, and you
are my first so I am equally figuring it out.
I'm going to make mistakes, and you're going to make mistakes.
And I said, and and you are my and the
other kids are lucky, body, and real are lucky because
I'm going to have better knowledge of knowing what to
do because of you, you know. So it's I can
(31:52):
relate to that, and like you're the guinea pig. And
now it's like, okay, well we figured Sarah out. Now
we know now Teagans.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
My mom gave me a couch i'n't been with my
girlfriend forly three seconds, and my mom bought up a couch.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Don't It's beautiful to.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Be able to recognize, though, that that you're wrong and
come to your kids and say that. And I think
that's a huge generational change because, certainly in our adolescence,
multiple timess in our you know, in our.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Teenage years where things were really tumultuous.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Really really pivotal, like seminole moments, our parents were able
to come to us and say, wow, we really handled
that wrong, or you know, I read there specifically, I
remember when Tegan and I were writing our memoir about
our high school years, which is when we launched our
career and when we came out, so it was sort
of covering a lot of those kind of topics we're
kind of talking about right now. One of the stories
(32:47):
that sort of was unearthed was this moment where our stepdad,
who we adored and who was extremely maternal with us
and loved us and adored us, and you know, he
was he was wonderful, but he was also like, you know,
a guy a like thirties playing hockey working on a
construction site didn't always have like the most liberal politics,
or certainly didn't have the most liberal language at that time.
(33:07):
And I remember him using a disparaging word, you know,
to talk about Kirk Cobain, who we were obsessed with
Nirvana and obsessed with Kirk Colebain. And Tigan tells this
really beautiful story and the memoir about the confrontation invite
ultimately that they had about the way he was talking
about Kirk Cobain, and he came back and was able
to sit down and apologize and process that moment. And
(33:31):
those are the kinds of I think, those are the
kinds of stories and moments that are so new generationally.
Like I just don't think I can't even imagine my
grandparents sitting down with my mom I like nineteen sixty
whatever and being like.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
We are sorry or you know whatever we did. You know,
we're wrong, and we didn't.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
Have the institutional knowledge of like this would fuck you up,
Like they didn't have any of that, whereas like our
parents did. And it's so heartening to know to hear
you talk about it, and so I feel so fortunate
to be able to like, you know, I'll fuck up
my kid, but at least I'll be able to tell him,
how why I fucked him up?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Why I'm foxing up? Like people will be able to
share those things either.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
I say this all the time and on the podcast too,
I say, it's not about if you fuck up your kids,
it's just to what degree. I mean, that's it. You know,
we're all screwing them up one way or another. It's
just the way it goes.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
You know, it's validating in a way. I you know,
obviously our parents were really young when they had us.
So when we graduated high school, they were they had
just turned forty. And you know, I'm in a couple
of days, Sarah and I turned forty four, and like.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Wow, that's young. Had your parents had you guys young?
Speaker 1 (34:41):
They were children. The fact that we're alive, the fact
that we have been so successful, is actually insane really
to comprehend. But they were so young that they were
barely they had just turned forty when we graduated high school.
And when I think about that now, like when I
think about having eighteen year olds who I have just
set it into the world, I cannot. The other day,
(35:03):
we were at a photo shoot and the assistant on
set was twenty seven, and we started do math and
I was like, oh my god, I could have had you,
like I would have been young. But I'm like, you
know your I think your forties are really an interesting
time because it's when you start to remember your parents
and you start to remember like as children, as you
were a child, and all those feelings emotions. And they
(35:23):
know how cliche this is, but it's like all those
feelings emotions you had for them where you were like there,
my mom was not in high school, you know, she like, yes,
she was forty through her second divorce, you know, like
she was going to college and working and raising two
freaks who were doing acid and thinking out a pool constantly.
Like the fact that she didn't murder up is an
(35:46):
achievement that they should be about degrees at university before.
Like it just it's unreal. And I just think the
context that we have now, not just generationally, but just
as the age that we're all at, you can start
to look back and be like, being a human being,
it's hard. Every age is different, and developmentally you're constantly
under a new challenge because you're the world with new perspective.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Oh my god, it's so true. It's so true. And
the appreciation of your parents. I can't even explain how
much I can relate to that. Once you get older
and then you don't have kids, But once you do
have kids, you understand all of a sudden, oh my god,
they love me so fucking much. And now I understand
(36:27):
how they love me and why they love me so much.
I mean, it really opens up your eyes to sort
of the love and appreciation that your parents have for you,
and just they just want you to be okay, you know,
as far as LGBTQ and all that stuff, especially you
guys growing up in Canada. This could be a stupid,
(36:48):
weird question, but as opposed to America, like, is there
more leniency, is there more accepting? You know, are the
Canadian or is the Canadian cultures as broad the broad
idea of it, Yeah, because obviously everyone looks at the Canadians,
Oh they're so nice, and yeah, you know, I've met
a lot of asshole Canadians by the way.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, I think that all the bad parts of America
are in Canada too. I mean, you know, we've got
pretty much all the same problems and issues and bad qualities,
just on a smaller scale. I will say that because
we don't have entire networks devote it to twenty four
hour breaking news. It feels slightly less fire alarmy and
culturally here and we're clearly not as a stuffed with politics.
(37:30):
But I would say growing up career, we had as
little representation as American kids or any kids really around
the world. You know, we held on to the tiny
pieces of representation that would poke our head out. But
certainly as adults and like living in the city we
live in and having a career we have, we've certainly
experienced homophobia. But I think there's a more mind your
(37:53):
own business attitude to Canadians. Religion is not involved in politics.
You do not have you know, every politicians ing off
with God bless Canada. It's not like that. So I
don't feel that there's as much externalized homophobia hate, But
that's coming from a really privileged this you know can
you know, at times very fam like day person. So
(38:16):
I don't experience the kind of hate that some of
my friends who are trans or are more masculine, you know,
like I. But I would say, like generally speaking, I mean,
you know, we had equal rights in Canada nearly a
decade before America. So like you know, things have definitely
changed here quicker, but all of the trans rollbacks and
pushbacks on trans people and hate and paring down of
(38:36):
high flags like that all happens here. Just it's I
think it happens on a smaller scale. But we focus
a lot of our time and energy, Sarah and I
into philanthropy. We have a foundation. We spend a lot
of time funding left of center organizations that are overlooked
by the big funders. And you hear the horror stories.
I mean, it's all still bad, but we, you know,
are doing our part to hopefully make it better.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Right, Okay, so documentary, let's talk about the documentary. I
want to hear about it, and then and then the
cat if you can, if you can graze over the
cat fishing thing, it's so interesting to me. Yeah, I mean,
(39:20):
we spent so much time philosophizing that, I you know,
we did.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
It's great.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
I think it's everything else.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
But honestly, there's I'm excited for people to see it.
The movie is called Fanatical the Catfishing of Teagan and Zarah,
and it comes out on the eighteenth of October on Hulu.
So I don't want to give too much away, but yeah,
it was a crazy situation. You know. In twenty eleven,
some fans reached out to our management and said, one
of us has been talking to Teagan online. We've been
(39:47):
exchanging emails for years, but it's recently gotten kind of weird.
She's passed on unreleased songs, Cassport Scans gave me access to,
you know, an I disc which for the kids listening
is the old sc version of the cloud and it
seems wrong. Can you verify if it's Teak and that's
actually talking to us? And of course it was not me,
(40:08):
And it sort of started this unreal fifteen year journey
that we've been on to try to stop this person
who repeatedly has gotten access to, you know, people in
our world. At some point had access to an old
email of mine and was using it to fish people
I know, people I work with. And what has sort
of unraveled over the last fifteen years is just dozens
(40:30):
and dozens of people all over the world who got
into a friendship, in some cases a sexual or romantic
relationship with a person who's been pretending to be me
and is is not me and a couple of years ago,
and we never talked about it publicly. We did put
warnings up, you know, on our website, and we would
you know, we would warn people on social media and
(40:52):
remind them like we don't have personal accounts, like only
our official accounts. You know, we do what every band
and every public person does, and increasingly we just have
had less and less to do with social media. But
you know, we were definitely warned people, but we never
ever came forward and told this story. And a couple
of years ago, I just got into my head that
I wanted to write the story down and I wrote
(41:13):
a story called Fake Tagan about what happened and how
it affected Sarah and I and my life and my
friends and how I communicate and our relationship to our fans,
and how violating it was, and sort of posed the
question at the end of the story like did we
do everything we could have done? I feel guilty. This
is my appevement people pleasing. I was like, did we
do enough to help prevent this from happening? What are
(41:35):
the other victims feeling? Have they been able to move on?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
So this spread is it's not even about you, essentially,
I mean, of course it is, but this thing was
went viral. I guess, like it's a viral catfish.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
It's like people from all over the world came forward
and we're like I was talking to Tigan for four years.
We sent like nine hundred emails. I mean people the victim.
You know, there was a spectrum of people. You know,
some would talk to fake again three times and be
like this is her. Other people had long friendships and
then you know in a handful of cases that we
found people who had actual romantic, like sexual relationships.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Is just one person we I mean, I want to
ruin the movie, like, don't don't ruin it. Don't ruin
it because I am a huge documentary docuseries fan, Like
I'm nutty. When does it come out?
Speaker 1 (42:24):
By the way, it comes out on October eighteen, I'm
very excited.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
This sounds unreal. How did you decide to because you
were so private about it, how did you decide to
all of a sudden say, you know what, this is
a story I want to tell.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
You know, I've been thinking about it a lot, and
I had told the story. I hadn't told the story
start to finish to someone in a long time. And
I told a friend this, like what I remembered and
took like two hours, and he was just like, friend,
I'm freaking out, like this is crazy. You should write
this down. So I wrote the story and then I
was like, I want to make a podcast. I think
I want to investigate this again work In the beginning,
(43:01):
I've never talked to any of the other victims, so
I was like, I want to call the victims. And
I pitched it to this woman, Jenny Elish was a
writer and works at Serious Radio and it's just like
a legend in the music industry. And I was like,
I'm going to pitch this to Jenny Liskw and she
had just worked on Britney Versus Your documentary, directed by
Aaron Lee Carr. And Jenny called me like, I don't
(43:22):
know two hours after I sent her the story, and
she said, this is fucking nuts. I've never heard a
story like this before. I want to take this to
Aaron Lee Carr. So Aaron and Jenny and I got
on a call like a week or so later or something,
and Aaron was like, this is not a fucking podcast,
you guys. Yeah, And two.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Years later, here we are, Holy and Sarah, how did
you feel about all of it? I mean, I know
it wasn't you, but essentially it was was it? I mean,
or was it? There's the twist in the dock.
Speaker 5 (43:53):
I think that I think that film does a pretty
good job of really centering Teagan and her Rais obviously,
but you know this, this had a huge impact on
my life and really, like you know, our friends and
family are our business relationships, and you know, has has
definitely affected the trajectory of our band. I mean, we
have made really specific choices because of this situation. And
(44:18):
you know, in some cases, I think it was actually positive.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Like I think we.
Speaker 5 (44:23):
Needed to be more mindful of boundaries and our fan base.
I think we were a bit naive, you know, to
think that our fan base was so special that they
would never do the things that other fan bases sometimes
do to artists.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
And you know, I think this was healthy. Like I
think at some.
Speaker 5 (44:41):
Point maybe we needed to have a bit more of
a disconnected relationship from our fan base, Like we were
really in with our fans, like we were really like
we saw ourselves as being them. And I don't think
that that, you know, can be sustained even if you
don't have someone pretending to be you.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
For fifteen years.
Speaker 5 (45:00):
Like I think at some point it's healthy to say
I make things for people, and I love the people
who love our things. But we're not friends, you know,
like we are we are, we have a we have
a relationship, but it's not the one we think we're having.
So But I'm also really different than Togan, Like we
started a nice way to bookend this conversation.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
I'm not as worried about pleasing people.
Speaker 5 (45:22):
And I feel like it's okay to have boundaries and
set sort of expectations and if if people sort of
push that, it's okay to say no, thank you, or
I don't want that or that doesn't make me feel good,
or I don't want to, you know, sign autographs in
a dark alley at two am.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Anymore.
Speaker 5 (45:43):
I want to say nice to see you by and
walk into the bus, you know, or whatever.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Like I was more comfortable with that. And I also.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
Like living a really private life. I really admire people
who can manage fame and celebrity on a on a level.
I've seen it, and I've had brief moments of experiencing
some version of it. It's not for me, Like I
like my life. I don't want to be famous, and
I like that we are a well known band and respected.
(46:13):
But when I go home, I love that I just
completely disappear and that you know, that all sort of
was happening, like those conversations were happening around the time
that this started. So yeah, it had a huge impact
because it was like case in point, we have somebody
pretending to be teaing like, let's disappear, you know. It
was like kind of like I used it to explain
(46:35):
my own decision to kind of move away from that
sort of trajectory in our career.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah. Wow, I mean it's so weird too, thinking of
it's almost like this, whoever this person or people are,
you know, which may or may not be revealed in
the documentary, which everyone does need to go see because
it sounds amazing there. It has to be some sort
of a mental illness. I mean for someone to be
able to dedicate this much time to this picturing the
(47:01):
other side them sitting mine their keyboard being like, I mean,
there's got to be something fucking really wrong with that person.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah, I definitely think. Top of mind when we started
this project, you know, was how do we tell this
story ethically and compassionately because it's not just about fatigue,
and it's about the victims. You know, these people were
all online as diehard fans looking to try to find
my They wanted to be in touch with me, right, so,
you know, so it's like they were unsuspecting and they
(47:32):
got tricked. But many of them apologized when I interviewed
them and was like, well, what was I doing? I
mean I was a kid, but I was like online
looking for your personal phone number and email like I
you know. So there was like the sides for this,
like where it was like, we need to be really
compassionate and empathetic. We're going to tell this story. We
shouldn't be shaming anyone. But yeah, I think Aaron the
(47:53):
Carr who directed it, you know, she directed with ten films,
and I think this is her specialty is telling stories
in a compassionate and ethical way. And it was a
part of our whole team's conversation pretty consistently throughout was
what is appropriate to put in here? There is so
much that did not make it a movie, like wild
stuff that we were like, can we preparing like that?
(48:14):
Think gaming? Like Yeah, there was like some weird conversations
we had to have and ultimately, you know, I think
all of us as a team, but Aaron, as our
fearless leader, understood we sort of pivoted. This isn't a
who done it. The point was not to unmask or
ruin fake Tigan's life. You know. My personal feeling is
that many of the people who are involved with this
(48:36):
have some mental health stuff, and I think this became
a bigger conversation about parasocial relationships and you know, fandoms
and taking care of yourself and listening to your instincts.
Every single person I interviewed, everythingle victim at some point
ignored their instincts at some point was like something feels off,
(48:57):
and it's like, don't ignore your people.
Speaker 5 (49:01):
We do.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
We all do that. We all do that because there
is that little kernel of like, oh, it's that's the
addictive quality, that's that's the adrenaline rush, that's that that
release of that you know, chemical like, oh gosh, I
know it's wrong, but I have to go to the
other side. Really good to meet you guys, really fun.
Thank you for for coming on and I will be watching.
(49:25):
I'm very excited about this so much more. I wanted
to talk to you guys about next time, next time,
next time. I appreciate your candor you guys, and thank
you for doing this.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
You to thank us all.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Right later, guys. Cool. I'm in a better mood. Now,
see what happens. I come in hot, I come in
a little aggravated. I have amazing conversations with these two
amazing women who are so smart and so articulate and
(49:59):
so in touch. That was rat Podcasting is really an
interesting thing. Talking to people is interesting. I guess this
is why I love doing it. You know, would I
do it for free? No, I would not, But I
do love talking to you I I you know, people
(50:20):
come on to promote shit, and of course this is
the new medium sort of promote things on and half
the time you're kind of like, yeah, yeah, I check
it out. You know this I cannot wait to see.
This is crazy. This is a story like I've never
heard before, so everyone should check it out. Anyway, I'm
gonna go now because I am due for my mid
(50:46):
morning shake on the last day of my liver cleanse,
and then tomorrow, well I want to eat cheeseburgers and
pizza and drink beer and all that, but I can't.
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta maintain this beautiful fucking figure.
I'm out. Mm hm
Hosts And Creators
Oliver Hudson
Kate Hudson
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