Tegan and Sara have shared “Smoking Weed Alone” the fifth track released from their forthcoming 10th studio album, Crybaby, due October 21st via Mom+Pop Music. The album release comes on the heels of last week’s US release of High School, the widely lauded TV series based on their best-selling memoir and just ahead of the Prime Video Canada premiere October 28th. Tegan and Sara kick off their fall North American tour October 26th in Philadelphia, featuring Tomberlin in the opening slot.
While the track was written by Tegan, “Smoking Weed Alone” showcases the band’s approach to the album.
“With this album, I wanted there to be a dialogue that we could have about the songs,” says Sara. “Some of Tegan’s songs became almost like duets, because she allowed me to go in there and challenge her to rewrite lyrics. I wanted a narrative that could tie into our relationship and some of the things that were happening in our life, even if the song wasn’t about that. And for ‘Smoking Weed Alone,’ there’s a chorus where we’re sort of singing to each other, and we haven’t done that before, in our career.”
“Smoking Weed Alone” follows previously released tracks “I Can’t Grow Up” “Faded Like a Feeling,” “Fucking Up What Matters” and the sweet, anthemic “Yellow.”
“’Yellow” is a dreamy pop tune that balances bits of bubblegum with heart-on-sleeve sincerity” – Rolling Stone
Tegan and Sara’s Amazon Freevee series High School, which is based on the twins’ critically acclaimed, New York Times-bestselling memoir of the same name, recently debuted its first three episodes at the Toronto International Film Festival, premiering last week on Amazon Freevee and October 28th on Prime Video Canada. The show was co-created and executive produced by Tegan and Sara Quin and Clea DuVall, who also features as a director on select episodes. Shot in Calgary and produced by Plan B Entertainment and Amazon Studios, High School stars TikTok creators and TV newcomers Railey and Seazynn Gilliland, portraying the high school versions of Tegan and Sara. Special guest stars Cobie Smulders and Kyle Bornheimer play the twins’ parents.
Crybaby was produced by John Congleton (Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten), Sara Quin and Tegan Quin and recorded at Studio Litho in Seattle and Sargent Recorders in Los Angeles. “This was the first time where, while we were still drafting our demos, we were thinking about how the songs were going to work together,” says Tegan. “It wasn’t even just that Sara was making lyric changes or reorganizing the parts to my songs, it was that she was also saying to me, ‘This song is going to be faster,’ or ‘It’s going to be in a different key.’ But Sara effectively improves everything of mine that she works on.” Sara adds with a laugh, “Maybe I am the renovator. I’m the house-flipper of the Tegan and Sara band.”
With nine studio albums to their credit and millions of records sold, Tegan and Sara have used music as a way of storytelling throughout their 20-year career. With that storytelling at the core, they have built a multi-faceted media empire that stretches into TV, books, newsletter and public service, but always deeply rooted in music. Tegan and Sara recently launched “I Think We’re Alone Now,” a Substack newsletter that includes both free and paid-tier content, spanning audio and text-message conversations as well as essays, lyric annotations and behind-the-scenes looks about their upcoming projects. Tegan and Sara have received three Juno Awards, a Grammy nomination, a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award and the 2018 New York Civil Liberties Union Award. Outspoken advocates for equality, the duo in 2016 created the Tegan and Sara Foundation, which fights for health, economic justice and representation for LGBTQ girls and women.
Also on the horizon is the middle-grade graphic novel duology Tegan & Sara: Junior High and Tegan & Sara: Crush, written by the twins and illustrated by Eisner Award-winner Tillie Walden. The contemporary story is about identical twins growing up and growing apart, coming to terms with their queerness and falling in love with music over the course of junior high. The first volume is due for release in spring 2023.
