Tegan And Sara Talk About Collab With Taylor Swift

August 24th, 2013

Kriston McConnell

A few days ago, Taylor Swift surprised fans at her performance at the Staples Center in Los Angeles when she had Tegan And Sara join her on stage to sing “Closer” together, which is taken from the ladies’ recently released album Heartthrob. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the sisters opened up about how the collaboration came to be. You can read what they had to say by taking a look below the jump.

If you haven’t seen the video of their performance, you can watch it by heading on over to YouTube.

How did you meet Taylor Swift?

Yesterday was actually the first time we officially met. I remember hearing through the grapevine that she was a fan. I was like, there’s no way! Then her manager called a couple of months ago and said Taylor is obsessed with the record and she’d love to have the girls up. I made a joke that we’d change the date of the birth of our child to make it happen. We’re such huge fans.One of the bands that inspired us to want to make a bigger record and cross over to pop was Taylor. She’s flawlessly moved [between] genres and she has such integrity and depth in her music. She’s proven you can make a pop record that still has an incredible feeling in it.

Was your first meeting to rehearse?

We came in the afternoon and we rehearsed. Her band is incredible. Taylor is the boss, man. You walk onstage and she’s like, “OK, here is what’s going to happen.” She’s like, “I’m obsessed with the second verse – I want to sing that.” And I’m like, fuck yeah, you can sing whatever you want. She walked us though the whole thing like an old pro.

What was it in the second verse of “Closer” that she was obsessed about?

Initially when we put [“Closer”] out, we were defensive because people were just calling it a pop song. And I was like, “But it’s got depth! Listen to the lyrics, look deeper!” On first listen, something like the second verse — “All you think of lately is getting underneath me, all I think of lately is how to get you underneath me” — can seem really throwaway. But I was writing about the idea of a love from a long time ago never coming to fruition, the idea of unrequited love. And even though it can feel really dark and intense and a missed opportunity, there is something fun about romance and looking back.