Musicians Tegan And Sara Share Their Coming Of Age Story, Full Of Emotion And ‘90s Grunge, In ‘High School’

They weren’t impressed with the music they made when they were young. Now it’s the soundtrack to a TV show based on their lives.

Twins Tegan and Sara Quin began crafting songs when they were in high school, but they weren’t convinced that it was any good.

“I don’t think that Tegan and I thought very much about the music that we wrote as adolescents. We actually had decided that all of [it] was bad.,” says Sara.

She says that it’s been the support of people around them that convinced the duo that their music was strong enough to be the focal point of the new series High School.

The eight episode coming of age series, based on the New York TimesNYT
bestselling memoir of the same name by the platinum recording artists, is a story told through a backdrop of ‘90s grunge and rave culture. Weaving between parallel and discorded memories, the series details how their lives were transformed by the power of music.

Co-showrunners and co-writers, Clea DuVall and Laura Kittrell crafted the narrative of the series, while newcomers Railey and Seazynn Gilliland play the twin sisters.

Tegan explains the evolution of their memoir, saying, “When we wrote [it], we set out to do something that we thought was really important, which was tell a story about queer women, and specifically about music, about coming out, and adolescence in a way that was really smart and intelligent.”

An early composition that they pair wrote, “Tegan Didn’t Go to School Today,” pops up right away in the series.

“It’s wonderful to have the first song that we ever wrote put into the show because I think it just sort of shows that young people can do amazing things, even right out of the gate before they’ve had years of training and experience,” says Sara. She adds, “Sometimes, our first instinct is our best instinct.”

Sara says that their writing process always felt effortless, remarking, “Writing music just sort of happened really naturally.”

When they ‘locked in,’ as Sara puts it, and started writing songs,“the adults around us actually really encouraged us to keep going. And it gave us something to really focus on.”

Because of their personal experience, Tegan says, “Sara and I being queer women, we wanted queer women to be at the helm of this show.”

Kitrell jumps in to add, “It’s a show that queer 15-year-old me really needed and wanted in her life, and it’s also a show that 36-year-old queer me really needs and wants in her life. I haven’t seen anything like it. I’m really proud of the queer romance that we have. I’m proud of the queer friendships that we have that I don’t think that you see a lot in television. I feel like you rarely really get all of these different shades of the queer experience. And I’m proud of that.”

Tegan says that one of the aspects that she truly loves about the series is that, “[Sara and I] didn’t get along [all of the time.] Our relationship was quite fraught, and there was a lot of conflict and tension, and I think that makes watching the show really exciting.”

The series universal, because, as Tegan explains, “Everyone pretty much goes through the high school experience and [in this we’re] giving life to all the other characters that orbited around us, investing so much time in telling the parents story and the story of the city itself and ‘90s culture. [This is] about adolescence, and it’s about finding yourself in music. It’s about so many things.”

‘High School’ is now streaming on Amazon
AMZN
freevee.