Tegan and Sara: 'I'm sometimes embarrassed by how candid we were'

It's weird to think that with their newest, bluntest synth-pop work Love You to Death and a current tour that takes them to the Fillmore this week, identical twins Tegan and Sara Quin have been plying their skills for 21 years and eight albums. It's not because Tegan and Sara are old or feel outdated; far from it with the uplifting musicality of new tunes such as "Boyfriend." But rather because the out-and-proud sisters from Alberta, Canada consistently seem sprightly and new.

"That's a compliment," says Sara. "There are days that it feels like a blink of an eye and days where it really feels like the decades of hard work that it's been. Mostly, though I'm happy now because I used to think that we might run out of steam, that we'd get sick of the three year cycle of album-tour, then another album-tour."

That pragmatism is admirable in any artist, let alone a duo whose personal past works show each to be free spirits with romantic streaks. "It gets scary to think that you might lose the muse. Now, I don't think that we lost it – or at least I'm not worried. Heck, I'm smart," Sara says, laughing.

Over the years, Sara has found herself "running the business" of the duo, and if Tegan and Sara didn't exist tomorrow, she could do the same elsewhere. "There are album cycles where we make money from that or some cycles where we cut our losses and tour more. You smarten up pretty fast doing all this. We bend with the trends in the market, and that flexibility allows us even greater creativity," she says.

To an extent, she looks at Tegan and Sara's discography – albums such as The Con (2007), Heartthrob (2013), even presciently This Business of Art (2000) – as tools of marketing and markers of a sea change within the duo's sound. "We finally figured that we don't need new music to be relevant. There's confidence in what we do now, but sometimes you need songs to settle. Having space between important moments – leaving school, meeting and breaking up, coming out to one's parents – and the songs of ours that connect to those moments is what makes our listeners so passionate about the songs of our past," Sara says. "I'm finally getting that."

That doesn't mean that the art, business and being around each other all the time doesn't wear on the pair. "100X" (from the new Love You to Death) is actually about questioning where the sisters were as bandmates. That focus on the economic also doesn't mean that Tegan and Sara have lost the deeply personal qualities that made Under Feet Like Ours (1999), So Jealous (2004) or Sainthood (2009) purr. "I'm sometimes embarrassed by how candid we were," says Sara. "The Con in particular is naked and stark. I had just gone through a breakup with someone I bought a house with, and next thing you know I'm changing my will."

But that feeling of hindsight embarrassment has not and will not change Sara's lyrical approach. She looks at some of the deeper personal elements that's she penned throughout Love You to Death - lyrically, the pair write separately - and states that she has no problem diving into the depths of her mind, body or soul to come up with something forceful. "And if anybody does start asking me to justify myself or reveal even more," she says. "I have no problem telling them to bug off."

Tegan and Sara, 8 p.m. Thu., Nov. 3, The Fillmore, 29 E Allen St. $36, 215-309-0150.