KT Tunstall
This eco-rocker-babe won’t bash you with messages—neither will she mince her words

Courtesy of EMI

Even if KT Tunstall weren’t the million- selling rock star she’s become since her 2005 breakout, you get the feeling she’d do just fine. “The bottom line is, you don’t need a record deal; you don’t need any of that,” she says from her London flat, where she’s holed up after touring for her new album Drastic Fantastic. “If you can sing for your supper and get your dinner in a pub by playing and make your way, then you’re a musician.”

That’s exactly what Tunstall did for many years until her belated breakthrough at age 30. What the experience taught her is “how to hone your technique of playing live, and how to be arresting when you’re playing. The most important thing of getting anywhere as a musician is your live show.”

It was a 2005 live performance on the TV program Later with Jools Holland—in which she stole the show from The Cure—that caught the ears of the British public, and another bracing one at Fuji Rock
in 2006 that first endeared her to Japanese fans.

Since that time Tunstall’s seen her debut album Eye to the Telescope reach No. 3 on the UK charts. She also cracked the key but difficult US market when, ironically, a contestant on American Idol used her “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree,” propelling the song to No. 1 on the US Adult Contemporary charts.

Tunstall’s freewheeling style—and perhaps her vaguely Asian appearance (she’s one-fourth Chinese)—has also made her popular with Japan’s glossy women’s magazines, something she submits to with a bristling sense of humor. “It seemed so bizarre that I would be fodder for those pages, because if I wasn’t a singer I couldn’t be a model. I’ve always enjoyed photo shoots—being able to indulge in my girlie side—but I certainly don’t get too worried about them.”

The singer makes sure she’s clear about how she is depicted.“It can be quite frustrating because you’re approached to be in one of these magazines and treated as if you were a model: wear this, wear that. And it’s just like, ‘No, I’m not a clothes horse. I’ll wear it if I like it.’”

In fact, one of the more topical songs from Drastic Fantastic, “Saving My Face,” takes on the beauty industry and modern cult of plastic surgery. Tunstall explains that turning 30 was a wakeup call to aging. “It’s me putting myself in the position of an old woman with money in my pocket and a mirror. Should I give in to this pressure? I’m sure it will be very different when I’m 60. I imagine that plastic surgery will be very normal, but we’re in this weird transitional period where some people are totally against it and some are totally for it, where some people just want to fix one thing and others want to preserve their youth—misguidedly, I think. It’s about the pressure, which is put on old women, that getting old is bad.”

Topical concerns don’t form the bulk of Drastic Fantastic, but when I catch Tunstall, she’s in the middle of penning a song with an environmental bent. “It’s a song I’m writing for an album that hopefully will be helping a tribe in the Amazon rainforest,” she reveals. “There’s a guy who does the TV program “Tribe,” who goes around and joins in with tribes’ initiation practices. They’re losing their land, so he’s trying to raise money to help them preserve their territory. I’m writing a song that’s about a tree that can’t be bothered watching all of us fuck up anymore. So it just says, ‘Chop me down.’”

But Tunstall’s best-received songs have been more personal. “I’m a much more backyard writer—private rather than public politics,” she says. “I always feel whatever situation in life, when you peel back the layers, you can strip it back to two 4-year-olds and a bike. I’ve been dabbling a little more with writing about how I feel about current issues, but it can get incredibly finger-wagging, which I find boring.”

Having lived “off the grid” with her hippy boyfriend in Vermont and recently pouring millions into retrofitting her London flat to make it eco-friendly, Tunstall isn’t a recent convert to a low-impact, activist lifestyle. She believes that, given the state of the world, audiences may be ready for something a bit more engaged. “I think the boom in singer-songwriters is a telling sign of the political and moral climate that we find ourselves in at the moment,” she says. “The last great singer-songwriter era was the late-’60s, when the world was in total political turmoil. When there are wars on, when there’s an asshole in charge of the most powerful country in the world, people need a little respite.”

Despite her progressive views on a wide variety of issues, the big topic in Tunstall’s own life right now is her recent traditional Christmas Day engagement to drummer Luke Bullen. “For many years I was really indifferent to the idea of marriage,” she says. “It seemed like it was my parents’ generation of tradition, which as a kid isn’t what you want to follow. And I’m not religious, so it didn’t hold any sway in that way either.

“Then when Luke and I got together, my attitude began to change because I was with someone I wanted to stay with forever and have a family with. I wasn’t expecting Luke’s proposal. It really made me very happy and gave me a sense of fulfillment I didn’t expect at all. The other thing is—I absolutely love throwing a party!”

Stellar Ball, Mar 9. See concert listings (popular) for details.

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