KT Tunstall
KT Tunstall, known for her catchy anthem, "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree," recently released her sophomore album, "Drastic Fantastic" Besides being a musician, KT is extremely involved in the environmental cause. One of a kind, we delved into KT's mind to find out how she's making a difference in music and for the earth.
Photo Credit: Rahav Segev
The Star Scoop:
Tell us about why the environment is an important cause for you.
KT Tunstall:
Well, where do I start? I grew up in a really stunning part of Britain and the northeast corner of Scotland, and when I was growing up it was twelve thousand people and five beaches, and amazing cliffs crumbling into the sea, and six hundred year old castles, six hundred year old cathedrals, just really stunning. And to think that any of that's jeopardized...I used to go skiing every winter and the snow hasn't been coming and reading about all these fantastic places in the world I would love to go to and thinking that not only may I not be able to go, but my kids almost certainly won't be able to go to some places when I have them is just devastating and it just seems crazy because we're really just wiping ourselves out. The world will carry on without us. We're just being suicidal at the moment. It's crazy.
My parents as mountain climbers always had us outside and camping and up hills and it's a natural landscape and just a huge inspiration to me. When I brought my record out, I was learning about the statistics of these things, and the average American puts out 15 tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, and when I'd sold 500,000 records, I'd put out 650 tons of carbon with my CD products and my touring, my travel and all this. So, now I've sold over four million records; I realize the responsibility on my shoulders to do something about that amount of carbon for one person, So when I first started my career, I met a chap who'd set up a company with Joe Strummer of Clash, and they planted trees to offset his CD production, and I thought that was a brilliant idea, so I did that, and ended up with 6,000 trees growing up in Scotland for "Eye to the Telescope." Then also, that really sparked off, and I just thought, well there's things you can do everywhere. You can really cut down on the huge amounts of consumption of waste when you're touring. Recycled plates and cups and that kind of thing. Also doing awareness raising things during the day when I'm on tour with schools. I'll go around and play a school, if they've had a competition to see how they can green their school.
In my personal life, I don't have a car, and I've just completely renovated my apartment, so it's eco friendly. It needed doing. I got solar panels and [so on], and it's just been a hugely rewarding effort and it means a lot to me that I do what I can and with the gigs it's been great, too. You can take profits from ticket prices and offset people's travel to the gigs, which is really where a lot of the carbon I output from touring comes from.
The Star Scoop:
You've been involved with events with other celebrities. Do you feel that celebrities are the ones who have to set the example? What is the importance of celebrity community to get involved in the cause?
Tunstall:
Our Western culture is just awfully celebrity obsessed, which I find a little sad, but it's the way it is, and a lot of it is fun. There's a small proportion of it which is I think, really, really, quite twisted. But the fun part, where everybody wants to know what celebrities have to say for themselves, which has always been that way, that's where it can be really, really useful because if they get the information right, they can raise awareness about simple things that people can do and attitudes can really begin to change because it's being talked about. This isn't another live aid gig, where you're gonna help famine and poverty in Africa. This is actually something that's going to concern us. It's going to concern me, a middle class white person. It's not just opening my wallet and forgetting about it. It's actually really going to potentially change our lives within our lifetime and the way that we live. So, there's a different agenda, and people say to me, You have Live Earth, and then it's gone, and how are people going to remember? I really don't think it's going to be that hard because what's happening with the weather systems, and with famine, and with flooding, and with storms, it's absolutely on our door step all the time.
The Star Scoop:
Do you think that we'll be able to make progress? Are people headed in the right direction with the level of awareness circulating now?
Tunstall:
Yeah, it seems like there's a very, very fast growing positivity in terms of people being willing to listen. There's been a lot of cynicism towards it, and in the end, time will tell who's right, but at the end of the day, even if it's all misguided, we're not living in a healthy way emotionally or on a physical level. We're not treating the earth with respect, because we're losing great. great animal species at a far greater rate than would be natural. We're losing landscape at a horrendous rate, and that's not good for us. That's not good to lose these things that inspire and excite us as human beings, and we need to kind of evolve. We need to have a cerebral, emotional revolution anyway. It's all good, this movement toward a change of attitude. It's really gonna, I think, enlighten us that we are all connected as a species. Now we realize that guy in China, who's gonna set up a coal plant does affect us, and the fact that we've been living in an industrial area of the world affects them. It's important that we realize that what we do affects other people. We're not individuals. We are a group of beings together, sharing the same hotel.
The Star Scoop:
Has your passion for the environment affected your songs as well?
Tunstall:
I mean, not directly lyrically. There's a couple of songs I would say, like "White Bird" in particular is a real ode to mother nature, and it's white bird with a black tail. I guess we're in the black tail really. It's a mixture of the countryside and the city is what the song is about, and kind of being half and half myself, but it's also a bigger metaphor for the fact that we taint what we touch and it doesn't have to be that way. But no, I'm not going to start to writing environmental songs. It's not really my style.
The Star Scoop:
What would you the describe of the new album ["Drastic Fantastic"] as?
Tunstall:
I've really progressed going from the first one. The second one's fairly different. I've really embraced more what happens on stage with the band in this album. It's definitely got a much more rock pop slant. I just really wanted to delve into that. It's a time in my career where I'm incredibly excited by the new things that keep happening. It's just a shiny moment in my life and I think it says it on the album cover, how I'm feeling. It's just great to try out all these things that I wanted to try out and really to go for it, and do some fast, live stuff, but on the same record really still manage to do some more folk inspired stuff. Really, my influences for this new record were much more contemporary than the first one.
The Star Scoop:
Having been so successful, do you feel the pressure with the second album?
Tunstall:
There was pressure making the second album, but I just had to ignore it, because I don't want to make music for anybody. I want to make music because I think it's good. One thing that really scared me was the temptation to just do the same kind of thing again, because it had been successful. But I never thought it was gonna be that successful. No one did, and so for this one, instead of thinking, Oh, that album and the way that album sounds is why I'm successful, I don't really believe that. I think the success has come from people genuinely believing that I'm doing what I want. I think that's a big part of it, and that I'm a musician, not a kind of manufactured pop doll, although my music seems to manage to straddle into the pop world, which is really good fun. I just trust that people like the fact that I do what I want, and that's what I should carry on doing.
The Star Scoop:
As a genuine musician, what process do you go through?
Tunstall:
It's hard work; it's a lot of work! And I always considered myself quite a lazy person. I'm amazed at my capacity for applying myself to what I'm doing. I'm constantly just going, How do I just manage to do four eighteen hour days in a row. I just love it; I absolutely love it. I really thrive on it. Sometimes to my detriment, you know? I get so exhausted sometimes, but it's so great getting exhausted doing what you love doing.
The Star Scoop:
For people who want to check out your new album, is there a song or two songs they should download first, that you would recommend?
Tunstall:
I think that a good couple of songs to download if you just want to taste is probably "Beauty of Uncertainty" is one of my favorite ones, because it's really quite a departure from stuff I've written before. And then I think, "Hold On," which, it's the kind of graduation from "Black Horse" on this album. It's really a kind of beats led, blues influence. I think those two songs will show you the breadth of what's going on on the album. It's intended to be listened to all together, but I certainly don't have a problem with people buying their favorite stuff.
The Star Scoop:
So your album tells a story, has something collectively to offer?
Tunstall:
Yeah, absolutely. I think albums for me are pieces of work in themselves, and many of the songs on my album are enriched by the songs that surround them. Also, when you listen to an album, you really get to know the songs. I sometimes listen to an album and at first I don't like it. You get more and more from it, but you have to immerse yourself in it. It can't just be one song that you listen to while you're watching the television, while you're drying your hair. You've got to sit and listen to music to get what someone's made.
The Star Scoop:
Is there something that you want to say directly to the people reading this interview? Also, is there something you can encourage them to do for the environment, as well?
Tunstall:
Well, first of all, I think something I'd like to say is that I've kind of gone into a slicker realm with my new album, and I just want to totally assure people that this album is totally, exactly what I wanted to do, and that I wouldn't like anyone to think that I'm kind of being pushed to go in a different direction. I'll absolutely never put out an album that I don't think is my best and I don't think is what I should be doing. I really hope that everybody who liked the first one enjoys this one, but obviously, not everyone's going to like everything, so...it's my pledge that they can trust that I'm always going to be doing what I want.
I think environmentally wise, one thing that's a great thing to do, it doesn't take much time and won't cost you anything is to swap to a green energy provider. Where you get your electricity and gas from, with a click of a button on the Internet, you can swap over to an electric or a gas company that will supply your energy from green sources. The company I use in Britain is called Good Energy, but I'm sure there are many equivalents in America. It's a great thing to do, and it means that you're basically widening the net and increasing the consumer interest in green energy, and it really helps to convince the government that things must be done, and there is an interest from the public. And then the small things, like pull your phone charger out, because it uses the same energy as when your phone is plugged in or not, and turn lights off if you're not in the room, and just recycle, reuse, and just think about stuff when you're throwing it away.