Sometimes songs live with us for a lifetime, even though they still seem as fresh and new as when they were released. It’s difficult to comprehend that ‘Eye to the Telescope’, the monumental album that put KT Tunstall firmly on the world music map is 20 years old this year. Forging global hits like ‘Other Side of the World’, ‘Black Horse and The Cherry Tree’ and ‘Suddenly I See’, it was an album that eventually became listed in the 50 best selling albums of the 2000s and was nominated for the 2005 Mercury Music Prize.
Roll forward 20 years and the ever-youthful and jovial Tunstall is preparing to return to Australia & New Zealand later this month, as she supports Multi-GRAMMY Award-winning, diamond-selling band Train on their tour. Shows in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland gives fans a opportunity to celebrate the album ahead of it’s birthday show at the illustrious Royal Albert Hall later this year.
We talked to KT about her memories of that album, the shows ahead and working with Suzi Quatro…
KT: Hello. Good morning, how are you?
Sean: I’m good, or good evening for you. How are you, KT?
KT: Am I hearing an English accent? You are from the south?
Sean: I am indeed. Kent but sent to the island for my sins [laughs]. It’s Sean from The Rockpit in Perth. Thanks so much for your time.
KT: It’s fantastic talking to you Sean. So I’m not sure you might know that I’ve got family in Perth. My cousin Steven, his wife Jemma and their kids, my Uncle Pete and Auntie Pam. He had a dollar store in Fremantle and they moved up and they did well and settled. I think Steve’s in Margaret River now.
Sean: What a beautiful part of the country to live.
KT: I’ve not been.
Sean: Well I hope you get time to pop down there for the day or at least meet them halfway.
KT: I really really hope so. When you come that far and then don’t get time to see the family.
Sean: Well I see there are a couple of days between the first and second shows so hopefully that can be arranged! I was looking back and it is really ten years since you were last here in Australia?
KT: I think it may even be more than that. I came over and then, you know, it’s just one of those things where you’re just trying to find a way that works to get back because it’s so far and it costs money and you’ve got to make sure people are going to come and see the shows and then covid happened, that kind of put all touring plans back and so it was a real pleasure when Train extended this lovely invitation to join them and made it possible for me to come back.
Sean: Well, a fantastic run of shows ahead. You get to tick off almost every corner of the country, opening the tour here in Perth on the 18th May, which is wonderful, and at the most beautiful setting at Redhill Auditorium. It’s a stunning venue. What can we expect from your set? So many albums to pick from and of course, the anniversary is coming around for 20 years of that incredible debut album ‘Eye to the Telescope’.
KT: I’ll definitely give you a little overview of the career so far, but it’s really difficult not to play a good handful of songs off that first record, because they’re still so fun to play. And, you know, especially for Australians who’ve been waiting to hear, if they haven’t seen me play before, then they deserve some of the oldies, for sure.
Sean: ‘Eye to the Telescope’ was such a career founding album for you. When you came out of the studio after you’d finished that album, was there a feeling that this is something really special?
KT: I mean it was but it’s hard isn’t it because there was nothing to compare it to because it was my first record, so I mean as far as I felt, I’d just done my best to try and get the vibe right with it. You know, I think that was what was so kind of alien about making a record. You know, I’ve been playing guitar for 15 years and writing songs before I got my deal. I was 29 when I got my record deal and I’d sort of been recording songs on a four track in cottages, you know. But when it came to actually making the record, it was really such a steep learning curve of how to get your vibe like on a record and I think one of the things that really helped that was that we had a tiny budget so we made the record in a little house in the woods with duvets taped up on the wall to make it sound better and and I think that really helped it, where it just kept things really simple and that was why it worked.
Sean: Does that then put real pressure on you for a follow-up album? You’ve got everything stripped back to basics and then the label maybe start adding pressure to influence and direct you a bit more.
KT: Yeah it does put more on to you. It was unpleasant, I’m not gonna lie. It was really tough because that first record, I mean it’s a nice problem to have, that people are interested in what you’re doing but that first record was just so phenomenally successful that there was a lot of people who were invested in the second record doing well and they all had their ideas about how to achieve that and I didn’t agree with most of them and so it was very painful, the process of getting the second record together and in all honesty it didn’t come out the way that I would have liked and I think, while I’m very proud of it of all my albums, my second album is probably the one that I would like to re-record and do exactly how I would want it to sound. It just it got too smoothed out, it wasn’t rock and roll enough.
Sean: There’s been an incredible collection of albums so far but one I’d love to talk to you about is ‘Face to Face’, the album you did with Suzi.
KT: Oh yeah, sure.
Sean: How do you even begin to work on a collaboration with someone like Suzi Quatro? How did that initial contact come about?
KT: Well, on that second record, on the cover of ‘Drastic Fantastic’ I’m holding this massive guitar and it was actually meant to be a Gibson Firebird with a cool kind of rhombus shape but the person who made the prop, it’s not a real one because it’s covered in mirror ball bits, they traced the outline of a guitar so it was much bigger than a real guitar and ended up looking like a bass and I was just like “oh that’s cool, I look like Suzi Quatro” and so I always sort of thought about her as being a bit of inspiration for that cover, especially being genuinely the first chick with an instrument on stage ever in a rock situation.
And then we met after this massive Elvis show that was in Hyde Park in London. And we met after the show and she just said, you know, you’re one of the few people that I would hand the rock baton to because you’re doing what I used to do or what I still do. But she said I reminded her of when she started out, which was a huge compliment. And so we kind of made a pact that we would at some point try and work together. And then one of the positive things of COVID was that we were both at home. And once we were able to travel a bit, it meant that we had time because the gigs hadn’t quite come back online yet. And so I was able to just go down and see her and get to know her. And it was just an incredibly easy, very kind of seamless creative flow from us having conversations to writing songs. And I think we were both surprised by what we came up with. It was something different from either of us. It was a new place creatively that we found by doing something together.
Sean: I’ve been lucky enough to chat to Suzi a couple of times and I remember her saying she was stuck down there in Essex and her husband was stranded at their other place in Germany, in Frankfurt. So they were stuck apart for months and months.
KT: Yeah, a long time.
Sean: She’s got a massive affection and affiliation with Australia. She’s already been here this year and is coming back later on in 2025 too.
KT: Oh, she genuinely loves it. She’s always so excited when she’s coming back over.
Sean: So do you get many offers of collaborations that people would be amazed by, that haven’t quite happened with you?
KT: I mean, it’s funny because, you know, when you think of musicians, you sort of think of us all fraternising with each other, but we actually don’t see each other very much because we’re on it we’re on our own little tour in our own little hermetically sealed tour worlds. I was just getting Clueless: The Musical up on stage in London but had a bunch of other gigs while I was doing during that process. I went on the cruise with Train, which was fantastic and which is two modes of transport in one sentence [laughs] which is very confusing. And then went up and did some gigs in Scotland but I left home on 2nd January and I just got home on 1st April. That’s a very long trip for me but but it’s normal to be out for nine months of the year. It’s just the way that music is now, that’s how musicians make a living, by touring because we’re not making a living selling records anymore so the collaboration aspect is actually quite tricky. Finding time, there’s tons of people that we would all love to collaborate with, but it’s really difficult to find time where the two of you can actually get together. And it’s, you know, it would be something like coming on this tour with Train, where you’re actually hanging out in the same place over a period of time, and you can sit backstage with a guitar and play with each other, you know. But yes, there’s tons of people I would love to collaborate with so hopefully it’ll happen one day.
Sean: You touch there on time on the road, is that when you find time to write or is it just too much going on to be creative?
KT: There’s a band called Phoenix from France, I don’t know if you’re familiar with them but there was a very funny line in an interview with them where they said you can always smell a tour bus in a song which I think means that they’re not as good and and I don’t find tour particularly conducive to writing. I think one of the really important things for me is solitude when I’m writing and so when you’re on tour you’re just constantly surrounded by people and noise and you’re constantly needed here, there and everywhere.
So I don’t find tour that helpful when it comes to song writing. And what I found as I’ve got older as well, I used to kind of be writing stuff all the time and I don’t write as much anymore. And so what I do now is I sort of make an excuse that I need to go on a writing trip and I go somewhere cool. So, you know, I might go up to Taos New Mexico or I might you know grab an Airbnb, which is great as you just find a really cool place to go that you’ve not been before, where you can just hole up with a guitar, paper and a pen and a laptop and just get on with it and get writing and so yeah, I think that’s where I’m at now is that I actually have to kind of seclude myself to do to do writing.
Sean: With that in mind, are you working on anything new at the moment?
KT: Well, yes, yes and yes. And it’s a weird time because it’s the 20th anniversary of my first record. And so it feels like I’m sort of tying up the first half of my career and we’re going to be re-releasing the first record with some new old material. So it’s a few songs that were written at that time, but never got released. And a couple of which I kind of need to finish. So there is, you know, it will have taken 20 years for these songs to get written. But also because I’ve been doing the music on Clueless The Musical, which is now running in London. I’ve been working on that for five years and it’s a 20-song show and five songs that we rewrote, a couple got replaced so it’s been taking up a huge amount of my creative juices just to get that show up on stage and because it’s also my first musical I was having to kind of learn the ropes at the same time so I think now that that’s just finished and that’s now on stage I feel like I might get a little bit of space back to think about what to do next. w
Sean: Of course, there isn’t too much time to sit still after Australia because you’ve got something that is a little bit special on Monday 23rd J at the Royal Albert Hall. Incredible place to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first album. I only ever when to one show there back in 1988. It was Eric Clapton with Mark Knoffler, Phill Collins and the like.
KT: Oh how amazing! It’s double brilliant for me because it’s also my 50th birthday. I had to make a decision. I was like, Timmy’s in the Kitchen with my mates or the Albert Hall. [laughs] I’m going to do the Albert Hall. So we’re going to play, it’ll be a party. It’s like a birthday party for the album as well. So play the album start to finish and then have a bit of a birthday party afterwards with 5,000 people. It’ll be absolutely mega. It’ll be epic.
Sean: Before I lose you, I’d love to just finish with a couple of general questions.
KT: Yeah, of course.
Sean: My restaurant question, if you could invite three musicians, dead or alive, to join you for a bit of dinner, who would you have sat with you for the evening?
KT: Well, definitely Bowie. David Bowie’s there. I would love to meet Django Reinhart. I listen to Django Reinhart all the time, gypsy jazz musician from the 40s and and you know lost two fingers on one hand in a fire and is still the best gypsy jazz guitarist that ever lived so I’d have Bowie, I’d have Django Reinhardt and who else would we have… one more… God, who would I… I want to say Nina Simone but she’d probably just end up shouting at everybody [laughs] I think we’ll have Joni Mitchell.
Sean: Great table. Did you ever get to meet Bowie?
KT: I never did, sadly. I would have loved to have met him. But I think he’s one of these artists where you don’t need to. It’s like, I’ve heard such amazing stories about him and the way that he interacted with people and about his artistry, but also about him as a person. You know, you don’t always need to meet everyone. That was an interesting story that Suzi told me because she was a huge Elvis fan and Elvis like called her one day because she’d done a cover of one of his songs and he invited her to Graceland and she said, no. And she just said, “I couldn’t, I didn’t want to meet my God”.
Sean: Wow. I never knew that.
KT: Yeah, she said she never regretted saying no. I think it was probably a bit later, you know, when he was, he was sort of struggling a little bit and not quite who he had been and I think she was a bit nervous about being disappointed by him or whatever, but I thought that was cool that she knew not to pop the bubble of the dream of someone.
Sean: What was the last album you listened to KT?
KT: Oh I’m obsessed with this album by a band called Junip and it’s about 10 years old but it’s Jose Gonzalez who I love. He’s a fantastic artist but he’s kind of collaborating with this band Junip and it’s an album called ‘Fields’. I’m genuinely obsessed [laughs]. I think I’ve been listening to it for like 6 months straight.
Sean: Final question and I’ve saved the easiest for last, if you could be credited with writing any song ever written, what song would you choose?
KT: I’ll have ‘Life on Mars’, please.
Sean: Oh, what a tune! What a song. It’s yours for 24 hours. You can have it.
KT: I’m going to enjoy that very much, Sean. Thank you [laughs]
Sean: KT, thank you so, so much for your time. Really appreciate it. We can’t wait to see you come out and bring your music to this wonderful tour around the country. We’ll get all the dates up and hopefully we’ll get along to the Red Hill Auditorium ourselves to see the show.
KT: Thanks for your support Sean. Really enjoyed talking to you.
