KT Tunstall Biography

The teenaged Tunstall was not exactly exposed to much music, or indeed TV, in her Fife home as she grew up - in part due to the fact that her younger brother is deaf, and having the radio or TV on would make conversations harder. Paradoxically, Tunstall reckons that this helped her to be open-minded about whatever she heard, as she had no preconceived notions of what was 'cool' and what was 'uncool', so she could form her own opinions about whatever music she heard. The adopted daughter of a physics-lecturer father and a schoolteacher mother, Kate was always treated by them as something special, not least because her genetic mix of Chinese and Irish heritage from her 'birth' parents marked her out as different from the start on the East coast of Scotland. In addition, her father would always encourage her to be imaginative and playful, filling corridors at his physics lab with nitrogen gas so she and her brother could frolic about in the clouds. (Incidentally, her childhood excursions with her Dad to the St Andrew's observatory were also to be the inspiration for the name of her first album, 'Eye to The Telescope' in 2005).

At 16, KT got involved with a bunch of Fife folk musicians, chief of whom was Kenny Anderson (now known as King Creosote), who was to become a mentor of sorts to the youngster. She journeyed to Edinburgh, there to set up and host 'Acoustic Extravaganza' nights. She then travelled to New England for her last year of secondary school (or her 'high school senior year' if we must use the American term), falling in with the pot-smokers at her exclusive boarding school and firmly establishing her folk, hippy tendencies on a spring-break trip to Vermont. "It was a lifestyle thing that hadn't occurred to me. People gave up jobs and played in bands and didn't get on the ladder. It really resonated with me...It never really left, honestly."

After graduating from high school, Tunstall stayed on in the States for some time, soaking up the subculture, and managing to see the Grateful Dead perform shortly before Jerry Garcia's death. Upon her return to the UK, and after some musical collaboration with loose collectives such as the klezmer group 'Oi Va Voi', she eventually found herself in London. Her debut album, 'Eye to the Telescope', was produced by Steve Osborne, and Tunstall could surely not have even dreamed of a more assured debut. However, it did take that performance on the Jools Holland show to give her profile a shot in the arm, and it is entirely fitting that Tunstall's live prowess should be the reason that the greater public started to tune into her, given her unmistakable talents. Using her loop pedal to provide her own backing vocals and a raking guitar percussion track, the solo Tunstall wowed the audience and kick-started another leg of her remarkable journey.

Singles 'Black Horse...' and the tub-thumping 'Suddenly I See' were both huge hits, still enjoying extensive airplay today, and helped send the album to the number three spot in the UK charts, as well as becoming a million-seller in the USA. She was also a recurring feature of awards shows in 2005, receiving three BRIT nominations (winning one, for Best British Female Solo Artist), a Grammy nomination, and also a nomination for the coveted Mercury Music prize - losing out in the end to Antony and the Johnsons.

Amidst the acclaim and the commercial success, Tunstall has always strived to hold on to her hippy, eco-friendly integrity. As well as campaigning actively for the environment, and performing at the LiveEarth concert in New Jersey, she also 'does her bit' wherever possible - the Tunstall tour bus runs on bio-fuel, and in her recently refitted London flat she has elected to use carbon-positive wood, solar panels and sheep's wool insulation. Also, having planted a forest in Scotland when her first album came out, Tunstall is now using 100% recycled paper for the artwork on her new album, 'Drastic Fantastic' (2007). Not your average wasteful, wanton rock star, then- but this has never been what Tunstall is all about.

As far as the new long-player goes, that oxymoronic title describes the up-and-down existence that Tunstall has been living since she first shot to fame, and the three subsequent years of touring: 'You're flying everywhere, you're on stage, you're euphoric, you're down, you're thrown around, you're exhausted to the point where you can't stand up or speak. That's abnormal!'

And despite the exhaustion, Tunstall has pieced together another body of work that is likely to keep her in the charts, and on tour again, for some time. Although the album is at times somewhat harder-edged than her debut, attributable to her living in London and soaking up different influences and attitudes in the capital (and a soundtrack provided by Xfm), there is still the accessibility and quality musicianship and production that will surely solidify her early euphoric success into something more permanent.

• KT Tunstall Discography