Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My guest today is Katie Tunstall. Katie, how's your hearing?
Fifty great, fifty percent completely caput. So yeah, you probably know that I lost my hearing a halfway through a tour in twenty eighteen on my left side and it's never come back.
Tell me a little bit more, Tell me how you discovered it.
Yeah, it was obviously it was a massive shock. I'd got some top end hearing loss about ten years earlier, and I always say it's not the Spice Girl's fault, but it was after going to a Spice Girls show in like Wembley. But I'm friends with Sporty and she'd given me these amazing seats up front and I was very close to the speaker. I don't think it was necessarily just that. I think I was just burnt out.
My nervous system was struggling touring incessantly, and I'd just come off a long haul flight and I noticed that I sort of lost top end hearing and I got very bad tenetus after that, and I after whatever happened, you know, over that twenty four hours, and you know, tonightus as it's pronounced in the US is extremely frustrating and very difficult for a musician. And when I first got it, it was it was perfect Middle Sea pitch
and I could tune my guitar to the tenetus. And then I kind of thought that was that that I just had a bit of a tough ear. And then ten years later I was on tour and I was halfway through the tour and I wear earplugs on the tour bus, and I took my ear plugs out and on my left side, it just didn't make any difference,
and it just felt like my ear was underwater. And I'd suffer sensorin neural sudden hearing loss ss HL, which basically means they have no fucking idea why you've just lost your hearing, and they like shot some steroids into my ear drum, which can sometimes work, but it didn't for me. And yeah, so.
What's a prognosis never going to come back?
I think losing my hearing In twenty twenty five, there's more of a likelihood that something might happen where it can be restored. I don't know, maybe stem cells, maybe some new tech, you know, stick a robot in my ear see what happens. But at the same time, I find that I've really calibrated it to in a way that it doesn't feel as impactful as you might think. I've also got a profoundly deaf younger brother. My younger brother, Dan was born completely deaf, and he had a cochlear
implant when he was like in his twenties. But he's a tennis coach and I remember telling him, Oh, my god, I've lost my I've lost my hearing in one ear and he just did this like little tiny violin and he was like, oh, for you. And I was like, fuck you, man, you're not a musician.
If your brother was born deaf, how is that growing up in the family.
It's such a good question, and people don't ask me that very often, And I think it goes for any sibling, especially if the sibling is younger than you. But I think it probably it doesn't have a huge impact the order that you're in in a family. But you're always going to be more you know, you're going to as a sister, you're going to be protective of your little brother usually, And it was really interesting to me. He was born when I was four, and our family is
very interesting because I'm adopted. My older brother is adopted, and my mom was told she couldn't have kids, and then she got pregnant and she had my little brother and he was born deaf, and it kind of leveled our family playing field where it's like, yeah, boohoo, you've got given up your rescue human being, but this guy can't hear, so you know, all focus was really on Dan and making sure that he was loved and supported
in the family. But I was very close to Dan, and it was amazing watching people ignore him as we were going off and have these conversations, just just sort of not care that he was not part of it. So I would always be translating constantly, and I think just from a communication point of view, that's been really
fundamental for me. Like of just it's also like when I meet fans after shows, I can just feel that some specific fans that come and say hi are in a lot of pain, or they've had a lot of damage, or they have got some sort of disability, and I always like want to go to that person first. And I'm not like Mother Treys or anything, but I just I feel very sensitive to that because my.
Brother so did everybody in the family learn sign language.
Now, interestingly, we just my mom and dad decided because we grew up in such a small town in Saint Andrew's in Scotland, it was only like eleven thousand people or something. They realized that if he spoke sign language, he wouldn't be able to speak to anyone. No one else speaks sign language in our little town. So they've kind of quite bravely decided to teach him how to speak, which was really challenging for him because he it's hard and a lot of deaf people don't decide to learn
how to speak. And it was amazing watching it because you know, when he's seventeen and goes off to college, there's people who are way more deaf than he is, but he's the tray later between them and a hearing person in the pub, you know, and he's just done amazingly well. He's a really, really beautiful person. He's a very very lovely person. He missed out on a lot of that pifful kind of bullshit judgmental stuff that you
learn as a kid. Like I had a conversation with him as an adult, and he had no idea that ginger people got discriminated against, then got shit from people. He was just like, but why why not people with brown hair? And I was like, I know, I can't, I can't answer if it was just so beautiful, but he just missed that and he didn't know that that was a thing.
Okay, just a little bit deeper. Before the cochlear implant, he couldn't.
Hear anything, so he had a hearing aid. He had one of these, you know, phonic ears they were called. And interestingly, actually my mom and dad, my dad was a physicist. He got a sabbatical to UCLA when I was four, and there was a really good deaf clinic called John Tracy Clinic in La, so we he relocated to LA when I was four, which I think is why America and particularly the West Coast like imprinted on
me because it's my first memories. We're California, and my mom was just going to the clinic and kind of learning ways to deal with Dan and so he could hear somewhat, you know, with his hearing aid. It was funny because my mom had this remote like microphone that would like tap straight into his ears. So if he was on the street, like taking his bike too far. She'd be like, Daniel stop, and he just like grew up with the fucking voice of God in his ears.
It was really funny. And sometimes we'd like steal the microphone and speak to him from other rooms and stuff. And then he got his colt clear implant and they have to like put a magna in your skull to keep this thing on, and we would pretend that our silverware was like sticking to his head.
And as this sister, how is it different now that he has a cochlear implant? How well does he hear?
He hears a lot better. For sure, he can hear. He can tell the difference between male and female voices. He can hear pitch. I remember before he got it, I was trying to teach him how to sing song too by Blur. We were in the car and it was playing and I was like.
Dn did a Dan did a dead ada down a whoo, and he went, d's just.
Like doll black pitch, And so he he definitely could hear better. And there's this amazing moment after he'd had his coclear implant and he'd been to a few gigs of mine where I was now like playing through proper big PA systems so he could hear better rather than terrible pub pas full of people drinking and talking. And we're in the supermarket and black Horse and the Cherry Tree comes on the stereo and he looks at me and he goes, is that you? And I like nearly
started crying. I was like, how do you know that? That's me? And he just goes and I was like, that's basically my career.
You were only four when your younger brother was born. But did you notice since he had the disability that he got more attention?
I in our family he did, but I certainly didn't feel any resentment around that because you could tell that his life was harder, and I think out in the world he got less attention was he was quiet and he would not you know, people sometimes didn't want to deal with having to talk to death person. So I think it was those It was both of those things.
So although it's not unheard of, it is not common that a family has both adopted children and natural children. Can you speak to that experience?
It's it's a ride, it's a wild ride. And my parents were given the advice when they adopted me and my brother to start telling us that we were adopted before we would even understand. So basically it's like start practicing and and and I think that was a really great piece of advice. It's really hard. I think. I think the perfect situation would be for for someone not to even know until they were an adult and they were completely formed, so that they could emotionally understand that
it was all in their best interests, you know. But there's just no way of doing that. They're a kid is going to find out, and that's just the most awful, hurtful thing is to find out as a young person that you've been lied to. But so I think this is probably the best way of doing it, of me never having a moment where I found out, you know, I just always knew. I remember my dad when I was about four, I was rebelling and I didn't even mean it. I was just being naughty, and I say
to him, you can't tell me what to do. You're not even my dad, you know, which is just must have broken his heart. And my dad was not a very emotional man and he so I remember him sitting me on the bed and saying, I know we didn't have you, but we are your mom and dad, so you're not allowed to say that anymore. I was like, well, go and I didn't say anymore. And it actually it
didn't the whole, the whole adoption thing. I felt very comfortable about it all through my youth, and then it absolutely bit me on the eye when I was in my early forties. I guess it was some sort of midlife crisis, you know where, and especially being a musician, where you're sort of you have this persona right that you're sharing with the world, but it's not ever going
to be a complete picture of yourself. And I just had a huge identity what would be the word implosion and it was really around that and I'd never really explored it, and so I did for a good few years through therapy and through learning.
Can you tell me about the realization that that was the issue and then how you explored it.
Yeah, I, as you know, had that really successful record in two thousand and four, twenty and five, twenty years ago, and toured and then by it was probably around twoenty twelve, I had, you know, a house in London, a house in the country, an apartment in Edinburgh at one point, an apartment in New York, a nice car, a husband who was the drummer in the band, and I was just fucking miserable. And I just felt like such a cliche. You know, I've got I've realized this impossible dream, I've
got all the stuff, and I'm just not happy. And then my dad died. He had Parkinson's, but he died quite unexpectedly. My dad was just the most belligerent guy, and he just refused to stop cycling on his bike and he ended up like falling down a massive pothole in the road. It was so on brand for him, and so he actually died sooner than he would have done. But see, when he died seventy three, he was deteriorating.
So I mean, I think all of us felt that there was somewhat of a blessing in him not having to go through the later years of Parkinson's. And we were very much at peace, my dad and I. We had a really cool relationship, and so there wasn't kind of massive grief. I was very sad about losing him, but he'd had a great life and we we were really good where we, you know, ended up at the end of his life. But there was a huge gift.
I remember doing like CBS Morning Show or something. They came to St. Andrew's and it was this really great presenter and dad had passed and he said, your parents give birth to you twice, once when you're born and once when they die. And that was massively impactful for me, and I really related to it because my dad's death was this crazy gift where I realized of how much I was really doing things with him in mind, you know, and trying to trying to do the right thing all
the time. And then I realized that really that was tied to adoption as well. Was this kind of people pleaser in me which i'd also which had also really really like come into my professional life as well, which is not good for an artist. You know, you do not want to be a people pleaser if you want to make art. I mean, obviously aspect of that is great, is helpful to put on a nice show for people and all that, but when you're actually making the work.
And it kind of spiraled from there and I had what I learned the Eastern expression of a moment of SATURI of kind of instant awakening, and it was about it was in the weeks after my dad had died, and this this incredible awakening of just going fuck, I'm I just felt like I was living in the wrong life. It was very matrix. I was like, oh my god, I'm in the wrong reality. This is not the reality
I'm meant to be in. And one of the things that always made me laugh and kind of made me laugh at the time was like, my Wikipedia page is so dull. It's just like girl from Scotland does well,
you know, and that's it. And I was like, no, this doesn't feel right this and I'm and I'm and I basically realized I was married to the wrong person and I was not connected to source universe, god, whatever you want to call it, in a way that I had been when I was younger, and and I realized that really part of it was a big part of it was a self esteem issue. My self esteem sucked.
And there was a lot of bravado, you know, with the being an artist and sort of I have a song called hard Girls, which is kind of what this is about. It's just like presenting yourself as this tough chick, you know, heart drinking, crazy rock chick. I'm just like, sure I can put I can. I can be that, and I enjoy being that when when, when the time is right. But I'm also a girl with low self esteem, and that was coming from I think that was coming from a place of adoption. I think it's just part
of the course. You got a band. You're going to have abandonment issues if you're an adopted person, and it's how you handle those. But you're going to have them.
Okay, so you had this moment as a tory, But did you go to a therapist? How did you make the transition?
So I about three days. It was about seventy two hours of like this happening, and it was so crazy. Every single song I heard on the radio or in a car was like a message. It was songs I already knew, you know. I remember hearing Rescue Me and just going, shit, this is this is it was. It was overwhelming and it was somewhat kind of like, you know, I felt like I was tripping almost. It was just like the world was talking to me. And so I left. I just sat my ex down and just said I'm
not happy. This is not working, and he just packed the bag and left the house. It was just it was completely bizarre. And then and then I knew I needed to go into therapy. So I sort of started that journey and I did a lot of reading. I did a lot of kind of you know, obviously it's not just therapy these days, it's just such good resources online for reading and watching things and kind of opening my mind. And I think just part, I think a lot of it too, was like taking accountability for making
bad choices. You know, not all this stuff was happening to me. I think that was the thing that was really tough, actually was I was in charge the whole time. I was making all the decisions. The whole point of wanting to be a musician was because I didn't want to work for anybody, and I wanted to call the shops and I wanted to write my own narrative, live my own life without anybody telling me what to do. And I fucked it so badly, I'd got it wrong,
and I think it was it. There was a feeling where you can either do the British thing, the British contractor thing, where you just constantly kind of like paper over holes in the wall, no hotel, and there's layers and layers of shit underneath this white wall, or you just rip it up and you start again. And I decided that that was definitely a much more exciting way of living life, of really trying to just start again,
which is what my song Invisible Empire was about. I'll always make a joke that sometimes you have to go to home depot and just rent some heavy machinery and level this fabricated city that you've built that's your reality, and start again. And so I sold everything I owned and I moved to America, which was one of the best things I've ever done.
So you had all these houses, you sold them, You'd had had an apartment in you Where did you move to in America?
So I moved to La I'm trying to not say this, but I want to say this. The part of why I sold everything was because my ex ripped me off so hard. But I had this love of the West Coast because I'd been there as a kid, you know. So my first memories were like swimming pools and orange trees and great flavoring. And I loved America. I'd also done my last year of high school in Connecticut at
Kent School. I got, like randomly got this scholarship to the super expensive boarding school, which was awesome because I went to my first shows. I'd never really been to see live music. It was hard to go and see live music where I lived because an hour and a half away from any big city. So you know, I saw Fish and Van Morrison and The Grateful Dead and it was it was amazing and I and it was really the first time I got exposed to a lot of new music. And I'd always gravitated towards America as
a British kid growing up. You know, I'm happy Days is on from my you know, I'm watching that from the age of ten or something. Then Friends comes out, and you know, and all the movies, I mean, all my favorite movies. Thank god I was an eighties kid because it was just the best time. It was such an amazing time to grow up. You know, we got I went to See Back to the Future five times in a row at at the movie theater. And you know, my dad being physicist that you sort of got me
into science fiction as well when I was young. So all the vernacular, all the imagery and all the music I was just so drawn to in America. And I think because of La it just felt familiar to me. So I'm moved. I'd done some promo in Santa Monica and I looked down the boulevard straight at the ocean and a and a fucking dolphin like jumped out the water and did and it was like it left a rainbow trail. It's like, this is crazy. People live here,
like it's so nice and uh. And so I packed my bags off and I moved to Venice Beach and it was it was exactly what I needed.
Okay, all these years later, do you still live in Venice Beach?
No, So it got too crazy for me, unsurprisingly, and then I moved up to Tapanga Canyon for a while, you know, hitting all the hitting, all the musician spots, and it was beautiful up there. But I found that I was hankering after nature and I loved being up there and it was very beautiful. And there's like deer off the balcony that I can throw carrots to. And I was like, but I'm still in a metropolis, and I stay. And I'd met the love of my life in a dog park in Serenia Park, in a Calabat
or a thousand Oaks. I think it is and he was a jiu jitsu instructor for twenty years. I'd been a musician for twenty years, and we were both just like it was so cool. It was like a John Hughes movie. Our dogs introduced us in a dog park and I might write a musical about it because it's just so funny. And we just decided it was time to leave the city and go somewhere with some space and go somewhere that felt healthier. I guess I've never
loved cities ever. I never I never would have imagined living in cities as long as I did, but it was just useful, you know. But I found I wasn't using Los Angeles for it's you know, I guess, for this city aspects of it. And so we went to a friend's wedding in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and my other half Chris, just ten minutes in, was like we
should live here. I was like, I'm so down. So we just in four months we first sight we saw, we were like, this is it, and we just we did it again, packed off and just left and love it there. It's really great.
So how long have you been living in Santa Fe.
I've been there about four years.
And how close to town. There's a downtown in Santa Fe.
Yeah, there's the plaza.
Right, and it becomes pretty rural pretty fast.
Oh for sure.
How far from downtown do you live?
So we're like ten minutes drive, but we're out in an arroio and it's it feels extremely rural where you can't hear traffic where we are, and our neighbors are pretty far away, and it's it's definitely a secluded life. It's an I love it. I'm very happy to be somewhere. Sorry, there's a child in the room next door. Very very happy to be somewhere where I feel completely enveloped in nature and not urban madness.
Okay, But as an artist, there's an issue of inspiration. Now, you could be sitting at home and reading a book or looking at the wall and getting inspiration, but certainly when you live in a city you're encountering more so do you find you have just as much inspiration the same kind or different inspiration living in New Mexico.
It's really funny because I thought that I worried about that, and you know, inspiration is for sure directly correlated with the input that you're giving yourself and you know your environment. And I remember my good friend Tim Smith, who's an amazing dude. He built the Eden Project in the UK, which is a music venue but also this incredible environmental center. But he was in the music business in his early life.
But he said that when I moved to Venice Beach, he was going to buy me a roller blind of Hackney. He said, when I'm in my studio, I've got pulled down the roller blind and just see something horrible. Not that Hackney's horrible, Hackney's very nice then, but something gritty, you know. And actually Venice Beach was gritty, certainly gritty
enough as it turned out. And I think what I've gravitated to, certainly as I've got older, and I'm sure this is not unusual, is you know, one of the very deeply inspirational figures of New Mexico and Santa Fe is Georgia O'Keeffe. And I've been very very inspired by her legacy. And the museum in town is fantastic. It's a it's such a fantastic owed to her, and it's very alive. It feels very very much kind of like
a living museum. And what I love about it is just the rebellion in her art, the rebellion in the way that she lived her life. You know, her partner Alfred is it Stiglitz? Is that that right? I can't remember his last name, the gallerist anyway, who was her partner. There's this beautiful letter in the Georgia O'Keefe Museum and it says, Georgia, you finally have what you always wanted, a ranch of your own. And it's ghost ranch where they actually do music as well. They have gigs up there.
And I just love the fact that this guy understood that what she really wanted was solitude. And the two things that I've always needed to write songs is solitude and a view. And I think it doesn't really matter where that is. But having said that, my songwriting is rarer.
It's not as prolific as it was. And I'm looking at, you know, writing a new album after this twenty twenty aniversary re release, and it is somewhat it's somewhat unsettling, you know, not writing all the time, and there's there's the constant sort of conflict if am I too am I just too happy? Am I too? At peace? Does? Does music, and music has always come through a therapeutic purging of difficulty, and it's always been personal for me. It's never been kind of big statements about the world.
So it's an interesting point in my life where I have to I have to, really I'm a big believer that there's you when you make a record. It's got because you have to make a record. You have to have something to say when you make a record, and so I really have to work out what I want to say now because I'm not it's not obvious.
So what have you learned about love? Marrying the band member, having a realization he was the wrong one, finding the guy in the dog park? What are the insights here?
Oh, myriads of myriads. I think one of the things I've learned I learn a lot from Chris all the time, which is why I love being best friends with him and being with him. He's he has no problem challenging ideas, challenging behavior, which is great for me because I can be I can be a petulant little shit if I want to be, and it's great having a partner doesn't
put up with that. I think the thing that I've learned most with him or certainly one of the things that is most profound was this idea that you will always have your own house, and that person spiritually and that person and emotionally, that person will always have their house, and then you will have a shared house. But I think it's always good to keep your shed, to keep
your personal shed. And I think what I learned with Chris, both of us had gone through a lot of personal work by the time we met each other, which was awesome. So we didn't need each other in that way, and we weren't looking for a relationship to fill an empty corner of our shed. We were meeting each other to
make a new house. And what I really learned was i'd sort of been fed, I guess, just you know, from the ether, fed this idea that you should share everything with your partner, you know, And I just think that's not true at all. I think that there's there's there's a lot of behavior, there's a lot of kind of reactionary behavior that comes out that has nothing to do with that other person but can but can have a negative effect on them. And so I think that
was something that was really interesting for me. Just go, oh, that's my ship. I need to sort that out. It's really I need to. It's basically the metaphor I like is, do not get dog shit on your shoe and walk into your house. Clean your shoes before you go in.
So he's living in New Mexico. What does his life look like?
His life looks very different than it was. So he was he was an art major. He was he was possibly going to be a you know, he could have been a pro baseball player. He loved baseball. And it's amazing that I've done the music for Clueless, the musical in London, and his life was clueless. So he grew up in the valley grievously Bush had the house party where like the cops and the helicopters turned up. But he grew up playing baseball and unbelievably, one of his
childhood best friends was t J. Jackson. So Tito Jackson was his baseball coach. When he wasn't on tour, he'd like gone back and teased the baseball. In the end, he decided it wasn't it wasn't something that he could. He wanted to just dedicate his life to which was what was going to be. So he ended up an art major. Up in San Luis, ABIs Bowl and then Long Beach. I think he was art college and he walked past the martial arts gym and saw people doing jiu jitsu and he walked in and that was that.
He was just completely addicted. And so he was the head coach at the Gracie Academy in Beverly Hills for about fifteen years and then kind of peeled off to do his own thing. And then of course COVID happened, which was not good for martial arts and music where everybody is in close contact and in the room together. And so he's working on a new more art arts based martial arts project at the moment, which is really exciting.
But he's yeah, big pivot whilst also holding down the fort in the beautiful high desert with four dogs.
And Hapapi economics, you know where seems like you're making more bread than he is.
Yeah.
Attention to the relationship, it.
Really doesn't, It really doesn't. It's I find I think it would with certain couples, you know. And I find it's much more exciting for me to do what I love doing. Go out. I've got a great job, I make a great living. And then afford him the space to really follow something he's passionate about. And what he wants to do is going to be a real community give back project, and so I don't want to share.
It's his place to talk about it. But it's exciting to sort of feel like a team in that way that I'm going out and doing the music, doing the gigs, make the money, and then I love what he's planning, and it's it feels like putting our team energy into something that can that has the potential to be really great for other people.
Now you're not married to him, correct, Now, what's the thinking there?
I don't know. I mean, the thing is that we call each other and wife because I'm just I'm too old to have a boyfriend. But it's just I'm too old. It feels too weird to say my boyfriend. So I don't think either of us feel at all strongly about you know, it would just it would just be for practical legal stuff that makes life a bit easier when you're married. But we're not in any hurry to do that. We're very happy.
Well, I've been with my girlfriend for twenty years and we're not married. She's been married twice. I've been married once, and after being divorced once, I certainly don't want to go through that again.
Yeah. I feel that way too.
Even though divorced. Yeah.
Yeah, it will fucking put you off, that's for sure. It's a it's a horrible it's a horrible process to go through. You it's so unpleasant. So yes, I think avoiding that is a very good pro of not doing it again. But yeah, it's I don't think it's massively important to either.
So you're rex he moves out other than lawyers, do you have any more contact?
Oh, it's just grim. Like we had to do mediation and like get in a room and oh it was gross. It was terrible, And that the terrible part of it was that I was faced with, like how bad the decision had been to marry that guy. I had to like, you know, seeing the worst side of it because he's extremely hurt that I've left. And then you see a very different side of somebody, especially when they're trying to
get half your money. You know, that's just a it's a horrible it's a horrible thing to witness in someone that you spent ten years with.
You say, he ripped you off, in that.
In my opinion, I'm sure he would he wouldn't use those words. He in his words, he wanted what he was entitled to, and it was it was very painful for me that side of it, just feeling like it was just grossly unfair.
So looking back, when you made the decision to marry him, you go on at this point that you had made prior to this lightning bulb coming down. You made all these bad decisions. So what was the decision to marry him in retrospect, what was going through your brain? And why was that bad?
I think I don't blame myself for it, and I don't I really understand what I was needing, And what I was needing was something grounded and something reliable and something that felt safe, which ironically ended up not being
that at all. But at that time in my life, i'd moved down to London, so we met before my record came out, and I'd moved down to London, and I just needed something to hold on to while this life was this hurricane was going on, where I was becoming well known, I was having a multi platinum record, I was touring the world. One of the things, one of the really discombobulating things about being successful was that I just hadn't even occurred to me that I would
be a boss. You know, I just wanted to. I really wanted to be one of the guys in the band, and I wasn't and I couldn't be that, and so I was a bit allergic to taking responsibility of being the boss of a business. And it felt very lonely being the turn, you know, being being the queen bee, I was different from everybody else. People you know, had to kind of behave when they spoke to me, and I had to be like literally chaperoned everywhere, like a
little fucking golden eggs. So nothing happened to me. But I just sometimes I would just like sneak off at the hotel just to have a walk, so there wasn't anyone with me. I mean, it was so suffocating sometimes, but you understand, it's just like nothing, you can't let anything happen to me, because you know, I'm the egg
and so I needed to know. And he was a very straight laced dude, so I just knew that it was I think it felt like it was holding onto something that would stop me just completely going off the rails, which now I look back and I think I should have just let myself do that. That was, you know, it would have been a lot easier and cheaper.
What other bad decisions did you realize you made.
That's a good question when I actually have to list them. I feel like it was a perhaps a kind of attitude to way of life where I think I had fallen into this weird trap of convention, where I built this life that was allowing me to live an artistic life and live a free life, and I just sort of all these small choices had made it feel extremely conventional, and really underneath it, I'm not a very conventional person,
and I don't and I find that convention oppressive. And I think my nurture and going back to, you know, growing up as an adult kid, I think my parents were very straight laced, and you know, my dad was a physicist, my mom was a teacher. They didn't kind of go to bars or it was all dinner parties
with other scientists coming to the high Sea. It's basically kind of square, you know, academic, and I think that that was overriding my my wildness, and so I just ended up feeling like someone had clipped my wings when I was in a cage.
Okay, so you're talking like your roots are being responsible, and most artists, not all of them, but a lot of them are irresponsible. So now that you're conscious and you're in charge, how do you deal with that balance? You know, I would say there many artists have to be an artist because they could work at the seven eleven because they couldn't show up on time.
That's might be able to do the work.
Yeah, so how do you make sure you don't clip your wings going forward?
It's a great question, I think. You know, during that time in twenty twelve when I moved to America, I thought I was going to give up. I thought I was going to give up music, not music completely, I thought I was going to give up being an artist. I felt like I'm done. I don't want to be front facing, I don't want to be in the public
realm anymore. I'm so bored of this, like hamster wheel, of making a record, working with whoever the big producer is, trying to compete on radio, doing your promo, doing your tour. And you know, the whole reason I wanted to be a musician was I hate repetition, and there I was in absolute feeling of repetition. And then what I realized was, yes, you can alway, you can find reputation in anything that you're doing. You know it's on you, but it's on you.
It's on you to not make what you're doing repetitive because you're in charge. You're making the decisions about what you're doing and how you're doing it. And I was allowing myself to be made part of some machinery that I never intended to be part of. I don't want to be part of. But it was like, how else do you do this? How else do you release records and have a tour if you're not part of this machinery? Right?
And so I thought I was going to completely walk away from it, and I got accepted onto the Sundance Film Institute's Film Composer's Lab, right be the great Robert Redford. And I don't think I wasn't very good at doing film music because I'm too much into melody and it's too doesn't fit my writing perfectly, but it was it was extremely freeing to go and learn something else. And one of my tutors actually was Alan Silvestri the did the music for Back to the Futures. That was extremely
exciting for me. It was what was really important about that time was that I got the hooks out and I knew I didn't have to do it, and that was that was the really important level up was under was really really understanding that I didn't have to do it and I could walk away and I could just have a different life. And I still always just have these fantasies of just disappearing. I'm sure lots of musicians have this, where you just it would be so great to just walk away and not be seen again. I
remember reading this story about Madeline Peru. Are you familiar with Madelin Prairiue. She's a she's a she's a really interesting French kind of pop classical artist. But she's quite a wild child, I think, and she just and I just remember reading this story that she just disappeared and no one knew where she was, and I just thought, oh my god, that's so cool, it's so great.
Way, let's slow it down a little bit. What is the appeal of disappearing.
I suppose the that the freedom, it's the wildness, it's the freedom that you're not dictated to. No one's telling you you've got to go to work, no one's, no one's, no one has ownership of your movements and of your decisions. And I think being an artist, I mean a musician, Uh, it's it's it's it's very extreme, you know, being a
touring musician, it's all encompassing. You go on tour, it's twenty four to seven, You're living in a little sardine can with six blokes that you end up spending more time with them than they do with their wives, you know. So I've chosen vocation that really is so often it's just all or nothing. There's not really a balance to be had. It doesn't exist a lot of the time. And so I think it's that, I think it's just a kind of a fantasy of just I'm just gonna leave. I'm just not gonna do it.
Okay, obviously, if you were to do that, whether you did it or not, they're economic issues involved. The artists has done much better, the business is much more sophisticated than it was fifty years ago. But you obviously had to pay your rex a certain amount. You've had us certain level of success. How are you doing financially doing good.
I feel very lucky in this I feel, I have to say, I feel like on many levels and all the way through my career I felt like an anomaly in a very which I'm very grateful for. You know, even that first breakthrough, I was just like a busker from Scotland and the album was like super stripped back with no bells and whistles. I really didn't have a record company breathing down my neck telling me to take my clothes off or dress this way or look for this way. They weren't telling me to do that. They
were really just if anything. The second record was difficult because I wanted to lean into the rock star stuff and they were like, we want to keep you the girl next door, just keep wearing your jeans, and I was like, no, I want to try on some sparkly shit. And it's all felt very you. It's all felt really unique,
which has been which I'm really grateful for. And I think where I'm at twenty years later is I'm very I'm proud that I can look back at every record and I didn't do what was expected and I changed up my really like seriously changed up how each record sounds. It's that I've never repeated myself. I don't think at all with what I've produced, and I think that now is feels like my purpose is just to keep Beck was a big inspiration to me when I was young
when I saw Loser on MTV. You know, I'd grown up watching Top of the Pops and I saw you know, Kim Wilde. I thought was great. I loved her, but in general all the pop stuff, I loved the songs, but it never made me want to be a musician. And it was when I saw Loser on MTV and I was just like, holy shit, that sound it is amazing and looks amazing, and he's weird and he looks like a boss, he looks homeless. It's like, how is this working? And that was sort of my journey into
wanting to be a musician. That like kind of fifteen sixteen.
So if you decided to go to a desert island today, do you have enough money and enough royalties or are you working for a living?
I'm still working for a living, but because I've it's because of the lifestyle I've chosen. I have a beautiful house in Santa Fe and I have a very comfortable lifestyle and that I'm working to keep that. But if I had to move to a desert island, I would be I would be fine because I would not have to pay for pro paine.
Okay, so you know you're a woman in the music business and you're not a pop act. That's a category into itself. On the rock side, more art to side, we certainly had the me Too movement starting like seven years ago, but whatever the amplification, those issues always existed. So what it's been like for you being a woman in the music.
Business again apparently an anomaly. I really feel like I have come up against very very little sexism in my career. The sexism I have come up against has certainly been on the business side rather than the touring side. On the touring side, I've had a great time, and I feel like the men I've worked with, if anything, have been polit and better behaved because they're working with a woman. And I've also always I've always conducted myself as a musician first. I don't feel like I sort of trade
on the on the fact that I'm female. I'm very much in Chrissy Hines camp here where it's like you're a musician, you happen to be female and business side, I think the thing that's been most frustrating is there's a lack of confidence in female artists compared to male artists, certainly in my maybe not in kind of the super pop realm or the hip hop an urban R and B realm that's I think it's very different kind of culture culturally, but certainly in indie rock folk music, I
will be playing a venue that someone who's really on par with me in terms of style and success is getting offered a bigger guarantee than I am, or I'm not being given a very high building on a festival lineup, which when really the data does not suggest that I should be here, I should be there, and that feels like it's due to being a female artist.
Let's just go back to your time of epiphany and just go back to the adoption for a minute. So what point did you search for your roots in your birth parents?
So I was twenty three, So I didn't get my record deal till I was twenty nine. I was twenty three, I'm unemployed, want to be a musician living in Edinburgh, or actually I was still living in Saint Andrews hanging out with a bunch of very cool in the kind of punk folk musicians called the Fence Collective. In Saint Andrews, the head head folk punk was a guy called King Creoso Kenny Anderson, who kind of started that he was the Goudy of our little town, just making really strange,
great outsider music. And I watched a brilliant movie called Secrets and Lies by Mike Lee, and it's so batshit crazy. It's this black adopted woman who tries to find her mom and she it's Brenda Blefflin, who's an amazing actress. And she goes to the doorstep of this woman's house and she says, I think you're my mom, and she looks at her and she goes, Darling, I don't think that's possible, you know, And then she suddenly remembers and she goes, oh my god, oh my god, I do remember,
you know. It's just and it's so crazy. What happens in that movie is so funny and dark and awful. And I was like, I could handle that. I really think I could handle that, And so I started looking. I sent My parents had always been very gracious and very very supportive, so we'll always we'll always stand by if you want to find out. And I I remember calling, I had a number, I had more information than I should have had. Actually, they got given like some a
lot of information about who they were. And I couldn't find my birth mother, my biological mother, so I sent I found out that her brother was in the army. So I sent a letter to the kind of army headquarters in Scotland, and then forgot about it and didn't hear anything back. And then there was a number for my biological father in Ireland, and I called the number and this older woman answered, and I was like, holy shit, this is my grandmother. And I I didn't know if
he told her. I didn't know if they knew, you know. So I just had to say, this is a friend of John's from the seventies. And she was obviously like totally suspicions that we don't hear from him very much. And that was that. And then six months later I got I was in my little house on the Experts with Saint Andrew's the phone it was what a WAE line phone, and the phone went and funnily enough, the guy said, is that Kate I said, yes, he goes, it's your uncle Bob, and I said, I don't have
an uncle Bob. He goes, well you do now, And then I was able to meet with her and she lived in Edinburgh, very very nearby, and it was what it was a really wild experience. And she's tiny, she's
half Chinese, half Scottish. We kind of look alike. But what I found out in later years, we're not that long ago twenty nineteen, when Long Lost Family, which is a TV show in the UK, I could never find my biological dad and they said, you want us to find him and be part of the program, and I was like, oh my god, do I really want to do this on camera? But then they said, look, we've
got access that general public don't have. You also get a social worker that basically a therapist that anybody involved with the show can call for the rest of their
life if it's to do with the program. And I was like, man, I wish I had this support when I did it the first time round, and I thought, it's probably the last chance I'm going to get to find out who he is, and so I said yes, And then it turns out I look really like my biological dad, and he was an irishman with a great voice, and sadly he passed by the time I did that program. But they said, they said, off camera, you know he's past, really sorry, but we'd like to wrap things up, you know,
on camera. So we did this like shoot and the guy presenting Mickey Campbell, he's quite a well known presenter. He's also adopted in the UK. He just goes, there is something we didn't tell you. And I was like, oh my god, what And he goes, You've got two sisters and they're within two and three years of you in age, and they's been living fifteen miles away from you when you were growing up, and so he'd had
kids with someone else very soon after. And we are so alike, and they're so great, and we've got a fan we've got a fantastic relationship, which is just and I had no sisters growing up, so it's that was a wild ride. But it was so crazy because of course I knew I might have siblings, you know, they
had no idea, no idea. Turns out he like had kept a baby picture of me and his wallet, and you know, he was he was he had wanted to keep I think, and it was my mom just wasn't able to My biological mother just wasn't able to do it. But the program called them and they just have to sort of give them the information slowly to let them keep, you know, emotionally, keep up. They said, we think we have reason to believe you might have a sister that you don't know you have. And she's Scottish and she's
a musician. And they put the phone down and Chaven and my older sister said to let all my younger sister. So I'm the oldest. She's middle and she said it's Katie Tunstall and Mell was just like, what are you talking about? Don't be ridiculous, Like this is insane. And they had my album in the house and she went and grabbed my album, grabbed a picture of their dad and just went look and lol went, oh my god, they look exactly the same. And so that's just been
a massive joy. But I'm very lucky, because you know, these things can be pretty tough, but it's it's really been a lovely knee chapter of my life.
Just going to whatever happened with your mother and going forward, what was the meeting like? And then what happened thereafter.
It was it was really bizarre. It was really strange because I'm I. You don't know how to do these things right? You did, There's no rule book for it. And she'd asked if I would like to stay with her and did I did I stay the night? I don't, I can't. I definitely went over there and like had dinner at their house and my family we sat at the table every night six o'clock. Mum made dinner. We'd sit around, they'd make us talk about what school was like,
and like we'd have a family dinner. And then I went over to my biological mom's house and we had we got we had dinner in front of the TV, which I'd never done, and it just felt so alien and so weird. It was like just being so transported
into someone else's completely different family life. And I had a younger half brother, James, great guy, he was about eleven, and so we were sort of there eating, sort of trying to pretend that this was like normal, this like family dinner, and it was just so weird, and it was. It was, It was but wonderful. It was also like, you know, you're in all just going what I was inside that person who I've just met, and it was a very it was a difficult journey for a good
few years. It was a hard time, and I'm really grateful that we overcame difficulties and that we're we're not in we're not we're not close, but we're in touch. You know, we'll message each other now and then. But it was definitely like it was definitely hard on my parents. You know, they were understandableving nervous and afraid for me that it would be hurtful or it would be disastrous, you know, and more even more difficult that I was.
I then went on to become well known, and so I was always just very I knew I had to be quite careful around all of it. And it wasn't just about me. It was about my family as well.
You don't have children, Is that because you didn't want them, or because you're too busy being an artist, or because the adoption, or because of whatever.
All of the above. You nailed the main three. I think when going when I was in kind of boring Wikipedia page life that chapter, I never questioned it. I was just like, yeah, of course, of course I'm gonna
have kids. That's what you do, you know. And then got my married and my ex was very keen to have kids, and that was when it was just like, oh shit, I've never really spent time deeply thinking about this, which one should and one should before one gets married also and about what you both want, and it was just I was trying to keep it down and try, you know. We tried to have children, and thankfully I
didn't get pregnant. And I think in another life, if I'd gone through that epiphany I talked about of like really sorting my shit out and really making peace with the adoption staff, and if I found all of that sooner, and if I'd met someone but I did want to have kids with, I think I would have probably really enjoyed it. And I but I just I really, in my heart, being honest with you, I don't think I would have wanted to be a musician at the same time as being a mum. I think I would have
just wanted to be a mother. And I think that that I think that that that was a choice too. I was just like, you know, I feel like what I do creatively has a uniqueness to it, and I think I've got something to offer, and I think that it feels like a really positive purpose in the world. I have a very I have a very positive feedback from other human beings for what I do and what
I share. And I just I didn't feel like I wanted to stop doing that and I didn't want to do I felt like I would not be good at doing both at the same time.
So for those of us living in America, when we think of Saint Andrews, we think of golf. Yeah, is that something if you live in St. Andrews you think about?
So growing up in Saint Andrew's I was slightly I was a tomboy and quite a rebellious kid, and the only women who were allowed into the RNA, the royal and ancient golf club in Saint Andrew's with the bar maide and the cleaner, and so I was like, well, that seems like a bunch of bullshit. So I was very like anti that scene because it just seemed stuck up and sexist. And I just I didn't like the
boys club thing. Obviously it's changed now where you know, it's much much more equality in that sense, but it just never ever appealed to me. And I went on tour. Two weeks ago. I had a really great bus driver called Dino, and he took me for my first ever golf lesson. We went to Top Golf and it was awesome. I had a great time. So my dad would always take us to the Putt and Green. There was really
cool litt putt and green called the Himalayas. It's sort of a bit like a mini you know, crazy mini golf where it's all these hills and you've got to get into the hole. And so I love that, but I was I was never interested in in adult golf. And I feel like maybe turning fifty, maybe it's just Jeanette. It's a genetic, DNA human thing that you just.
To beat a dead horse. It's like, if I'm going to Saint Andrews, is it there's going to be a sign home of golf or people are going to say, oh, that's what we're famous for. Or if you live there, go yeah there's a golf course. But yeah, some people play.
It's a big deal. It's a big deal people people are very proud of it and a lot of there's a lot of local great golfers and do you play.
You know, I played as a kid. I don't play anymore.
Yeah, no, I would, I would, I would. I would be persuaded man to have a go.
Okay, how did you end up going to Kent?
Yeah? So the school system in the UK, the Scottish school system is different from England. So in England you do what's called a levels and it's two years of kind of intense like three or four subjects. And in Scotland we had a different system, which was hires, which is less intense and you do more subjects. So I did five hires. I did art, music, French, history and English. And I was young for my year anyway, but I
basically was able to graduate high school at seventeen. It was on my seventeenth birthday and I was really really ready to leave school. I didn't want to be in high school anymore, and I wanted to take a year out before going to university. And you know, there's all these amazing things that you can do on your gap year as we call it, but a lot of it was you had to be eighteen and I didn't want
to go to UNI at seventeen. And my mom found this advert for this this organization called the English Speaking Union who sponsor kind of kids from America to come to Britain and vice versa, and I just kind of went for this interview and I feel like I was like the special the special kid that got to go because all the other kids were like, you know, into kind of politics and it was very academic, and I felt like this sort of drama kid who got given
the special arts award and got put. I got sent to Kent for a year, and it was it was really an amazing experience.
Okay, I'm from Connecticut, are you. Yeah, that's northwestern Connecticut, which by Connecticut standards is the Boonies. Yeah, tradition prep school is sort of singular in that it's upper class.
Oh yeah, white. Yeah, so Ken wasn't It wasn't like overwhelmingly white, because there was these really it was really interesting. There was these fact like groups of Chinese students, of Korean students, of black students, and it was actually like really quite segregate, like itself segregating into these sort of little gangs. And everyone got on great, but there was it was noticeable kind of groups of different students, but it was crazy rich, like they've got their own indoor
ice hockey rink they've got on indoor swimming pool. I like studied photography, development and conducting and ceramics. You know, it was insane.
But how did you fit in?
I fit in pretty well. I mean I've never been I've never been a I was never a kid at school that had like a clique. I've never liked that. I've never been drawn to that. I like having different I like knowing lots of different people in different places. Which suits you suits me well as a musician. And I formed my first band at Kent School and my guitarist was he was a pothead and wanted to call wanted to call our band THHC. And I said, we
can't do we can't do that. So we were called the Happy Campers as Code and it was just, you know, it was a very very safe, sheltered environment and I would just that was when I started organizing my first gigs. It was really fun.
Okay, what does the average American not understand about Scotland?
I don't can I can I use terrible language. Of course, they don't understand the word cunt. The reason it sounds so bad in America is because you pronounce the t. It just it makes it so much more offensive. It's like so much more biting, but it's actually an absolute term of endearment in Scotland. You're a great cunt. I'm good friends with I've become good friends with Craig Ferguson, and we both as Scottish people now living in America,
we just love having this conversation. Just like the lack of understanding of how of how endearing it can be.
Okay, I go to Canada frequently and I know a lot of Canadians. Seemingly every Canadian in Los Angeles knows every other Canadian. Is it like Scott's Once you come to a place, every scott finds each other.
It can be like that. I mean, Scotland's a really small country. It's smaller than Greater London. It's just it's incredible to me the musical heritage of that tiny little country and the impact and the breadth of genre that that have come out of that country. It's absolutely staggering and I can only say it's coming from you know, Iceland is similar with its with its music, but Scotland's incredible.
I mean, you know, everything from the average white band to simple minds, the garbage to eurhythmics to I mean, on and on and on, you know, just fantastic musical legacy and history and current you know, current artists as well, really exciting and I it's it's one of the reasons I like America is that America just fucking love Scotland. They love Scottish stuff. They just want you to just like say stuff, just to like say something. Can you
just say something? I just want to hear you say something else, like like what and then because that's brilliant and they just love it. And it's you just feel extremely welcomed in the States being Scottish. And yeah, so it's you're often put in touch with Scottish people that people know and do you know them? I mean sometimes, Okay, you finish a kid's school, then what do you do?
So I finished at Kent. I my roommate Kent had wanted to introduce me to her hippie friend from Vermont, so thinking that I would fall in love with him, which I did, and I went off and spent the summer in Vermont in a basically on kind of hippie commune vibe, you know, the house where his mom had the artist mother had like built the house herself and we bathed in the pond with like eco friends.
I went to college Vermont. We had a house in Vermont. I gotta ask, we're in Vermont?
It was. It was near Fairfield, Okay, not far from Burlington, twenty twenty minutes for Burlington or something. And so I busked a lot in Burlington at that time, and it was great. I loved it. I loved life there. I just loved it. I would have stayed forever, but I had to go home and start UNI. And it was a huge heartbreak for me. That's where other side of the world came from. Huge heartbreak, leaving this guy and leaving America. And I just made a I was like,
I'm getting myself back to America. I have to get back to America.
Okay, I gotta ask, have you had any contact with that guy subsequently going back?
So I did, right, I did, and I did come back and I saw him again and I was just like, oh, he's you know, it's not the same. We're not We're not young and innocent anymore. And then not that long ago, I kind of looked him up and he is a carpenter. I guess he's would work whatever, but he's like a married, like kid on the way or had a kid or something. And I'd messaged and I said, I'm going to be in Vermont and it would be so nice to see you,
and and he's like, yeah, that would be good. And then the time came around where I was going to come. It was just on Instagram, right, I was just messaging. Time came around to come to Vermont and he he disappeared, like his account didn't exist anymore, and our messages had disappeared. So I was like, oh, well that was not meant.
To be right. Okay, you go to college or you say university where and what's that experience like?
So I get into It was one of the University of London colleges, which is called Royal Holloway and it was in near Windsor Castle, so it was not in central London, which was really disappointing to me because I was not really that interested in going to university. It was really just a means to be in London to do gigs. I knew from seventeen eighteen that this is what I was going to do, but I was studying their theater studies program. Which was really really good. They
have an amazing theater studies program. I did do a joint honors with music, but I ended up giving up music. It was like doing math. It was dreadful. There was nothing. It was just an absolute science class. I was sitting in this lecture for Shankirian analysis and it was basically this guy who discovered that you could overlay this sort of you know so analysis of Renaissance classical music, and it was all fit to this thing. And I was like, oh, whoop, do do well done? Like what am I doing in
this class? So I gave the music part up and just did the theater studies and it was It was fantastic. There was a couple of One of the classes that I remember most fondly was I did I did a course in camidia de larte, which is the Italian kind of original clowning. And I loved that class and I loved learning about the role of the clown and the traditional role of the clown. And what really stuck with me was was that the reason society loves the clown
is that they feel it's medicinal. They feel such relief in watching someone else fail and watching awful things befall someone else. It befalls the clown or the gesture, and they don't have to suffer that themselves. But they know it's you know, it's not actually happening. They're watching it being acted. But I loved that whole idea of the service of the clown who has to deal with all these terrible things happening to him. And one of the one of the exercises that we did was the whole room.
The whole class had to huddle into the corner of the room and one person had to come in and they had to come in and stand in front of the huddle of thirty and everybody would cheer, ah, just go crazy. And then they had to do it again, and the whole class would boo and jeer and shout nasty things at you. And we had this fantastic teacher called Angela Dicastro, who was a well known Brazilian comedia
alerted clown. She still does shows now, and she said, you have to understand, the clown cannot be affected by the crowd. You cannot let the crowd dictate your reaction and your response, and because how you respond is the clowns show. It's not in there, it's here. It's the clown mask that responds to how to what the crowd needs, you know, and that was that went deep as a performer.
So I got lots of really cool There was a lot of learning from a performance point of view, but I mean I think I was basically using it to get gigs. And so that was three years, and weirdly for me, at the end of three years, I had not found a band. I won Battle of the Bands, which I was very proud of, but I did not
find a band. I did not find my people in London, and I ended up going all the way back to St Andrew's and because really the most exciting musicians I knew at that time was still there.
Okay, before we go there, you talked about having your first band it Kent. Yeah, when did you first start playing?
I started, well, I I was definitely I definitely came out the womb musical. It was always, it was always present. I was always drawn to musical instruments when I was very very young. And actually I've got it on the wall in my little whiskey room at home where I couldn't write and I was trying to write music. You can just see this little baby, this little baby handwriting I'm trying to write musical notes and my mom being a teacher. It really just warms my heart in the
bottom right hand corner. It just says, good, my mom's marked my attempt at writing music. So I asked my parents for a piano when I was four, and then I just was It was very easy. I was very natural, you know, I learned very fast. I did years of lessons on piano. I never got very good at piano, it wasn't my instrument. And then I also did classical flute, so I did all my flute exams. And then when I was fifteen, at high school in Scotland, you start
getting given free time to study for exams. And I used to go up to the music music department and there was a guitar teacher called Tim, and I used to just go in there, I say, can I borrow a guitar? And I'm very grateful to him because he never tried to get me to take lessons. He just would let me borrow guitar so I could teach myself. And so I never had lessons in guitar or voice, but I had all my theory and background understanding through
learning piano from a really young age. So it was a nice way of doing it where I wasn't being instructed in the things that I was being creative with. But I had that kind of background, and so as soon as I as soon as I started playing guitar, I was like, Oh, this is it, this is what I'm going to do. I was into acting when I was younger, and I remember I got chosen to go and do some role Shakespeare company thing and I was like,
these people are no beds. They're just I was just like, they're just It was just so like, it was so performative all the time, and I was like, there's no way I could be surrounded by this. It would just go mad. And I also just wanted to write the words myself. I didn't want someone telling me how to say things and how to say other people's words. So music was just the natural kind of artistic swivel to go into that instead where I'd just be my own boss.
So when you were in college at the university near the Castle, yeah you say that you busked. You say you won the Battle of the bands, but you didn't find the band I didn't how much did you busk? Were you looking for a band? How do you win the Battle of the bands without a band?
So it was me and a mandolin player, my friend Jay right Mandalin's, and it was I really remember because there was this like goth band who'd entered and they were just so sure they were going to win, you know, and they were so pissed that they lost to a girl with a guitar and a guy with a mandolin. I've still got the poster, and my mom and dad had come down. They were visiting me at the time, and it was just awesome me winning battle with the
bands against the golf band. So as soon as I went to UNI, I started I was just straight to the kind of union students, union like events guy making friends with them and making sure that I could do a gig in the pub every you know, once a month. And then I had a little scooter and I used to go to Windsor where the castle is, which wasn't far away, and I would just get my guitar out and bosk. And I'd sort of learned busking from my
Scottish friends when I was living in St Andrews. They used to do that a lot, and I never busked at home because I would have been too embarrassed for my parents' friends to be like throwing tenpence pieces into my guitar case. So I did it in London, in Windsor out by college, and then I would go back
to America for summers. My best friend from Kent, Amanda, had gone on to do photography at the Institute of Chicago, and so I had a summer doing like open mic nights in Chicago that was wicked and I had a great time doing that. So I was just cutting my teeth, you know. And bosking is such an amazing way to learn your craft. It's just unparalleled because no one's there to listen to you. I'm quite a purist with busking.
I get very frustrated with boscos who use amplification. I don't think they should people quite some people quite like it. I would like to hear you just with an instrument, making people stop and listen to you, without having your fucking amp at eleven and not giving anyone any choice. And it's also like, if you could afford an amp, why are you bosking? I couldn't afford an amp when I was bosking.
So how often did you actually busk?
I would just do it at the weekend, so not every weekend, but i'd sometimes go into London. I remember I remember busking in Camden, which is, you know, like the kind of Venice Beach of London. And I remember playing and this young rock and roll looking dude puts a pound coin which was a big deal, into my guitar case and I was like, oh my god, that's Mark Owen from Take That and Take That, where like they had been huge, you know, they were like our
end sync. And I was like Mark Owen and he goes, you are really good, and I said, give us a fiver. You've beat your massive And then I met him, like I guess ten years later, after I'd had success and Take That hadn't had their big reunion, and he'd had a mildly successful career but it hadn't really worked out. And I said Mark, and we met and he knew who I was at that point and he said, uh, oh, it's so nice to see her. You know, well done.
And I was like, you gave me a quid when I was busking in Camden, and he goes, I might need to ask for that back. But yeah, so i'd I would bust pretty regularly.
Okay, you say, oh, well, you know you're a mark from take that? Why not a fiber? To what degree? These words have negative connotations? But I don't mean him that way. To what degree were you? And are you cheeky and aggressive?
Oh, Dad's not that. I don't take that negatively at all. I am. I definitely have cheeky and aggressive aspects to my personality. My dad was incredibly competitive, so I had a very competitive streak in me growing up, and I got in real hot water once in an early interview. I remember that the journalist was guy called John Lewis.
He was writing for I think it was Big Issue or so, one of the one of the magazines where it was like, you know, longer music interviews, and he was baiting me and I fell for it and it was so annoying, and he just said, you know, people compare you to Dido, and Dido was really big at the time, and I was really angry at this. He'd been kind of nipping at me during this interview and I was really green behind the ears and I didn't. I didn't. I wasn't in great control of my of
my kind of response at this at that stage. Yet and uh and this this really bothered me because Dido was a studio artist and I felt like Dido's music and it was huge at the time, you know, and I felt like Dido's music was it had done so well and it was its own thing. But I did not feel that Dido was known for her in her live performance. It didn't feel like that was what Dido's
career was really about. And I also didn't feel like she was a a very impressive singer, you know, her her style was unique, and the kind of mixture of her and her brother Roles production it made something that really hit a zeitgeist. But I did not feel like she would be in the pantheon of Aretha Franklin, you know,
or you know, ROBERTA. Flack amazing singers. And I really prided myself, and pride is exactly the word that was, you know, what was getting poked at this point where I hoped that I was standing out as a vocalist, and I just lost my temper and I said, well, that's not fair, Diety can't fucking sing, which was you know, a really unkind, hurtful way of expressing what I was
trying to say. And of course that's like the headline, and I wouldn't And I think I did a publicly apologize after saying that because it wasn't a nice thing to say. And it's not true either. She can sing, It's just I was annoyed at being thrown in. I was also very touchy about being classed as a pop singer when I didn't feel like one. And I suppose back to your question about being a woman in music,
that was something that was really funny. I could put three four man magazines on the table of reviews of me, and one said I sounded like b York, one said I sounded like Dido, one said I sounded like Janice Joplin, and one said I sounded like Joni Mitchell. And I'm like, well, make you fucking mind up because you can't sound like the only thing is we've all got tits, so like, can we have some honesty here? Like that doesn't make sense? So yeah, navigating that, I don't know why I started
telling the story. I can't remember.
So you go back to seeing Andrews after college? Then what.
Then if someone had told me at fifteen years old that it was going to take my lifetime again to actually get a record out. That would have been very sobering for me. So I go back to St Andrews and I was just adamant to not sign a record deal. My mentor, Kin Kriso, was very un establishment, very very anti industry. He'd had, I think he'd had a brush with the record label and was fiercely independent and I just wanted to be cool like them, and so I
really wanted to do it independently. So I was sort of getting by on unemployment benefit and trying to get gigs and applying for arts grants which I never got, and getting gigs was really really tough in Edinburgh and Saint Andrews. It was just it was a and R. Guys were not coming up to Scotland back then. And my other mentor Bobby Heatley, who ran a studio in rehearsal space, and he recognized that I had talent and
he would really help me out. He was really helpful because obviously, you know, you don't have money for that stuff. So it was really great getting some demos together and being able to rehearse a band. But he said, get your publishing deal. Get your publishing deal before you get your record deal. Don't sign your record deal for money. And that was great advice, and so I did that.
I would keep whenever I could. I would go down to London and I would play try and get in open mics and showcases, and I'd be phoning random numbers for record label offices or publishing label offices. And it was dawning on me for sure that I was going to have to pursue a deal, that it was not going to happen. Certainly if I stayed in Scotland and tried to do this on my own, it was just like not happening. And one of my friends, Vic Galloway,
who's a radio presenter. He'd been in a kind of punk band called miracle Head and Edinburgh was friends with all the people I knew. He got a job on indie radio on Radio One, which is like a big deal. It was like a late night kind of indie underground radio show. And I was like, play my song, come on, Vic, play my song, and he wouldn't play it and he just said, no, you don't belong on my show. You need to get on mainstream radio. I was like well, how the hell am I meant to do that? Like,
can't you help me out? He just he was just like no, And at the time I was so angry that he wouldn't help me. And then, you know, at that point, it was fully five years later my first single was getting played on mainstream radio, and he was right, it wasn't. That wasn't where I was meant to be.
And I had to leave Saint Andrews and I had to leave Scotland and I had to I had to leave my little punk indie folk family and be what I was actually meant to do, do what I was meant to do, which was much more mainstream.
Okay, a little bit slower. You're nobody from nowhere in Scotland. You come to London and you get a publishing deal, no problem.
No, it wasn't no problem. I mean it took years. So this is my entire twenties. So I finish college at twenty one and the publishing deal happens at twenty nine, so it's yeah, it's a.
Long time twenty years later. Who owns those songs?
Well, so I signed to Sony Publishing. I was with them for twenty years and then COVID happens, and I have just decided to buy a new move into a new place in Tapanga. I had a big old tour booked, and I take out a big old loan to upgrade my life. And then suddenly there ain't no gigs, but you still got to pay your loan back, right, And the kind of publishing deals had started, the catalog deals
had begun. At that point where you know, companies like Hypnosis and Primary Wave, who I've ended up working with, I really just had to make a business decision. And I was just like, this is a business and I can either face this really really nightmarish situation right now where everything I have is in jeopardy, or I work
with this company. And the crazy thing about Primary Wave, who I'm not working with, was that Larry Mestel, who's the head of Primary Wave, had actually been at Virgin Records when I first came over to America and set and we had this amazing meeting and he said, he said, he handed over to the next person at Virgin. He said, whatever you do, do not fuck up Katie Tunstall. She's
the next Melissa Etheridge. And he said, they fucked it up, and he said, and I want to make right by you, and I want to sign you, and I want to share your publishing and I want to make it worth more and I the deal with them, and I'm and I have a great relationship.
With Okay, just to break it down, so you sold them half of the.
Publishing, Well, I don't really want to go in.
Let me put a different You're still own part of the publishing or did you sell a part part?
Yeah?
Part yeah? They they Larry was like, don't get rid of all of it. You should keep something.
Primary Wave has a label. Are you working with their label too?
Well? Primary Wave also owns Sun Records, So I put a record out on Sun Records, which was a real It was a huge honor of my career to have a record out on Son and that was my duet's record with Suzi Quatro. But I really look forward to keep doing stuff with them, and we've got another project in the works that would be great to they're they're very excited about maybe doing on so again. So it's it's a there. There are just a very kind of vibrant,
excited creative company that want to do stuff. Whereas you know before I would be having to like we'd be knocking on doors going can you not find anything that my music can get synced with? And it was just dead, nothing was going on, and so it's just it was really nice to work. It's in general now that I've also signed to BMG for publishing moving forward, and I love the BMG UK amazing company. They just they're just
music fans. These people just love music, and that's how I remember it being when I first started, and it's how I remember that tailing off where all the lawyers and accountants started running the record labels and it just felt so sterile. And it just feels really nice to get back to working with teams of people who were genuinely it's still very excited by new music and old music.
So you moved to London and how do you ultimately get a record deal?
So I moved to London. I did not want to move to London until I had a deal because I knew that being in London with no money was going to be grim. So I would just get myself down to London and I was I had a friend who worked in film and he would let me crash in his living room. But I felt bad because his roommates had proper jobs that they had to get up for in the morning. So I would pull the couch two feet out from the wall and I would sleep behind
the couch. And so yeah, there was many nights that I would sleep behind behind Tim's couch and it was great times. You know, I have very very I have very sweet memories of that time. It was it was an adventure and I would and I made friends with the guys who ran a place called the Kashmere Club, this guy called Tony Moore, and it was a really revolutionary, revolutionary little open mic night in a basement in Marylebone in London, and a lot of A and R guys
would come to that and you didn't pay. It was free to get in, but you had to shop up. You were not allowed to talk during performances. And ultimately that's where I got signed.
Okay you mentioned earlier.
But I should I should, but but that was my record deal, my publishing deal. I was making phone calls trying to meet people in publishing and I actually got offered a really tiny kind of like ten grand publishing deal and that ended up leading to me working with
a manager. And it was a guy who'd been at a label on the record label side, and he persuaded me to kind of start working together, and he actually managed to get like Sony Warner and I think Chrysalis bidding for my publishing and I ended up with a good deal.
Okay, managers are a world done to itself. How long did you work with that guy and what has been your experience with managers?
I worked His name was Simon Banks. I worked with him for ten ten years. I think he hadn't had a lot of management experience before. He was na in our guy, and you know, we had a just stellar first record. It was just an unbelievable success, like way way, way beyond anything we would imagine, like selling five million copies of this record. It was just you know, it was a twenty three grand record deal. It was a I think like a I think it was something It
was like a twenty grand budget for the record. It was all these relatively small at that time. You know, people were spending a lot of money on stuff and it was pretty good. It was he had the substance abuse problem instead of me, so that was difficult. And what I found as time was going on, and especially as we got into album two was he was really good at answering the phone, but not very good at making the phone calls to make things happen, and of course,
inevitably the phone stops ringing as much. And then the thing that was really difficult was that I cracked America, which was just stratospherically difficult and just fantastic that I managed to do it. And he would have a different opinion, but in my opinion, he did not manage that success to the point where I then had the career in America that I could have had. I think we neglected the American market too much, and you know, I was playing sheds to four or five six thousand people and
I can't do that now. And not to say that I'm entitled to that, but there was there was a business plan, path, a strategy that we could have adopted that would have made that more likely, and I'm annoyed that we didn't do that, so we stopped working together. He had this Sunset deal where I'm paying you know, fucking stupid amounts of money for ten years, which was very painful, and we're not in touch anymore. So that's where it's ended up.
So since him how many managers have you had, if any managers?
I had an American manager for a short period of time, which was basically like a second divorce. It was it wasn't very disappointing, and I then had a friend of mine from London step in. He was in film, but he was just a good friend and he said, look, I feel like you're not getting you feel like you should be should be celebrated more than you are. Your
career should be going better. And he was just he knew that I had the capacity to do something positive in the world and wanted to help me do that. And he's been He's been incredible. For the last ten years, my friend Alex has been managing me, and to his own detriment, I think it's I'm excited about a new situation on the new horizon where I can't talk about
it yet, but it's all good. And so the last ten years has been really I've been very grateful watching someone who really cared and put me, put my best interests first, and it's made a huge difference. And I feel that where I am now is vastly different. I don't know if I'd still be doing what I'm doing if it hadn't been for him coming in and helping me.
Okay, going back, how do you actually get the initial record deal?
I mean, everyone's going to have a different answers. There, I'm again, there's no there's no rule books. I'm telling you my experience. I had my publishing deal, I did not get my I was not able to get a record deal for two years of trying. I was trying, no one was interested. I remember going into a record company of which I will not name, and playing for him and he said, well, the thing is we have a girl who plays something. I was like, really, how
many guys have you got that play something? But it was it was the Nora Jones effect, Like Nora's success had really blown the doors off in terms of female singer songwriters who played an instrument. She paved the way for all of us, really and got the record companies excited about it. But unfortunately most of them had their girl who plays something, and it was very, very difficult to get signed. And also I was older. That was
probably putting people off without them saying it. And this one record company who saw me at the Cashmere Club at that under that basement open mic, they were an underground Asian dance label. The owner had been a Ugandan Asian dance DJ. They had so solid crew who was like an urban RAF act. They offered me a five album deal for like twenty three grand and I was like, this seems like a completely preposterous partnership, Like why would they even want me? They just really liked my stuff.
And Shabs the head of that label, Absolute Maverick, He was just like, we just signed things we like, doesn't matter what it is, and they said, and I was very nervous about it. I was just like, it doesn't feel like the right fit. It's not a lot of money.
Really.
They were a subsidiary of Virgin at the time. They were called Relentless or its Outcast Records. It was Relentless and Outcast with their two imprints. And they said, well, here's the thing. We have this other band that's instrumental and they need a top line writer and a singer to do a few singles so that we can get them on radio. So why don't you work with them and then go on tour with them and you can get to know us. And I was like, that sounds awesome.
Who are they? And he says there were ten piece Klesmer Jewish hip hop band, and I'm like, who the fuck are you people? This is so weird. And I was like, I'm one hundred percent down, I'm in. That sounds amazing. And they were called oiv a Voi. So I go on tour with oiv Avoi and halfway through the tour, the band say to me, Katie would really like to do a song in Sephardic Jewish Spanish and call it Ladino songs. Soldino is this Sardi Jewish language?
And I was like, great, good luck with that. I don't fucking speak that, like what And they said, don't worry, you just learn it phonetically. It'll be great. And it was just it was so much fun. We just traveled all over the place. I got to know the record label. I trusted that they really were into just supporting music they liked and they weren't trying to change it into other stuff. And so I signed the deal.
Okay, you signed the deal. There's X amount to make the record. How do you find a producer? What's the experience of actually making the record?
Yeah, well it was really interesting because they didn't have a lot of budget, and I knew nothing about producers. I'd basically not really been in music in studios at this point. You know, my friend Bob who ran the studio in Edinburgh. I'd gone in there and done some recording, but I was very inexperienced, and all the stuff that i'd done before that was just eight tracks, you know, in a cottage on the edge, just and Andrew's, and
so I knew nothing about producing or mixing. And it was actually my A and R guy, Martin Morales, who said, I think you should have a look at this guy, Steve Osborne. He's really interesting. He's a rock producer. He'd worked with Doves, You two and Placebo were like his
big artist acts. And I was just like, whoa, this is not what I was expecting you to say, and this is delighting me that you are coming to me with a very non female artists suggestion, because that was my worry, right was that they were just kind of kind of sweet in the dish, and I was like, this is this is really a good suggestion. So I went to meet with him. He worked out of Real World, out of Peter Gabriel's place in Bath and I really really liked him. He was cool. He was weird. He
looked like a vampire. He was clearly into keeping things very gritty, which was really important to me. But we couldn't afford to do the record at real world. So he found the studio in the middle of nowhere in
Bradford upon Avon, which is just outside Bath. And it was this roadie who'd lost the use of his legs in an accident on tour, lived with his crazy Italian mother and had put a knave desk in his house with his mom, and like the vocal booth, was a disability ramp that you could either like sing going uphill or downhill, and it was it was very basic, like we had to we had to gaff tape comforters on the wall for when we needed to change the sound. And Steve was literally the driver the whole Me and
the musicians stayed at his house. We stayed in his kids' bunk beds. His wife would cook us food like it was a labor of love for him. It was. It was definitely not coming from a place of him thinking he was going to make a bunch of money off this. He loved the music and he wanted to do it, and he just took on all the roles and we made the record. I loved it. It was very very stripped back, and I was And then we proceeded to send the masters to the label and I was not
invited to the mix. I wasn't even told the mix was happening. The mix it was a guy I've still never met, and it just got sent away and it came back and I just felt like someone had taken a hot iron to the excitement of what we'd made, and I couldn't stand it. And it was just like it just felt so saccering like what they'd done. And when I listened to the record now, I'm like, Jesus Christ is completely stripped back and raw, and it's still got all of that qualities, but it was just it
was more produced. I'd not heard anything produced of mine, and so fuck knows what the we've got the originals? We should I need to dig them out and have a listen to them because they must be so raw. But it was very very hard for me, and I felt quite betrayed by the label that they didn't include me. I didn't know that the artist wouldn't be included in
the mixing process. And now of course, it's just like such an intrinsic part of making a record, and like my label boss got some guitarist in to like re record my parts without telling me, and it was just it was really he was trying to do the right thing. I believe that, but it was very hurtful and so it was very fractious. And then I had to go out and promote this record that I thought sounded terrible. It was, but I had to keep my I had to bite my tongue. It was very difficult because the
record was just doing so well. There's no point in me then going out and saying I didn't like it. It just felt like that was that was going to be, you know, an insult to fans who liked it.
How fast after it was released did it become successful? And if you ever come to accept her and you still think it's too flattened with an iron.
Oh no, I mean to answer the latter question, I have one hundred percent embraced how it sounds, and I love how it sounds, and I can hear it and I can love every every part of it. Now, it was more I think an emotional reaction at the time to being you know, I was so worried about signing my soul away to the Devil with a record company that, and it just felt like those fears came true when that was happening. And so it was much more an emotional relationship with what had happened than it was the
actual sound of the record. And you know, part I'm conflicted, I'm also like, well, whatever they did, it made itself five million copies, and it probably wouldn't have done that if they hadn't made it sound the way it sounded. And what was the first question?
Was it successful from its release?
It wasn't fast. It wasn't fast. It was we it was a soft release. We kind of did an EP. It was rolling along. I think it went in at number seventy three, but it was a real slow moving juggernault. It was word of mouth. It was that beautiful magical thing called word of mouth, where it was back. People were still buying records, and they were sharing it and they were giving it to friends, and it was just building slowly, slowly, slowly. And then I got Jules Holland and then everything changed.
Okay, tell me the experience of the second record, how this gigantic success. You say the label wants more of what you did, You want to lean into the rock star. What was that experience? Like?
The second record was fucking hideous. It was such a hideous experience. I hated it. And this was where the mistake was made with America, because I tod the Telescope came out in two thousand and four in the UK, and then it was released a year later in America and it off and I should have just not done a second record until I'd really got my relationship with
America in a deeper place. But in the UK, I was being told by my manager, you have to have a second record out this quarter although because it's going to affect Sony Publishing's share price. And I was just like, what the fuck has that got to do with me? And why would you want a record that's not ready? And I was exhausted. I was just the redbear. I was hanging on by a wire because I'd been touring eighteen months straight and partying and trying to keep my
blog together, you know. And what I should have done is taken a month off, done a month of writing, but it just wasn't allowed. I was I was put in the studio. And the other massive mistake was I was put in Rockfield, which of course is a legendary studio, but I very quickly realized I don't really love big fancy studios. Love the I love the lore. I'd love to like record a song in there, but when it comes to actually making a record, I'd much prefer to be I suit a much more low fi, limited space.
It's not helpful for me for someone to say, this is the piano that Pretty Mercury recorded Bohemian Rhapsody on. I'm like, well, that's great. I'm not going to do anything nearly as good as that on this piano. Let's make a record, you know, well's Zeppelin. We're here at great never going to be that good.
Okay, So A, the record's done, how do you feel about the record? B The record is not commercially as successful. How do you feel about that?
So the label were very adamant that I worked with Steve again because they wanted to repeat success. Steve was not in a good place personally. He had his own issues going on. I was desperate to make a rock record because I had gone from playing in pubs and busking to playing for four thousand people and all of this new Sonic universe was now available to me. I was playing through huge pas, I was playing electric guitar.
It was my Bob Dylan moment where I was just like, I could do really different shit on this record, and I want to play songs I want to make. I want to have a wall of noise that is exciting, you know. I was seeing other people's gigs and I was like, I want to have that experience of being in a rock band and being a rock singer, and no one else wanted that. Everybody wanted me to do the same thing again. And I wanted to record the record live. I wanted I knew that I performed better
when I live. I didn't want to track it, and just utter refusal from everybody. Your band isn't good enough, it's going to take too long, it's not going to be good. So we could not record that record live. And so that record, of all my records is the one that I would love to re record because it
should have been played live. It should have been recorded as live music, and it just lacks it lacks excitement, and it lacks the energy that those songs should have because I think the songs are good on that record, and some of it worked, the slower, the sort of softer Sung's work. And not to not to shit on the record, because I still think it's good. I'm still proud of it, but it could have been a lot more exciting than it was. At that time. Everybody was
losing their job. No one at my record label knew if they were going to be working there the next day. Internet had hit hard. All the people I saw in positions of authority at record labels had no fucking clue that the Internet was going to do what it did, and they were so slow, like no one was No one was moving as if it was a you know, it should have been the alarms should have been going off, and they weren't. They just everyone was just carrying on
as if things were going to stay the same. And that record really suffered, I think because of that, and my third record he suffered because there wasn't a new approach to sharing the music and how it was marketed and how it was sold. It was just they were just it was all the same as it had been in two thousand and.
Four, just starting on an artistic level. Were you happy with the third record.
I loved the third record. Yeah, the third record was my middle finger to the label, going, you're not going to tell me what to do. So I decided I made I wanted to make an acoustic techno record and went to Berlin and made a record in Hansa and it's I think that record is probably very It's a little overproduced. There's too much going on. It was with Jim Abbys. We had such a good time and I
don't regret it at all. I love that record. Makes me feel really good because I just did what the fuck I wanted.
Okay, you put out the first record. Of course, I have an American perspective. You put out your first record. All of the old world than old mechanism still exists, even though they were on their last gasp, whether people know it or not.
Oh, it is the tiger. I call it the tiger's tail. I was so lucky to grab the tail.
So you have that tail, and you have you know, MTV still meant something, you have videos, etc. One So you realize the world was changing, the people you were working with did not. Where does that leave you today, because the landscape has completely changed from when you.
Broke Yeah, absolutely I'm very lucky because from a timing point of view, I think that my fans certainly and I think the wider general public do not necessarily view me as a heritage act. I'm not sort of seen as going out and just you know, dining out on these old hits, while of course I play them. I've consistently put out records since then and worked them hard, so I've managed to I think, keep irrelevance as a
contemporary musician, which has been healthy. It's been good, but I have the huge benefit of also being viewed as an old school musician that's sold records, and my fan base is very much the foundation of that fan base is people who bought records and still love albums and still want to buy vinyl. I mean there's tons of you know, young kids now who want to buy vinyl, which is fantastic, but it's Jesus Christ. I mean, streaming is just so ruinous for musicians. It's just so difficult.
I don't know how new artists even manage with that being their main source of how they share what they make. And so it's really been.
You know, my boat that I.
Still say is live, and I think honing a very unique live show where there's not a lot of people who perform solo and can kind of sound like a band. So the loop pedal stuff has been a great gift in my life. And there was a time where I really wanted to get rid of it because it just felt like a gimmick and I was just like, oh my god, I'm just the loop girl. And then I was like, oh my god, I'm the loop girl. That's really cool, and it's like really awesome feeling like I've
pioneered something in music. And so now I'm very grateful for it, and I love I love playing solo and that that solo show which is now sort of partly a storytelling show as well, and it's partly a comedy show. I love having a laugh with the audience. But also I'm so constantly pushing like what I can do, and it's all about dynamism within a solo show, like how many different sounds can I present you as one person? And people really love it. People really love seeing one
person creating what sounds like a band. And I think that for me now, you know, our dream is of our dream as musicians is to have a signature sound that you. Within the first eight bars of someone hearing something,
they're like, oh, that's Katie tells. Though, you know what a fucking amazing achievement that is that you've got your sound, but also that you've got this You've just got your own little corner of the music universe that feels like yours, and it feels unique, and it feels original, and it feels like there's enough space that you can keep expanding and keep changing and keep growing all the time into something that feels fresh, you know, and that you've got
your space to say what you want to say. And I think that that that's where I am now, that I just I have my I feel like I have my space and it's me and it's got my name on it and it's.
And I can.
Thrive in there.
That's a very accurate assessment of the landscape. A lot of people been in the business as long as you have do not have that perspective. But let's put that visa VI. The old game. The old game is you make a record, you're hoping for a single to catch fire. And of course then it was terrestrial radio. Terrestrial radio is you know, it's exists, but it doesn't have the
power it once did. So I saw you perform in the spring, and you know, for those who've never seen you see you once, they're not gonna you're never gonna forget it. Yeah, experience, and it's far more than someone standing near performing numbers. As you say, there's comedy, there's a person out.
I mean, it's like, wow, oh, thank you, Bob. I appreciate that you've seen a lot of gigs. I appreciate that very much.
I mean that one hundred percent. But I do have a question in your own mind. Is there a belief that if enough people see me, they'll spread the world and my audience will grow or do you more feel like I thank god I have the audience. I do have. And then the third question, which relates to the first, have you seen any evidence of any growth?
I have absolutely seen growth. I absolutely believe that if I can get in front of people, they will like the show, they will enjoy the show, they will be moved by the show, and they will tell their friends to come next time. I believe that and I've seen that for sure. So this is why I now really enjoy opening for other people. And I was sort of really I was really against it at the beginning of my career because I was just like, I don't want to play for people who are just buying beer and
waiting for the next band. I'd prefer you know, I don't want to play to a thousand people who waiting for someone else. I want to play to one hundred people who want to see me. It's misguided. It was a misguided idea, that misguided way of thinking, because it's extremely great when another artist asks you on tour with them for a start, they're giving you the audience they
have earned over their own decades of work. I mean, I recently went out with Roger Daughtry and just had the best fucking time, and I'm like, I'm playing for who fans? I'm playing for Roger Daultry fans. These are people who've seen some of the best gigs that have ever been played on stage. They're discerning people, they have high expectations of what they're going to see. And I said to Roger, you know, you're obviously not going to
play the entire who back catalog on your tour. Is there a song of yours or Who's that I might cover that might delight your fans? To hear that they're not going to hear in your set, he immediately goes acid, Queen, you need to do it. And it was such a thrill a learning that znge b playing it for his fans, just the being in the moment of being on stage before him for his audience thousands and thousands and eight
thousand people, you know, and nailing it. And I was like yes, and them going yes, she did do a good job playing on her own. It was super cool. And I'm on the on tour at the moment with told the whitt Sprocket and I wasn't massively familiar with their music, not going up anyway for sure, because it wasn't that prevalent in the UK. And man, their fans
are just amazing. I feel like I'm playing to my own people, like they're so open to listening to something they haven't heard before, and they're giving me like standing evations in the during the show and at the end of the show. It just and it really keeps seeing people saying I knew that one song, but I never never been to her show, didn't or catalog. Now they're checking out all the records. It's really cool. So I'm
having a really good time. I'm really enjoying. I'm really enjoying playing, and there's been times where I haven't, so I'm really glad that I've come back around to enjoying, really being grateful for the job. And I love going on tour with people because it's a masterclass. You get to watch these other artists and bands. You know I've been. I went on tour with Simple Minds and the Pretenders. I mean, fucking hell, it's amazing, and it was funny.
I'll tell you a quick funny story about Chrissy Hines. So Christy Hein was just terrifying and she's just like my favorite, and you know, I'm such a big fan of hers. She's my number one. And I was just too much of a fangirl to like be able to actually make friends with her, and she was just too scary to me. But every night she would call me out and she'd say, you better have been here for Katie Tunstall because she's still great, and I was like, oh my god. And then she'd like dedicate Brass and
Pocket to me every night. We're just crazy. And at the end of the tour she goes, you gotta see Kass. She's awesome. She's awesome. She really inspires me, like what like, and I'm not really managing to kind of create a friendship rapport with her, you know. At the same time, it's like, this is insane. And I had to go and speak to her afterwards, and I was like, Chrissy, this is insane. You're Chrissy hein. I need to know what you mean when you say that I inspire you.
And she goes, I don't know, You're just so fucking friendly. She's like, I can never do that, and I was like, that's amazing.
Now I get it.
Okay, what's your social media online presence?
I really enjoy social media. You probably don't hear that very often. I don't. I just am not interested in this. This is what I'm fucking having for breakfast. I just I'm not It's just moronic. So I'm not doing that.
You have TikTok, which is where things blow up these days. You have an act.
I actually, yeah, I'm going to be really honest with you. I don't have TikTok, so I have Instagram and x but what I'm what my content gets put onto TikTok for me.
Well, you have the type of act that could translate on TikTok and if you made stuff specifically for TikTok yourself, because TikTok to algorithm is are you are you?
Are you giving me advice on how to expand my career?
Bob, I'll give you a little advice. I'll give you the other advice. Okay. Management is about relationships, and certainly a manager who cares about you. Who's number one. If it's the biggest manager, it's irrelevant if you know they're not. You know. That's why relationships make a difference in terms of the act and the manager, so the manager can leverage opportunities. One of the big things for an act is exposure. One thing, you know is what you think
is going to work almost universally never works. Yeah it's a thing you said, ah, I don't really want to do it, but okay, blah blah, and then all of a sudden that works. Okay, So having seen you, I say, okay, if someone saw this, they would get this is rare. I mean no, you put it very well. No one is doing what you're doing. So theoretically you could have a manager who could put you in spots where you could potentially get lucky. Okay, that's one thing.
Yeah.
The next thing is TikTok. Musicians have it wrong. I'll give you an example, which is kind of funny. You wear this guy, Jesse Wells. Jesse Wells is a guy who does topical material alone on his guitar, and he's releasing material very frequently, like one song a week, okay, and he's gotten amazing coverage and the New York type Listen. It's a hard road to hoe because you're not making
songs for the radio whatever. But this guy went from essentially nothing he's been around to being People email me about Jesse Wells as much as they do of anybody. Okay, I look at Jesse Wells. He stands in their guitar, usually like in a field or by a railroad track or something, and he sings a topical song. Okay. The songs are brief, for like two minutes. Bob Dylan does not have a radio friendly voice, but he's the best
lyricist of all time. Jesse Wells is not the best lyrics of all time, but he also doesn't have the world's most palatable voice, but he is on there every week. Just recently, there are people starting to do what he's doing. So if you're on TikTok saying, you know, performing a song, let's be very clear. I think briefer the better. Certainly, nothing more than two minutes. It could be thirty seconds.
It could be something you make up on the spot that is one hundred percent true to yourself, not second guessing the audience, but being exhibiting. This is what I do. And in addition, you do more than play music. You have a personality of a sense of comedy. If that comes up you today, more than every you have to be in the game to win it. It's great to go on the road. Let's talk about the acts that are really not Spotify Top fifty acts, new acts, not you or you made it a tail end of the
old thing. They can be fantastic. It takes longer than ever to break through. As we all know, most of them no breakthrough, but some do. Okay. None of those acts are Internet savvy. They all say, oh, I'm a musician, I don't do that. I got a team for that. The joke is on them because this is where the active audience is the one thing you're looking for. Your virality. The term is way overused. But this is what people don't realize. I quote this all the time. I ripped
it out of Newsweek thirty years ago. I had it, don't have it anymore. But there's this mozart expert, she's really big in a world not my world. Meets Jeita and she says, I teach a lot. I tell my students to practice a long time and be great because there's very few great things out there, and if you're great, people will find you. We are dying to tell people we saw something great. Dying. We don't want to get paid. We just want to say, did you see that? Okay?
And in the music world, listen, there are a lot of people who say, oh, I went this, and you go. And you don't trust them because they thinks everything's great. You have something unique? Do I think if you started using it on TikTok tomorrow you'd instantly blow up big. Probably not, but if you're not in the game, you have no chance of breaking.
It's true. It's true. I did just get my one hundred thousand YouTube subscribers award, so I'm not doing not that.
As I'm trying to say, is TikTok is where it's.
At no I get I know, I appreciate the kickut of the RS because I know you're right and you have.
The right personality and music for it. That is so rare.
Okay, Okay, you've persuaded.
Go on TikTok just to get a feel. You have to be on the other and look at this guy, Jesse.
Do I have to download it? Do I have to look at it?
Oh?
Can I just make stuff for it? Do I have to look at it.
To at it? For a couple of reasons, One, okay, you get on it and it takes a while to learn what your interests are.
Yes, you have to understand it, right, They have.
To understand you, and then it will show you stuff you didn't know you were interested in that you love. No other platform is like this. I'm on TikTok. They start showing me car repair videos. I don't know how to repair a car. I'm never going to repair my own car whatever, But I find this shit riveting. Okay.
Another thing, I'm like, I'm addicted to this chiropractor. But and I just fucking watched this chiropractor for like an hour and a half.
But when you go on changing people's lives very quickly. You will learn what works and doesn't work. To be a musician, you have to pay your dues. Most people don't want to pay their dues, and today they're using shortcuts. Whether it be you know, it could be electronic instruments, but it also be writers, producers, etc. You have people on TikTok exhibiting what creativity it is mind blowing. Yes, you have people on there saying, let me tell you the story of my date. Let me tell you the
story of the divorce. Okay, then go to see other things in go this person has a ton of personality. How did they tell the story this way?
I mean part of it is you sort of have to have some one filming you all the time, and I don't have that person. You've got to pay that first you have a smartphone, and then but also then if I'm just doing it myself, like there's part of me, the part of me that fights just going I don't want my immediate response to something cool to be let's film it.
But I know what you and I agree with a smartphone. The latest smartphones are you know, four K. They're unbelievable. Okay, you can buy a little tripod if you need, you know, you can use books, you can Amazon.
Just promise me, I'm not going to be one of these people who fucking falls off Niagara Falls while I'm videoing myself. I don't want to die.
No, no, no, no no, don't. Don't. You have to have the modern tent. Noalitay, the old school social media. Tell me what you ate for breakfast, Give me a travel How are you making your album? Forget all that that is over? Okay, it's not a peek into your life for fans to know more. It's about exhibiting some creativity in your vein.
Okay.
I mean you may not do this, okay, but okay. There could be something in the news. You get an idea, you write a song that you post it. You're never gonna sing the song again, that's right. Or you could say I came into the hotel room, somebody's banging on the wall. I've been in too many hotel rooms. Let me tell you this story. I mean, just because you're inspired. If you're second guessing what the audience wants, you're done. Don't so it's your personality. I've been talking to you
for two hours. Okay, what do I know you have a personality. It's not wimpy, and you can tell a story that puts you, that puts you ahead of a million people. The thing is you have a slight edge. And I used to I like to use the you know the concept of bell Crow. Delcrow has these little hooks and these little things. If there's no edge, nothing can hook you. So you have that little edge, you know.
It's like.
The bland artists are never I'm not gonna say you're super edgy, but doing something bland to appeal to a lot of people no longer works. You said it yourself, you go. If you want what I've got, you can't get it anywhere else. Does everybody want what I've got? No, the more people want what I've got, they aren't aware of it. Yes, okay, I got two final questions to let you go. One. In this journey, especially from university to getting your record deal, everything could given up.
Not then. No, there was absolutely zero plan B. And I I really enjoyed the struggle. I found it purposeful, I found it exciting. It was an adventure. I didn't know where it was going to take me next. I loved just you know, jumping on the train or the bus, or having to sleep on the floor, or I really really enjoyed it. And there was definitely times where I was really frustrated because I couldn't get my music in
front of the right people. I couldn't get, you know, having not being able to open the doors to be but I always had to say where I could just play for them, they could hear it. I reckon it would work, but I just couldn't get in front of the people that I needed to get in front of. But it felt it felt like I was writing a good story all of that, you know, while I was trying to get there. But I've definitely had after being successful that I didn't want to do it.
You didn't want to do it just to put a bow on it, not because you weren't successful, It was more it wasn't working for you.
I think both. I definitely went through a period of time of being quite bitter where I felt like I should be doing better than I was, and I deserved to be doing better than I was. And that's nasty. That's a nasty thing to feel, and that turns you into an unpleasant person. And I know other musicians who who certainly feel that way, that they feel like they should be entitled to a more successful career than they have, and that's a bad feeling to have.
How do you get over that?
You can have a word for yourself. You're being an asshole. You're being an asshole. And even now I'm like, I see other artists, you know, going it's so hard and I should we should get paid more, and it's so expensive to tour, and it's like, well, yeah, okay, there's some unfairness, but you've got to be really fucking good
as well. You've got to be You've got to be someone people want to pay their money to come and see, and you've got a responsibility to put on a really, really fucking good show if you want people to go to work all week and then spend their cash on your ticket. Don't think that you don't. It's not on you, incumbent on you to write really good material, make it sound really good on a record, and make it sound
even better when you play it live. So I think it was having a word with myself, getting happy on
the inside, get sorting my own shit out. So I wasn't blaming other people and blaming circumstances for why I didn't feel good, and then really having a spiritual reconnection with extremely deep gratitude that I'm one of the very very few people on this planet that gets to do this as a job and get to do this successfully and have a relationship with fans, and you are so lucky to do what you love doing for a job, because everybody would want that, and very few people get it.
Okay, you talked about loving the struggle prior to getting your record deal. You're enjoying the struggle. Were you convinced you were going to make it?
Well, I mean, it's very kind of gaseous term make it, isn't it.
It's not you're going to achieve whatever goal you had.
I was definitely ambitious, for sure, but I really did not have any expectations, nor did I have particular dreams about doing as well as I did. I did not expect to do as well as I did. I did not know anybody who'd done as well as I did. And I think really the driver for me was I wanted to be a musician, not have to have another job. That was the dream. I just I wanted to do music as a living and if that meant I remember like arguing with my mom.
You know.
She was just like, this is insane. You shouldn't expect to do what you love for a living. That's what hobbies are for, you know. You need to get a proper job. They were very worried about me, especially as I'm you know, getting close to thirty and I don't have any money. And I said, I watched you be a teacher, and I don't believe that you've loved that job. And she was like, no, it's a difficult job. And
I was like, well, it's not that it's difficult. It's just that I would prefer to not go on holiday, not go out for dinner, not have nice new clothes, and do what I love every day. I don't want to work a job that I fucking hate and have a two week holiday and have some money. I would prefer to be poor and do this because I'm going to be miserable. I'm going to die regretful if I don't spend my life as a musician. And so I was so the make it. Part of it was just to not have to do another job.
Okay, what I think is the final question, how do you perform on stage with this hearing problem.
It's cheaper than it used to be because I only need one wedge, so I just have a wedge on my right hand side. It's awesome. It's much easier. It was the hardest part about the hearing loss was that I got vertical, a really bad vertigo. For three months after I lost my hearing, I couldn't walk. I was like having to hold the sink while I'm brushing my teeth because I was going to fall over. It was grim.
It was the grimmest thing I've ever experienced. And I really feel so bad for people who suffer with vertico because it's completely debilitating and you don't know if it's you don't know if it's going to go away. I didn't know if that was it for the rest of my life. It's just horrendous. I was so nauseous and I couldn't really you know, you can't really drive, and I couldn't really. I couldn't stand on stage for three months.
I was definitely out of action. And the first gig I did after it started to obey, I was nervous that I was going to fall over. And I got through it, and that was great. I got through it. And then it just slowly improved and improved. I don't I can't do roller coasters and stuff anymore, but I don't suffer from vertigo anymore. And honestly, when that stopped, I could give a shit about having both my ears. I was like, as long as that has stopped, I'm
good and listen. I have tenetus's annoying. I can hear it all the time. I have not got stereo hearing anymore. I miss it. I remember loving hearing panned backing vocals and how nice that was. But as my producer friends tell me, all the best records were made in Monomi. So it's really not impacted me very much at all. I can do everything that I used to do. I just I can't hear the person to my left to dinner.
That's it. Otherwise, you know, I think it had it happened to me ten years earlier, it would have been really extremely challenging, because I'd and you know whatever, fifteen years of touring under my belt. I was actually, it might sound strange, but when it happened, there was actually some relief that I could stop for a while. And I was like, oh shit, I'm burnt out here. I've burnt. I've burnt my nervous system out, and I need to be more careful. And now it's a real reminder that
I've got to look after myself. And I'm very very When I went there, I kept singing that Nina Simone song.
Got mass, got my liver, I got my blood.
I was like, I can walk, I can see, I can still hear, I'm healthy, I'm good. It could have been so much worse. There's so much worse things that could have happened.
Okay, I think we've come to the end of the feeling we've known. I want to thank you Katie for telling your stories and ensuring your life with my audience. So thanks for taking the time.
Thank you so much, Bob, Thank you for what you do. It's a constant in a crazy world, and your love of music pervades. It's really really cool and it's an honor to be on the show. Thanks for everyone listening. And it's been really great talking about all this stuff. I've really loved it.
It certainly has. Till next time. This is Bob Last