KT Tunstall eager to take to Alhambra stage

KT Tunstall burst onto the music scene in 2004 with her debut album 'Eye to the Telescope' and has never looked back, with her work receiving critical acclaim and national recognition, as shown when she was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2005 and her BRIT Award win for Best British Female Artist in 2006.

Her new album 'KIN' was released in September and boasts a rejuvenated sound with her familiar fast-paced, toe-tapping tracks returning to the fore for her tour which arrives at the Alhambra Theatre on Friday October 28.

Hits like 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree' and 'Suddenly I See' made her a household name and led to tours around the world, performing in a host of venues, but she still holds the Alhambra in Dunfermline in high regard, with the Edinburgh-born singer having played there after it's refurbishment in 2008, and then again in 2011.

Tunstall recalls the experiences fondly and exclusively told the Press: “I cannot wait. I remember playing the Alhambra back when it reopened as a music venue and it’s just such a fantastic space. It really reminds me of the Shepherds Bush Empire in London which is one of my favourite venues. It holds quite a few folk but it’s got this really great up-close and personal feel in there and it’s a fantastic sound. I’m really looking forward to it and it should be a great night. It'd be completely impossible to not play the new stuff as it’s so fun to play. I’ve got three other people in the band so it’s the smallest I’ve had, but it’s the biggest sound I’ve ever had on stage. It’s a really slow, big and exciting sound. It’s been quite funny to experience with our set now having done five albums, there’s just so many songs to choose from! It’s really difficult to narrow it down. We try and pick the ones we know the people will like and a few that they might not be expecting."

Having grown up as a teenager in St Andrews, Tunstall relocated to Venice Beach, California, in 2014 to recharge and start a new life in unfamiliar surroundings after her father's passing and the breakup of her marriage. She feels the move has revitalised her in an environment she is clearly thriving in.

She said: “It kind of saved me in a way. It was a real sanctuary which I wasn’t expecting. You don’t come to a metropolis like L.A. expecting a tranquil experience! Venice Beach is such a unique place in the world in a city where you can’t go anywhere without a car. It’s very much a walking and biking sort of place. So I get up in the morning, hop on my bike and go to the beach or go to Abbot Kinney – this amazing street running through Venice Beach. The reason I love it so much is because I’ve always found it very difficult to wind down and relax, so I just continued to work. But in this job you’ll be dead if you don’t take time off cause it’s so completely 24/7 and high energy. I found that this is the only place in all my travels throughout the world that no matter what day of the week it is, people are hanging out like it’s a Sunday afternoon - I love it."

Prior to KIN, her fourth album, 'Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon' (2013), was written following a dark period in her life. Her father had passed away and her four-year marriage with drummer Luke Bullen was coming to an end, which provided the raw emotion that is so prominent on the record. Emotion that fans felt was lacking on her second and third albums, 'Drastic Fantastic' (2007) and 'Tiger Suit' (2010).

However, she is now as happy as she's ever been after overcoming those hardships, and remarks that she feels born again after swapping Scotland for the States: “It was such a life experience that last album because it was made amongst this huge turmoil with my Dad passing and my marriage breaking up. My life was being upended before I sold everything I owned and moved continents - which was the best thing I’ve ever done. To me it was like a reset. It feels very much like part two of my life. And I’m starting that as a much more confident and self-aware person. I guess it’s hard to imagine that somebody does what I do isn’t confident because it requires so much confidence to go out in front of a big bunch of people, but I’ve actually discovered that there’s a big difference between my work life and my personal life. And having put some real quality time into the personal side of my life I feel so much happier."

She had previously suggested that she could take an endless break from making new material prior to her move to California to focus on a career as a musical composer as enrolled in the Sundance Institute's Film Composers Lab, an experience she has clearly benefited from after co-writing scores for a number of films: “I spent about a year doing that over here and it was quite a main impetus of why I came over. I was going to take a hiatus from making records and just write for films to reinvigorate my creative spirit. I had an amazing time and spent a couple of weeks with the lab which was the best learning curve of my adult life. It’s baby steps with me for scoring. I scored a couple of short films, wrote a couple of songs for movies and made some great connections in the film world, and just recently I wrote vocal arrangements for the film 'Bad Moms'. That was fantastic. I can still do scoring while I’m on the road and travelling too which is great."

Recalling as to what made her return to making records, she states that inspiration struck in the form of long nights on the road and the great music surrounding her: “It’s just fantastic to come back after feeling like I was going to take a serious break from it after the last record. I moved over to California and I was really going to concentrate on film music for a while but it was driving around and listening to amazing bands and artists that made their albums here like Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Neil Young and all those classics, it just had me waking up at four o’clock in the morning with these big choruses in my head. And I just thought that I can’t ignore that and that I needed to follow the inspiration. To come back with this album and have it in the top 10 charts in the UK and to be received so well is just great."

After having been in the industry for so many years she was left worried that fans of her earlier work would abandon her over time, but her fears were short-lived as the feedback to her latest album caught her by surprise, as she remarks with a sigh of relief: “I’m getting such an amazing response from the fans of the first record and in a way this record feels a bit full circle to that first one," she says. "To me, it feels like it’s taken three records to write my second album. Because, and no disrespect to my other works, but this one I feel is coming at it from the same place of being very creatively free and not worrying at all. When you make your first album you don’t think that anyone is going to listen to you, you’re just making a record. And then once you sell a squillion copies of it and everyone is expecting more stuff, and the record company wants to make the same money, all these external factors start to come into play. But with this one I feel really just completely unfettered and not concerned about anybody else. I actually kind of started writing the record in secret. I didn’t tell the record company or the publisher. I started writing at home and vented, before I realised what was coming out was really strong. I think a lot of my original fans loved the fact my first record was kind of real men and women’s thinking pop. So there was really good strong melodies and sing-a-long choruses but still having lyrics which are very strong and meaningful and honest. I think that’s what I’ve come back to with this record. I’ll go back to listen to my last record and I’ll think; ‘How did I write that? How can I write something like that again?!’ It’s a very thoughtful, meaningful and beautiful record and it’s some of my best stuff, but it’s that difference between writing ballads and up-tempo pop rock material. It’s quite a different skill really."

It is clear from 'KIN' that she is back doing what she loves with the same pop sound that propelled her into the limelight to begin with, with her dark days seemingly, and thankfully, behind her.

Doors open at 7pm with tickets ranging from £25 to £32.50 and can be bought through the Alhambra box office on 01383 740 384 or online at: www.alhambradunfermline.com.