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AFTER teaming up with fellow Scots Simple Minds for an acoustic re-recording of their 1982 hit Promised You A Miracle last year, singer-songwriter KT Tunstall has been enjoying opening for the band on their European tour.
“It’s actually the first ‘supporter’ I’ve ever done, and I’m managing to get all over the place. It’s been magic, absolutely lovely,” gushes KT, with real enthusiasm. “It’s been just phenomenal! Jim (Kerr, singer) and Charlie (Burchill, guitarist) are two of the most generous and hilarious people I’ve ever met.
“This tour has been an absolute dream, getting up every morning is an absolute pleasure, I get to visit all these places and look around – Rome, Florence, visit the galleries, museums in Turin – it’s like going on a holiday, with some jamming in the evening,” she laughs.
As support act, Tunstall finds there’s less pressure on her, but it won’t be long before she’s back headlining with her own tour.
“I have 36 hours between finishing the Simple Minds tour and my own headline solo shows,” she says of her looming UK dates.
These include Coventry’s Warwick Arts Centre on Saturday, May 27, which is followed by a run of festivals with her full band, including Oxfordshire’s Towersey Festival (August 25).
“With the band, being able to create those sonic landscapes, that variety of sound, is an absolute pleasure… but I still definitely enjoy the intimacy of the solo thing.”
Tunstall’s return comes after a period of uncertainty and turmoil. Following the death of her father and her divorce, she found herself somewhat “lost at sea”.
Her last album, 2013’s Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon, was her first not to hit the UK Top 10, and she had no plans, or desire, to write another record.
But a relocation from London to Los Angeles’ Venice Beach gave her not just a newfound enthusiasm, but also opened her up to new ideas and new opportunities.
Listening to Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty in her car, Tunstall felt inspired to make a very different collection.
Working with Beck producer Tony Hoffer, last year’s KIN finds the singer-songwriter combining a “thumping, powerful beat” with an honesty and openness she’d arguably previously avoided.
“There’s quite a lot of very personal storytelling on this record, and that came from being into all the classic music of the Sixties that I love so much,” she says.
But her move also opened doors within Hollywood, and contributions to an increasing number of film projects. Among her successes are songs for several Walt Disney pictures, The Smurfs’ Lost Village, the yet-to-be-released 3 Generations starring Naomi Watts, Susan Sarandon and Elle Fanning, and the Bad Moms’ soundtrack.
“I get a chance to make work that’s entirely different to what I might normally do,” she says. “I’m flexing a different muscle, musically speaking.”
KT Tunstall appears at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, on Saturday May 27. For tickets see www.warwickartscentre.co.uk. Towersey Festival runs from August 25 to 28, near Thame, Oxfordshire.