Singer KT Tunstall remembers meeting her hero Chrissie Hynde for the first time 10 years ago

WHEN THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN, I was a 32year-old folk singer who had just gone through this incredible experience of having a huge hit record, which was totally unexpected. I’d made Eye to the Telescope, a very DIY album, in a little studio in the middle of Somerset, and it went on to sell over five million copies.

Part of me was just keeping my head down, pretending it wasn’t happening and dealing with fame and success by thinking, ‘Uh… it’s the same as before, I’m just playing to more people – ie 65,000 at the Giants Stadium in New York.’

I didn’t often go to social events like this one at St Martins Lane Hotel in London. I’ve never found them much fun, but I went because it was a Burns Night party, and I knew Ewan Mcgregor was going and I was a big fan.

I had no idea Chrissie was going to be there. She has been my number one for a very long time – as a musician, a songwriter, and the way she is completely uncompromising. She is right up there. I just remember lying on my bed at college as an 18-year-old, listening to The Singles album by The Pretenders over and over again.

We literally just said ‘Hi’ and had our photograph taken, but it was really meaningful to me because she was such a hero. I am playing it so cool – it completely belies the fact that I was like an Alka-seltzer in a glass of water. I’d recently got used to meeting well-known people and just keeping it ogether, because I know what it’s like when people are annoying and embarrassing.

Ten years on, I’ve just opened for The Pretenders on tour, which is such a lovely circle of life, and what bowled me over is that every night Chrissie dedicated Back on the Chain Gang to me. I was standing in the crowd with my mouth open thinking, ‘Is this real life?’ Then one night she said, ‘I want to shout out to KT Tunstall, she’s incredible, she’s really inspiring me.’ After the show I said, ‘Chrissie what are you talking about? I am inspiring you? That’s not how this works.’ And she said, ‘Oh, you’re just so friendly,’ and that she admired my ability to communicate with the crowd in an authentic and positive way.

We immediately struck up a great chemistry, though the nervousness and fangirling didn’t go away. Chrissie is exactly who she is on- and offstage – there’s no facade – and it’s a gift to be in the presence of someone who genuinely doesn’t give a damn. She can be quite intimidating, but she’s also incredibly warm and generous. And at 67, Chrissie is incredibly sexy. She’s sensual; she prowls around the stage and knows how good she looks. But both of us are from a school of musicianship where you don’t get your tits out, you don’t get your arse out, you don’t need to do that. My attitude towards what I do very much mirrors hers, which is I don’t go at anything thinking I’m a ‘female’ musician. One of the reasons she’s a hero of mine is that I relate to how she’s presented herself, and that is as a musician first. — Interview by Francesca Ryan

KT Tunstall’s new album, Wax, is out now. She is touring the UK and Ireland in March 2019; kttunstall.com

I am playing it so cool – it completely belies the fact that I was like an Alka-seltzer in a glass of water

KT Tunstall (right) with Chrissie Hynde in London in 2008