KT Tunstall: Expect The Unexpected

There’s not a lot of room to maneuver in this small New York bagel shop—just one dinky table and a couple of barstools by the window. But even the most mundane surroundings can host the unexpected when Scottish tunesmith KT Tunstall is around. Grabbing the window seats, she bounds gleefully into a discussion of Drastic Fantastic, the new Virgin Records follow-up to her platinum debut Eye To The Telescope. It’s a bit late in the day, so few folks venture into the deserted little joint. Except one: a tall, shaggy-haired figure in rumpled clothes with a huge black-widow tattoo on his forearm, who seems to have just woken up. As he orders his coffee, Tunstall gasps. “Is that... is that who I think it is?” she whispers.

Why yes, it is Julian Casablancas, the reclusive leader of The Strokes, who strolls over, says, “Hello,” and reports on his latest doings with a deadpan, “Oh, you know me—I’ve just been sitting around, contemplating the shattered shards of my broken existence.” Turns out he and Tunstall are huge mutual fans. By conversation’s end, they’ve made a pact to someday work together, should their busy schedules ever permit it.

“I can’t believe that just happened!” Tunstall gushes once Casablancas has departed. “It was really Julian! And he was actually smiling! You never see him smiling in photos.” Turns out Tunstall is just getting started in the surprise department. The mention of smiles leads to a discussion of teeth, and from choppers Tunstall segues into one of her typically off-the-wall revelations. “That just reminded me that my mom and I were having this conversation recently, that when I was a child I had to go to the dentist to have my teeth filed down, because I grew fangs,” she notes, matter-of-factly. “I grew natural fangs, and people were commenting. I was only five, and it was horrendously unpleasant getting them filed down. But I think I was probably fairly vicious if I got into fights back then—I was aware of my fangs. I didn’t bite anyone directly, but I did some nipping, just mucking around with my brother. But I was actually scaring people, scaring other children.” She pauses, stroking her necklace thoughtfully. “If only the dentist could’ve handed me the fangs afterward—I could’ve worn ’em around my neck like a shark’s tooth!”

Fangs. Shark’s teeth. At points like these, one has to step back and take a long objective look at Tunstall. She looks normal enough: diminutive, 5'2'' frame; hip, but not cloyingly chic, clothes—white jeans, black T-shirt and gold buckle-strapped Converse; pretty, but not overtly made-up features, the result of her Scottish-Chinese heritage; and a chameleonesque way of blending in with the populace that allows her to travel virtually unrecognized through New York. But share a bagel and some coffee with Tunstall, and the truth is as sharply defined as her rapier wit—there’s nothing even remotely pedestrian about her. She’s truly unexpected, and delightfully so.

For example, here’s how the 31-year-old sums up her late-blossoming career: “I was really blown away by Sin City, the Frank Miller adaptation film by [Robert] Rodriguez. And after seeing it, it dawned on me that this is just a total comic-book existence, what I do. Minus the X-ray vision, of course. You go to weird places, you meet weird people, and you end up in totally mad situations. I remember being in Pittsburgh, and we couldn’t get a cab into town before the show, and me and the bass player ended up in this weird old sportscar full of dog hair and tin cans, getting a lift into town with some redneck after playing to 4,000 people in a different city. Or Elton John says, “hello,” at a soundcheck, then I end up in a helicopter flying through the French Alps, then finish the evening with a cup of tea, staring at the Empire State Building, just going, ‘This really isn’t possible.’ It feels like time-travel—a week feels like a month; a day feels like a week.”

Maybe it was the lass’ curious childhood that set her apart. Hailing from St. Andrews, Tunstall first left Scotland at age three, when her physicist father was transferred to UCLA and the family moved to Encino, Calif., for a year. At 17, she returned to the States, first attending a Connecticut boarding school, then moving to a hippie-ish community in Vermont where she formed her first band, The Happy Campers, and tracked demos at the local radio station. Proficient on piano, flute and guitar, she relocated to London and booked herself into any pub or club that would have her. The years passed; no industry executive swept down to sign her. Her big break came in 2004, when an ailing Nas begged off his Later With Jools Holland TV appearance, and Tunstall was ushered in as a last-minute replacement. Solo, she stomp-strummed a sprightly original—“Black Horse and the Cherry Tree”—and the show’s phone lines lit up. Who was this stunning young performer? And where could her album be purchased? The originally independent Eye To The Telescope had to be hastily re-released to keep up with the overnight demand. Soon, the album would earn her a nomination for Britain’s coveted Mercury Prize, plus three Brit Award nominations (winning for Best British Female Solo Artist), and even a Grammy nomination earlier this year. Her “Suddenly I See” single—which followed the breakthrough “Black Horse” and its addictive “Whoo-hoo” refrain—was one of five finalists for Hillary Clinton’s campaign theme song.