KT Tunstall: how to connect with audience

“It was a deliberate decision to explore that,” says Tunstall, who will be in South Africa on 20 and 21 March to play a Kirstenbosch concert and co-headline Johannesburg’s Parklife festival.

“I had learned to trust my voice on an EP I recorded at home, and touring with Kenny supported that trust. Previously, I’d seen myself as a ‘package musician’, but putting gigs on just to give people a good time was leaving me cold.”

On the King Creosote tour, Tunstall noticed some aspects of the audiences she was impressed by – she described them as “people desperate for something meaningful; for something executed with real craft.”

In South Africa, she’ll be playing large, outdoor gigs. Are those audiences likely to be evident?

“It’s more difficult to deliver intimacy in that sort of setting,” concedes Tunstall.

“It becomes about tailoring the set. In South Africa, I won’t just play new stuff, because people won’t know it. And it’s a challenge playing solo. With a band, it’s easier to deliver a noise bomb and excite people. Without backing, you need to learn to engage listeners.”

Tunstall’s helped facilitate that process by changing her set-up when she tours.

“When I toured the UK with my new album Invisible Empire/Crescent Moon, I asked for beautiful theatres. I played at The Sage in Gateshead and at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane – great venues, built to accommodate acoustics and elevate the material being performed there. There’s also a different psychology in an audience that is sitting down,” she smiles. “The throat bone’s connected to the bum bone – if they sit, they keep quiet. Before, I would have thought that was stiff, but now it’s wonderful.”

Tunstall went through some tough personal experiences in the lead-up to writing Invisible Empire/Crescent Moon. Does playing solo make it easier for her to invest fully in the resulting lyrics?

“It’s not a case of re-living the experiences when I perform,” says Tunstall. “It’s more of a meditative experience on my own. With a band, it’s about the sound we create than about going through the keyhole emotionally. There’s a detachment that happens once you share a song with someone. It mutates. It’s not my property anymore. For a couple of weeks after writing something, it’s a struggle, but then it moves out of the heart space and into the head space.

“I’m grateful to be a songwriter; to be able to make something positive out of something terrible. Sharing experiences like the ones I went through is so positive. One of the worst facets of humanity is being lonely and not being able to do anything about it.”