Tues. May 27

I was sitting with KT Tunstall – who plays the Orpheum Tuesday May 27 - at the First Act Guitar Studio and office complex last summer, just before the release of her sophomore CD, “Drastic Fantastic." Tunstall was considering the word “pop” and how negative a connotation it seems to have acquired. The British version of “American Idol” is called “Pop Idol,” and Tunstall said that’s made “pop synonymous with awful. I feel like it’s been hijacked. Why can’t shit music be called ‘shit’ instead of being called pop? I think back to the fact that Beatles were a pop band. It doesn’t have to be shit.”
   

  Over the past three-plus years, the constantly touring Scottish singer-songwriter-guitarist sold about three and ½ million copies of her debut disc, “Eye to the Telescope,” behind the hits “Black Horse & the Cherry Tree” and “Suddenly I See.” That puts her in the pop mainstream by anyone’s yardstick. “A lot of the singers I get put alongside I don’t like,” says Tunstall, “because I find the music insipid or totally unchallenging. They are very, very middle of the road, safe. And the thing is: It’s bumpy ground for me. I’m cool with it now, but for a long time it was difficult for me to go, ‘Yes, I’m a mainstream pop act, but I really don’t feel like that.’ I’d like to feel I’m a good mainstream pop act.”
      And she is. What she’s got coming is a little different, an up-close up personal affair, with Tunstall on acoustic guitar duties while the rest of the band perform various other unplugged acoustic instruments, such as double bass, harmonium, and mandolin. She promises this will still be the same foot-stomping, energy packed evening out as any amped up gig. "The shows will be what we've nicknamed 'the campfire set' after the outdoor recordings we did for the Drastic Fantastic DVD." Tunstall says. "We wanted to try something a little different this time around and I think performing everything on acoustic instruments will afford these gigs a great vibe and give people a chance to see us play in a more intimate setting. We'll have some different arrangements, new versions of older songs, but don't worry, it's still going to rock!" (The info and quotes from this paragraph come from a release announcing her tour.)
     The cover of “Drastic Fantastic”  – with her in white mini-skirt and boots, sporting a guitar hero pose – is a bit deceptive. This isn’t Donnas, PJ Harvey or Pretenders territory, but a continuation what she began with “Telescope.” No surprise, when you find out half of it was written prior to “Telescope.” There are sharp hooks, insinuating melodies and lyrics, insistent rhythms, emotional lyrics. There are rockers – “Hold On,” closest in sound to “Horse” – and ballads like “Paper Aeroplane” and “Beauty of Uncertainty.”
       “The two first albums I bought were ‘Blue’ by Joni Mitchell and ‘Bone Machine’ by Tom Waits,” says Tunstall, “and that’s what I wanted to do: Get the feminine, ethereal, melody, lyrical nature alongside the really junkyard, heel-into-the floorboards vibe. I started as a folk picker – listening to Edie Reader, Michelle Shocked, stuff like that. But rhythm is hugely important. It’s something that’s developed over time and it’s something Steve Osborne, he produced both records, has ingrained in me. I basically went to rhythm boot camp as soon as I started working with him. My timing wasn’t as bang on then. It was an intense crash course in groove and in feel, which I had very little experience with because I had always played on my own.” (She was a folk club troubadour and sang initially sang backup for a Scottish folk group called Fence Collective.)
     “Half of the new record was songs I’d written during the time I was writing ‘Eye to the Telescope’ as well.’ she says. “I was pretty prolific before that first record came out, which is great really. I’d in been various different bands, but always performing my own stuff – apart from the very first time when I was a backing singer for a Scottish folk singer. The first record, it was important to me I didn’t gravedig too far back, One of the nice things about a struggling musician is that you can play whatever you want any night of the week. And I needed it. So, I had to love every single song and not have been playing in bars and pubs for six years already.”
    Did she tire of playing “Black Horse?”
    “You often get that question as to what’s your guilty pleasure and mine is probably playing that song,” she says. “It’s just very enjoyable to play, the rhythm of it,”
     Touring? What are the ups and downs? “You’re in a certain headspace when you’re touring and there’s an element of self-preservation as well when you’re on the road. It’s incredibly intense, but it’s a narrow bandwidth, emotionally, because you just keep yourself going all the time and you can’t open yourself up to incredibly big emotions. … There’s a really beautiful dumbness about touring, where you just become a kid again where you have a great time and stay up late.”  Tickets on sale March 7. Show at 7:30  (This article is an expanded version of a piece I wrote for the Boston Phoenix last year.)

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