One-On-One with KT Tunstall
From Vegetarian Times; March 2008
The multiplatinum-selling artist is committed to keep on rocking in a green world BY TRACEY PEPPER
This spring, Scottish-born singer/songwriter KT Tunstall is hitting the road for a U.S. tour supporting her latest album, Drastic Fantastic. You’ve probably heard songs from her 2006 debut, Eye to the Telescope, on TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty. The devoted environmentalist, 32, serves as ambassador for the British climate change campaign Global Cool. She’s avoided meat for the last four and a half years, though she does eat fish. “I guess you could call me a vegequarian,” she says.
What inspired you to give up meat?
After I moved to London, two things happened. One was, I bought a ham sandwich from a gas station and the meat was almost white. And it was like, “I don’t think that’s from a good place.” The other thing was I had a piece of chicken in my freezer that hadn’t frozen properly. When I went to cook it, it was one of the worst things I’d ever smelled in my life. It just completely put me off meat.
Didn’t a Norwegian ham company approach you about using one of your songs in a commercial?
Yes! They wanted to use “Suddenly I See” for Norwegian Spam. It was hilarious. They obviously didn’t know I don’t eat meat.
What was your family’s reaction to your not eating meat?
My mum is convinced that not eating meat is bad for me because I won’t get enough iron. She’d read an article where some Olympic athlete was a meat eater, but after being put on a vegetarian diet, his performance went downhill. And it’s like, “Well, mum, the thing is…I’m not an Olympic athlete.”
Do you remember the last non-vegetarian meal you ate?
Yes, I’ll admit it, I’ll have a Christmas chipolata sausage, which are these mini sausages you eat with Christmas dinner in the U.K. That’s my one meat vice of the year. Because I absolutely love pork. Ham, sausages, and salami — that’s the stuff I miss. And there are times when I’m tempted, but I just can’t do it because it just feels weird eating a pig now.
What are your typical vegetarian catering options on the road? Can you get more than carrot sticks, celery, and cheese?
If we’re doing a proper tour we’ll have our own caterers and they make the most amazingly outrageous food for us — like nut roasts or spinach and mushroom lasagna. I’m a huge fan of pasta, which is fortunate. A good arrabiata or linguine with pesto and a fresh salad is a brilliant meal to me.
Do you ever talk to your road crew about not eating meat?
No, I have absolutely no interest in telling other people what to eat. Apart from foie gras. The crew ate foie gras at dinner once and I just ripped into them, saying, “That’s a horrible thing to eat. It’s just an evil, barbaric way to prepare something.” I recently stopped eating lobster after having one of those restaurant experiences where I looked at them in the tank and thought, “They’re really unhappy.”
When sparked your interest in environmental issues?
Well, my mum was always into environmental stuff. Both my parents, actually, have a great affinity for the outdoors. And I grew up in a beautiful part of Scotland, on the coast in St. Andrews. So environmental causes always made a great deal of sense to me because you can see things changing.
Not only are you involved in speaking out against climate change, but you also greened your own home in London.
My flat is amazing. We bought it off an unemployed bachelor and it had been given no love. So we gutted and remodeled it using all sustainable wood, non-toxic paint, therma-fleece sheep-wool insulation, and tons of solar panels, which means we’re hardly using any electricity from the grid.
Both your albums are packaged with recycled paper materials, you use bio-diesel fuel in your tour buses, and you offset the carbon emissions at each venue. How do you stay on top of it all?
It’s hard. It’s such an environmentally unfriendly job that I have, so it’s very difficult because there’s no quick fix with this stuff. You’ve got to be open to different ideas, but it’s fun to keep learning.