Scottish singer/songwriter KT Tunstall was adopted at birth and credits that for her active imagination. While growing up in the charming college town of St. Andrews, Scottish Tunstall often imagined alternative lives for herself. Her physicist father often took Tunstall and her brothers on field trips to the St. Andrews observatory, where KT first became interested in all things to do with space and the expansive sky above her. When her brother introduced her to the space-themed album Hunky Dory, by the iconic David Bowie, KT fell in love with music.

Tunstall played the flute and piano early on and learned to sing by listening to jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, but found her true musical calling as a teenager when she taught herself guitar and began to wirte love songs. After earning a scholarship to a private prep school in Connecticut, the Kent School,Tunstall was transported to another world like she always imagined. While away at school, KT attended concerts by The Grateful Dead and 10,000 Maniacs and formed her first band, the Happy Campers. KT attended a music course at London's Royal Holloway College prior to returning home to St. Andrews, where she explored the local grassroots scene. Tunstall was influenced by bands like the Fence Collective, and would later form a group with the band's Pip Dylan, as well as popular artists such as Lou Reed and James Brown.

After returning to London and concentrating on her songwriting, Tunstall began to work in a backwoods Wiltshire studio with Steve Osborne, known for his work with New Order and U2. Eye to the Telescope, KT Tunstall's sleek debut album, was released in January 2005 in the U.K. by Relentless Records. Instantly, Tunstall was being compared to female vocalists Fiona Apple and Dido and began performing with Oi Vi Voi and as an opener for Joss Stone all over Europe.