Kae Tempest: ‘I’m not a star, am I?’

“I had to work really hard at writing because it didn’t come naturally. The writing and the desire to write is a natural part of me, but the craft and trying to learn about the ‘how’ of writing a play and poems – and not just the ‘why’ – were monumental challenges.”

Kae Tempest (who came out in 2020 as non-binary and who uses the pronouns they/them, changing their name from Kate to Kae) is in the eye of a promotional-duty storm and you can sense they are in two minds about the value of it. Their new album, The Line is a Curve, arrives this weekend and they have managed to shoehorn into a frantically busy schedule a 20-minute phone call at 10am. After The Irish Times, it’s another batch of interviews and who knows what else. And yet here’s the thing: Tempest couldn’t be more accommodating. Initially, they are reticent, aware that the day on which we are speaking has been designated Transgender Day of Visibility, but more of that later.

Those challenges mentioned – how were they overcome? As a London-based teenager, Tempest (real surname Calvert) knew the power of words via, among other things, listening to their corporate media lawyer father's Bob Dylan records. A low profile enabled wayward, misspent teenage years that gradually transformed into knowing the difference between unsavoury incidents and what the future held in store. So, yes, mischief of many stripes was experienced if not sometimes enjoyed, but ultimately Tempest wanted to commit to a craft or art. Simply put, they wanted more.

Tempest’s first play, Wasted, was a commission and arrived in 2011 at a time when “I wasn’t really in any position to not take any opportunity to work. I was trying to make writing my livelihood, to pay my rent, so when the opportunity came along to write a play – even though I felt excited by the idea that somebody believed enough in my writing to commission me – I doubted myself. It was so hard because for me it was a new form, the first time I threw myself up against my limitations. But there was no way out, really, no other option, so I just had to think around the problems.”

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Spotlight glare

Success, or at least a variant of it through an increase in public profile, arrived slowly. The conflict for Tempest was assessing the work under the glare of the spotlight. It was always about the work, they say, and nothing to do with the attention.

“That’s the way I think of it because I’m not a star, am I? Looking back, I was absolutely in love with music, just crazy about it to the extent that I was so eager to be involved with making it, performing it. I was also completely committed to reading and writing, and so it was my dream to throw my whole life into it. The way it happened was that you work relentlessly for 10 years, every day involved with three or four different things at the same time, and then eventually things start materialising for you.”

And then? “Suddenly there’s no time to know what to feel about it. It’s like, here it is, this is the thing, I actually get to go on tour, I actually get a record deal, someone actually wants to publish my book of poems, and I’ve got 15 deadlines that all seem to be stacking up at the same time. To be honest, it felt euphoric. I just thought, and still do, that I’ve been given an incredible opportunity to commit my life to something I love. When I think back and realise it actually happened, my feeling, generally, is disbelief. I regard it more a blessing than a problem, totally.”

Following 10 years of one notable success after another in different disciplines (plays, novels, poetry, music), Tempest eyeballs 2022 not so much in a confrontational way as contemplative. Their new album is available for anyone to listen to and concerts are lined up from now to the end of the year and beyond. The feeling, says Tempest, is similar to “that delicate moment before you jump. You’ve climbed the ladder, you’re on the diving board and you’re doing the final preparations before you leap. That’s what it’s like, so, yes, it’s exciting. I’ve done everything I can and now I just want to jump, get in there and communicate.”

‘Debt to pay’

Communication is key, they affirm. “There is something profound that happens to me when I’m feeling far away from myself and I read a poem or a novel or listen to an album. It brings me back to myself, and what I receive is something I desire to give back. There is some part of me that has a debt to pay back to the artists that have inspired me, and another part of me that has to impart the joy of expressing. It’s difficult to explain or to put a finger on, and I’m also not sure if it’s the same when I’m onstage trying to connect with people.”

I ask Tempest is there a sense of responsibility to equally be an inspiration to people in the same way that they have been inspired? It doesn’t feel like it, they reply. “To be honest, when it comes to the work I’m making it’s just me, whoever I’m collaborating with, and the ideas. I don’t really have a perspective beyond that. You just try to work out the world of the story or the plot points – what is this song and who are these characters? When I’m creating the work, it’s so consuming that to think it will become anything beyond the point of discussion or thinking doesn’t come into it.”

We now arrive at the point where the responsibility of communicating with and inspiring people is so obvious that it becomes more than the so-called elephant in the room. Every interview they have given in the lead-up to the release of the new album has centred on Tempest’s decision in 2020 to come out as non-binary. Every interview sees Tempest – sometimes unusually restrained – reaching for perhaps more words than they feel necessary. Given that they have spoken virtually ad infinitum on the topic, I ask if they really want to talk about it – or do they feel they have talked enough about it? Tempest’s sense of relief is unmistakable.

Fontaines link

“Thanks for asking that, it’s kind of you.” There is a conspicuous pause. “I have been doing so many interviews recently . . . the topic seems to come up every time and it does start to feel that I’m not quite sure what to say about it. If someone has questions then, of course, I’m happy to answer them but yes, it would be nice not to talk about it. It isn’t that I’m against talking about it, but . . .”

The naive ideal, I suggest, is for people to live life without scrutiny, judgment or comment, to let people be who they are and what they want to be. There is a quiet, possibly wishful thinking laugh at the other end of the phone line. “Yes, I subscribe to that.”

Time is running out. We move on to Tempest's genuine admiration of Ireland, made all the more clear by her collaboration on a new album track, I Saw Light, with Fontaines DC Grian Chatten. I joke that because of their connection with one of Ireland's most lauded rock bands and its lyricist, they are now an adopted Irish person.

“Oh, that’s all I ever wanted! I have a very particular relationship with Ireland because every time I’m there something incredible happens. Maybe that’s overly cooked, but I’ve had some very special experiences over there. I’m serious – there’s something from and about Ireland that calls to me.”

Kae Tempest: Milestones of evolution

2011 (Playwright): Tempest's first play, Wasted, was commissioned by UK theatre company Plaines Plough (which specialises exclusively in commissioning and producing new plays by budding playwrights). The play revolves around three people in their mid-20s as they mark the anniversary of the death of one of their friends. "Tempest's writing," noted the Guardian's 2012 review, "oscillates between dynamic poetry that's full of vividly phrased acute observation and dialogue that's plainer but just as spot-on."

2013 (Poet): Tempest's theatrical poetry work, Brand New Ancients, won the Ted Hughes award for innovation in poetry. It is an hour-long spoken-word story about reinstating old gods in members of two London families. Judging panellist and artist Cornelia Parker said of it that she had first read the work as "a piece of prose and thought it compulsive, but when I heard it as an audio piece it was electrifying."

2014 (Songwriter): Tempest's themed debut album, Everybody Down, was nominated for the 2015 Mercury Prize (as was its 2016 follow-up, Let Them Eat Chaos, for the 2017 event). The review of Everybody Down in Drowned in Sound noted its force and grit, and the way "it tackles subjects such as sex work and drug deals with wit and subtlety beyond measure."

2016 (Novelist): Debut novel The Bricks That Built the Houses was published by Bloomsbury. Set in a working-class London populated by "modern punks and ancient drunks and new-school rude-girls", this paper's reviewer viewed Tempest as "a clearly talented writer with a distinctive and engaging voice, but . . . lacks the novelist's control . . . from a plot so laden down with backstory that it struggles to get off the ground".

Kae Tempest’s new album, The Line is a Curve, is out now. Kae Tempest tours Ireland: Saturday, April 30th, Roisín Dubh, Galway; Sunday, May 1st, Cyprus Avenue, Cork; Tuesday, May 3rd, Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast; Wednesday, May 4th, Vicar Street, Dublin