How’s the tour going? "It's going great. Lovely to be playing in some places we haven't been to before. I've re-worked quite a few of the songs for this tour because we have a different accordion player - our regular member Inge Thomson is on maternity leave. There's a lot more harmony singing and a bundle of new songs too." You've won plenty of awards and plaudits for both of your albums. Does that add pressure as a performer?
 | | Karine Polwart |
"Actually, it’s quite the opposite. It means there's loads more interest in my songs and more people at gigs. And that doesn't feel like pressure at all. It feels like amazing luck." Have you made a start on the follow-up to Scribbled In Chalk yet? "I already have a clutch of new songs in my set that don't exist in any recorded format just yet, including an epic ballad called The Tongue That Cannot Lie and some re-workings of songs I wrote for the Â鶹ԼÅÄ radio 2 Radio Ballads documentary series. "I'm actually thinking about the possibility of working on two albums next year - a stripped down almost entirely solo acoustic album including some traditional songs and a KP band album later in the year. But at the moment, I'm just enjoying writing new stuff and testing it out at gigs." Your music has turned up on Hollyoaks and the Hairy Bikers Cookbook recently - how are you dealing with such diverse interest?
 | | Karine Polwart |
"It's brilliant and totally unexpected to hear my songs on telly. And I had no idea so many of my pals watched Hollyoaks until I got a flurry of texts about it!Ìý I just heard this week that my song, Sun's Comin Over The Hill, turned up on the daytime soap Doctors too. Whatever next?!" There's a school that's used I'm Gonna Do It All as their anthem. What do you think of that? "There are actually two schools - Cockburnspath Primary on Berwickshire near where I live - they have the words ‘we're gonna do it all’ in massive shiny letters pinned up on the gym hall wall - and Castlefield Primary School in east Kilbride, who recorded a version of the song for their school CD. I'll flying up from Bristol to Glasgow this Friday to sing the song with kids from both schools live on telly this Friday as part of the Children in Need night." How does your Masters in Philosophy affect your music? | "It means there's loads more interest in my songs and more people at gigs. And that doesn't feel like pressure at all. It feels like amazing luck." | | Karine on whether the pressure of success gets to her |
"I suppose it means my songs tend to be reflective. I'm interested in thinking about things and interested in making other people think so a lot of my songs leave plenty of space for people to interpret the songs in their own way." You've collaborated with quite a few people recently. Do you enjoy working with other artists? "Yes, I've been really lucky to work with folks like Roddy Woomble from Idlewild and Sushil Dade from the Glasgow indie collective Future Pilot AKA, as well as writing for the Radio Ballads series, which was a huge creative challenge. "I find collaboration stretches me as a writer and it's fascinating to see how other people work too. It's one of the genuine bonuses to what I do. I'm particularly looking forward to a songwriting retreat in December with writers like Kenny Anderson (King Creosote) and Chris Difford and to performing in Glasgow in January with the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Symphony Orchestra. And I'd love to do more documentary style writing or writing for TV or film." | 
