1. Growing up going camping

MY family very rarely stayed in hotels, we always went camping, which I loved. I loved being outdoors, sleeping outside, being in nature, watching my parents cooking on the camping stove – it was so exciting to me.

Just being able to pack everything into a bag and move on to the next place, and not leave anything behind, like you were never there. It definitely cemented a deep love of nature in me. (It also may explain why I still live out of a bag!)

2. Meeting musicians who didn’t live on much

King Creosote

WHEN I was 16, I met Kenny Anderson, aka King Creosote, in St Andrews. I played my first ever gig at the back of a pub at 6pm before it filled up, and he tagged along with a friend of mine.

I basically joined his band on the spot. Getting to know him and having my eyes and mind opened to how all those guys lived was like another world; frugal, but so rich and creative – cottages full of DIY love and second-hand clothes that looked way cooler than anything you could buy. I felt like I had found my tribe. I didn’t want new stuff or fancy s***, I just wanted to stay up all night with them, playing music and wearing f***ed-up old jumpers.

3. Falling in love with a brilliant hippy In Vermont

WHEN I was 17, I went to America for a year, and I fell in love – my first big love – with a brilliant guy who lived in this beautiful wooden house in rural Vermont that his Mum had built herself, it’s a beautiful place.

The summer I spent there, we didn’t shower at the house much, we’d wash in the pond with bio-friendly soap. He pretty much never wore shoes. Everything got reused and recycled. They had a generator that was turned on for a couple of hours at night, but the rest of the time it was candles. There were families of mice in the roof, a three-legged Maine Coon Cat, and it was just total heaven to me, living that way, living symbiotically with the nature outside the door.

4. Going on a trip to the Arctic

IN 2008, I took a trip to the Arctic with Cape Farewell, an organisation that brings artists and scientists together for experiences at the frontline of climate change, where the scientists are carrying out work and the artists can digest what is happening and hopefully create work to highlight the issues.

It was an extremely intense trip; 20 scientists, 20 artists including Martha Wainwright, Jarvis Cocker, Laurie Anderson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Feist, Marcus Brigstocke, Robyn Hitchcock, Vanessa Carlton ... it was a bit insane.

But seeing that part of the world, hearing what was happening, feeling how deeply precious these untouched places are, that experience will never leave me. I wrote a song called Uummannaq Song about the trip.

5. Glastonbury Festival

MY first Glastonbury Festival was 2006, I think. I’d never been in that environment before, where a city-size group of people are completely freed from their usual daily thought processes and responsibilities, and just go fully, fully wild. It was like going through the back of the wardrobe into Narnia, just another world. And I LOVED it.

I find now, after going back many times, that my days at Glastonbury Festival are some of the most deeply cherished days of my whole year. I’m reminded of the goodness of people, the pure fun and warmth of strangers, and most importantly, the energy of the land there that welcomes us back each year. Every time I go, it feels like plugging back into the roots I laid down there in years past.

6. Visiting the Peruvian Amazon with Reverb

I MADE a trip to the Peruvian Amazon jungle with Reverb.org to try to help bring attention to the major issue of illegal logging.

Some big guitar companies are still using illegally logged Amazonian precious wood to make often pretty cheap instruments that are being distributed all over the world. We visited a village in the jungle and heard first-hand what the indigenous people are dealing with: the murder of their tribe’s people who are trying to protect the trees; lawless land-grabs by logging companies, causing displacement and devastation. I’ll never forget Diana, the tribe leader, telling us that every tree was like a member of their family. Imagine how they feel.

7. Receiving an honorary degree

I RECEIVED an honorary doctorate in environmental science from Royal Holloway University of London. OK, so I can’t claim that this changed my life exactly, but it was a really meaningful gesture and I was deeply grateful to receive it!

There is a lot of finger-pointing when it comes to trying to be outspoken about the environmental issues we face, because of course we live in an environmentally unfriendly society, so while you are trying to bring about change, you are labelled a hypocrite for getting on a plane, a tour bus, having a car, etc.

But we need massive large-scale innovation and systematic change to give society a better choice.

That’s why I want to speak up about it, because it’s up to those in positions of power who can make radically different choices to shift the way we live, and those people are who we need to get the attention of.

8. Living in Los Angeles

IT’S been very eye-opening living in Los Angeles. In Venice Beach you’re in the tsunami zone, in the canyons and hills the wildfires get worse each year, and the whole city sits on a massive fault line that regularly rumbles away.

There are mountain lions that stroll past the Hollywood sign, coyotes that hang out in the Greek Theatre parking lot, skunks, possums, birds of prey, raccoons, rats that can run along the power lines above your head... People often don’t realise that half an hour from pretty much anywhere, you can be on the most stunning mountain hike, surrounded by nature, and you can get lost if you want to.

I absolutely love California, and I like that it feels somewhat perilous to humans. Nature is fierce there, and it is a constant reminder to me to be respectful of it.

9. Stopping eating processed food

I CHOOSE to follow a way of eating called the Bulletproof Diet, which is a slightly adjusted ketogenic diet which involves a lot of good-quality high fats, lots of veggies and trying to avoid sugar as well as most things that come out of a packet. I do eat meat as I feel much healthier doing so, but always make an effort to make the healthiest choices for myself and the planet when it comes to what I’m eating. It makes you pretty aware of what some of the practices are doing to the Earth, and it can be overwhelmingly worrying.

But our money is very powerful; where we spend our money is a very powerful weapon against bad practices, so I try to shop good.

10. Reusables

KT’s Kitchen

I HAVE recently started cooking my own food on tour (I actually have a show on Instagram called “KT’s Kitchen”) and it has led to really understanding the power of reusables, particularly on tour where you can potentially generate so much waste. A kind fan gave me a little roll-up set of bamboo cutlery with a straw which now lives in my bag. I’m carrying collapsible silicon dishes and cups and always have a metal water bottle and coffee flask with me, and I’m realising how great it feels to not be contributing to that massive issue. And that’s something we can all do!