THE SOUTH RISES AGAIN

My attitude towards interviews has changed a lot from when I first started doing them to how I do them now, Sharleen Spiteri announces in a strong Glaswegian accent as she sits her petite and waif-like form down across the table from me in a quiet Dublin bar. I guess when I first started, it was like you re in a band and you just think that being in a band s all about making music and you re going please like me, please like my record and you re just trying to be really nice to everybody all the time. And sometimes people would ask you things that you re a bit (pulls face) about. It was kinda like I m not very happy with that. But I just used to go oh well and try and answer the question as best as I could. Now I don t. I just go Don t annoy me, see you later, leave me alone (waves hand). I m just like that these days. I couldnae give a shit anymore.
Gulp! I have been warned. At least five of my planned questions speed towards the wastepaper basket in my head as I turn the tape machine on. But the Texas singer s not being unfriendly, just confident. Very confident, in fact. She s changed, you see. There was once a time when hatchet wielding journalists had upset her so much that she refused to do any interviews for the best part of five years.
Well, I m 30 now, she states, and I guess at that age you really stop giving a shit, you know. I mean, you re just far too busy getting on with your life to be all that bothered about what other people think of you. I dunno, maybe some people already have that view at 18. I didn t. I wish I had. It s a good way to be in this business.
Her attitude towards errant interviewers isn t the only thing that s changed about Spiteri over the last few years. In fact, nowadays, there s very little about the singer s public persona that isn t totally at odds with the rather shy and dowdy broke student image she was projecting around the time of her band s last album. But things change. Texas are back on the musical map, these days hip where once they were hip replacement . Such are the erratic swings and roundabouts of the entertainment business. Currently enjoying the biggest and most unlikely comeback since Jesus rolled that rock out of the way, it suddenly seems Sharleen Spiteri can do no wrong these days.
Nobody really saw it coming but Texas s recovery has been a remarkable one. Back in 1989 they were one of the biggest bands on Planet Pop but, like many an act that arrives with a bang, had been in slow decline ever since, with neither of their follow-up albums coming even close to matching the phenomenal success of their debut LP Southside. Having spent the best part of a decade in the wilderness (at least as far as the critics were concerned), things finally came full circle for them last year.
Yes folks, Texas are back in a big way. Since it was released last February, their fourth long player the Mike Hedges-produced White On Blonde has sold well over two million copies and spawned four memorable Top 20 hits. The first of these the soulful Say What You Want was the most played new song on British radio last year, receiving more than 18,000 airings in less than three months (shortly before Christmas Capital Radio voted Sharleen Female Vocalist Of The Year ). Recently the band were in New York recording a new version of the track with the Wu-Tang Clan a collaboration that, even a year ago, would ve seemed about as unlikely a prospect as the idea of Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn doing a duet together. Texas aren t just hip these days, it seems they re hip-hop as well.
Sharleen s success has extended beyond the rather limited boundaries of the music world as well. Since a radical makeover by fashion photographers Ellen von Unwerth and Jeurgen Teller transformed her image from laid back, denim-clad country singer to broody, power-dressing, sex symbol, the remade and remodelled singer is now more in demand than heroin in Mountjoy Prison. So much so, in fact, that numerous big-name designers have been making overtures at her to model their new collections (Prada, Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein have all made offers). Her new look has been deemed In by fashion editors on both sides of the Atlantic and you re now as likely to see Sharleen pouting from the cover of Vogue as you are from the front page of the NME. It s easy to see why. Even today slap bang in the middle of a gruelling European tour wearing a plain black dress, jacket and hat, she looks truly stunning. She knows it as well.
Do you like my hat? she asks me with a teasing smile, pulling it down over her ears.
The hat I could take or leave. The head inside it, however, I d do time for. Willingly.
Are you going to do the Calvin Klein thing? I enquire, seeing as we re talking about clothes.
Oh, I dunno, she shrugs noncommittally. I ve spoken to them about it. You know, we ve spoken about doing stuff in the States gigs with them promoting and so on. And maybe doing photos and things like that. But it s a very strange area for a singer to get into modelling and all that.
Would you do a movie?
I ve always had movie offers, she says. I ve been getting movie offers since our first album.
And you re not tempted?
Well, I really wanted a walk-on part as a stormtrooper in the new Star Wars movie and I was gutted when I didn t get that, she laughs. I really love Star Wars. But actually I think it s quite difficult for people in bands to get into movies. The thing is especially if you re pretty successful and well known people just have this vision of what you are. To them, you are the person that they see onstage and they cannae get past you being any other character. I mean, I don t know if you could ever imagine me playing a city street bum or a cop or something like that (laughs).
Like, when you re in a band, the way people see you, even on the street, is pretty weird. I was in a shop today and the people around me were straining to see what kind of moisturiser I was getting. I think they had some idea that it must be some kind of super-dooper stuff because they d seen me on the telly. So they don t see you as a normal person. But you are!
Truth be told, it wasn t always unlike this but it s still been quite a while since Sharleen Spiteri last experienced this level of success. There s a literary joke about the shortest autobiography (n)ever written being called My Struggle by Martin Amis (his debut novel was published when he was just 21). A similarly titled autobiography by Spiteri would be equally farcical. She first met her songwriting partner Johnny McElhone at 18, while she was working as a hairdresser in Glasgow. Within 14 months, she had quit her job, formed a band and I Don t Want A Lover (the first song the duo ever wrote together) was riding high in every chart from Turkey to, eh, Texas. The song has since become an FM classic, the late eighties equivalent of Hotel California . In fact, it s taken the band the best part of a decade to finally overshadow it. Sharleen still remembers her firstborn hit fondly however.
A lot of people kind of look on that song as being the famous noose around Texas neck, she smiles, but, as much as everyone wants to call it that, I still totally disagree because it was what first gave us our success you know, launched us. And I guess it probably enabled us to keep making records. The fact that we d sold a lot of copies of our first album I guess was what kept us signed throughout the leaner years.
In truth, their leaner years weren t really all that lean. Although neither of Southside s successors Mother s Heaven and Rick s Road came close to the success of their debut, they still sold respectably around Europe, with sales of the latter platter passing the million mark in France alone.
Yeah, but in Britain it was just dead, she recalls, pulling a face. Having said that we were still having Top 40 hits but I guess we weren t considered hip. I think in a sense the whole public perception of Texas was kind of off. And the whole Manchester scene and everything was happening in the UK you know, The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays and all of that was there. And I guess that personally I was just quite disillusioned with the whole success thing and what goes along with it.
How do you mean?
I just felt really let down after the first album, she shrugs. I felt really betrayed in a way. A lot of the press was pretty nasty. And then suddenly, I guess after doing Rick s Road, I came to my senses and just went Jesus! It wasn t all about me and them! It was just about . . . that s the way it is. These things come along and it s not personal. So I suddenly went Bing! (snaps fingers) and decided to get on with it.
The backlash obviously hurt though.
Yeah, it did. It hurt a lot at the time. But, you know, now I know just how fast it can all disappear.
Was there ever any point where the band considered splitting up?
No, never, she shakes her head. There was never any point within Texas that we had any doubts about ourselves as a band. You know, we believed in our thing. We believed in our songwriting and our musicianship always.
Even so, it s been well documented that the pressures of fame and the severity of the band s inevitable critical mauling were what caused Texas s first drummer to retire from the music business and join the Hari Krishnas (fact!). It s not an option that Sharleen would have considered for herself however.
I m not very good with organised religions, she states emphatically. In fact, I m not very good with organised anything! Anything with a lot of people being organised by someone and following something and having set rules just isn t me. You know, that s why I hated school! I didnae like school at all! I hate when I hear people say that their schooldays were the best days of their lives. I look at people with absolute horror when they say that to me.
My schooldays were the worst days of my life! No doubt about it! I hated the place, couldnae wait to get out of it. I used to sit in classes and think why am I sitting here with all these people that I have nothing in common with? Why am I learning all of this bullshit that I know I ll have no use for? I know that might seem like a very arrogant point of view and everybody has to go to school but, personally, I found it really hard and pointless.
Did you feel destined for something else while you were at school? Did you have bigger plans?
No, I just had my own ideas, she avers. I don t know if that meant I had bigger plans but I certainly had my own ideas. I knew what I wanted to do. The thing was I didn t always want to be a musician. Originally I wanted to be an artist. When I was coming into my fourth year of school I decided to go to the Glasgow School Of Art. Basically you do an exam and if you get accepted you re in. So anyway, I did the exam, got in and stayed there for three terms. But then the summer holidays came along and I went for a part-time job to earn some money to pay for my paints and stuff. So I went for a job in a hairdressing salon.
I remember walking past it and thinking that looks like a cool place to work . You know, it was a big fancy fashion place. I just thought I could work in there so I went in and asked were there any jobs going? And they looked at me and said come back and see the boss on Monday so I went back the next week and got the job. I started work as a junior and wound up getting really into it. I did my training and was a qualified hairdresser in no time. Then I wound up travelling for the company and representing them abroad and all that kind of stuff.
It was around this time that Sharleen first met McElhone and suddenly her life took a completely different direction. Even so, her hairdressing skills still come in handy on occasion.
Sometimes if we re about to do a TV show or something and someone s hair looks ridiculous I ll go gimme two seconds and a pair of scissors please, she laughs. And suddenly I m cutting people s hair. The people in make-up always look at me as if I m mad. You know, there s yer woman from Texas cutting people s hair. What s she at? .
Of course, Texas s unlikely return to form, fame and fortune didn t just happen by accident. Talent, good timing and a modicum of luck played their usual roles but there were other factors involved as well. Chief among them was the tireless support of ginger haired DJ and self proclaimed mad bloke Chris Evans who successfully persuaded his Radio One listeners to put Say What You Want to the Number One position in the British charts ( This tune is a number one song, that s where it belongs, he d remind them every time he played it). He s still plugging them. Nowadays, Sharleen is a regular guest on Evan s hugely popular TV show TFI Friday, thereby keeping Texas very much in the public eye.
Her radical remodelling by photographers Jeurgen Teller and Ellen von Unwerth helped a lot as well, completely changing the public s perception of the singer. Teller s stark shots of a make up-less and wet haired Spiteri were plastered all over London billboards and buses, while von Unwerth s sexy portraits of the singer in a kinky red dress practically caused tabloid hysteria. None of these people had any hidden agendas however. According to Sharleen, Texas were just getting a little help from their friends.
Chris Evans is a friend of mine from way back, she explains. I knew him when he was still making tea. Basically all those people were really new in 1989 when we were really new in 1989. And we met them before they were massive. So it s kind of like that, we all came up through the ranks together. So that s how we know them. We ve always approached them as mates. I mean, it s quite good in a way. Like, Jeurgen Teller is one of my best mates, he s a really good pal. It just happens that he s one of the biggest fashion photographers in the world but, you know, we go away on holidays together and all that shit. So it s just like hey Jeurgen, let s do a photo session . It s not a big deal. So I ve kind of got my foot in the door, more or less.
Did you see posing for those photos as a risk?
No, I thought they were great, she states enthusiastically. And anyway, if I hadn t liked them then they wouldn t have been shown in public. I mean, I love Jeurgen s photography. I think he s a brilliant photographer. I think sometimes he s brutally honest and I think sometimes you go phew (draws breath sharply) when you see the pictures, you know. But I wanted photos of me, not photos of a pop star, do you know what I m saying? Even though you could say that they re typical pop star photographs like, they re still pictures of someone with no make up on just standing there. But I wanted people to see me, you know, just to see what I really look like. And they suited the album as well, they suited what it was about. You know, the whole record was stripped down. The band had been stripped down to the bone.
What s all this about you recording with the Wu-Tang Clan?
Yeah, that was great, she smiles. We went over to New York and re-recorded Say What You Want with them. We ve got Method Man rapping on it! It sounds brilliant! And we ve done another track with them as well. We haven t finished it yet so I don t want to talk much about it, but we ve done a completely new song with them.
So can we take this as a sign that Texas are finally overhauling more than just their image and becoming a little more experimental musically?
Well, the thing is, I think people are sometimes a little too uptight about music, she replies after a pause. You know, you either like music or you don t like music. I don t give a shit what kind of music you like. Every person s got different rhythms and feelings in their body and certain rhythms ignite different things inside them. I don t give a shit what you call what we do whether it s country, blues, soul or whatever you wanna call it. It s all music. That s what it comes down to.
And the Wu-Tang s stuff really influenced us a lot on this record. I mean, I know you re not gonna listen to White On Blonde and go Jesus that sounds like a Wu-Tang record! . Because it doesn t sound like a Wu-Tang record at all, but the rhythms and the sort of dirtiness and filters of that street sound really influenced us a lot in making this record. And we ve namechecked them in all of the press that we ve done to promote the record.
Much of White On Blonde was written during 1996, a year in which Sharleen was temporarily resident in Paris while her collaborator Johnny McElhone remained based in Glasgow. They claim to have written most of the album s songs over the phone line. So how did that work?
Well basically we d just talk and chat a lot, swapping ideas for lyrics and so on, she explains. And then Johnny would play bits of music down the phone and leave them on my answering machine. So I d come home at night to all these bits of music on the bloody machine! So I d be in Paris writing lyrics and melodies and stuff and he d be doing the same in Glasgow. But I was flying backwards and forwards a lot as well. And really that s the way it was done. We might do it that way again. We got some great songs doing it that way (laughs).
What, in your opinion, makes a great song?
Something that you hear a year later and can remember instantly, she replies without skipping a beat. Something you never realised you knew the words to but can just start singing it when you hear the riff. Like, I was sitting in a cafi recently and I heard I Don t Want A Lover for the first time in ages. I heard it and I thought that track still sounds good , do you know what I mean? Like, I don t sit down and listen to Texas records all day (laughs) so when I heard it I was going bloody hell, that was 1989 and it still sounds good. It stood up to the test of time and that s what makes a good pop record a song that can stand up to time.
Of course, not all of Sharleen s songs stand up some of them sitcom (Boom! Boom! Comedy Ed). I speak, of course, of So Called Friend the Texas track that s used on the soundtrack for the American television series Ellen.
That was weird actually, she says. We were recording some of White On Blonde in a house in Glasgow at the time and Ellen Degeneres phoned up my manager and said she wanted to get in touch with me to talk about using the song for the show. So my manager said fine, call her up and ask, she s in the house . And it was really funny cos I m so bad at dealing with these kind of things. When she rang this voice was going (adopts high pitched American accent) Hey, howya doing? and it was the exact voice from the television. I just burst out laughing. I was going I m really, really sorry, but I just couldn t stop. It s just so weird when you know someone from the TV and then they re calling you up.
Anyway, she said that she d seen us playing in LA and that she loved the band and loved So Called Friend and wanted to use it for her show. So I talked to the band about it and everyone said fine . Like, we all knew the show really well, so we were just like fine, let s do it! , I really like her. I think she s a really strong character. She does her own thing.
Had she come out of the closet at that stage?
No, she hadn t. I knew she was gay though. I m glad she did come out in the end, I think it was a brave move. I think it s the age-old story of people going well, I know I m gay but I can t let the viewers know because I ve gotta keep the ratings up high. I think that s such a big mistake. A lot of people in the entertainment industry really underestimate the public for being really naive. I guess in America it s a different thing but I do think that nowadays the public see people, not just personalities. It s not simply black and white anymore. I think they re past the point where they see gay as bad in some way. I think that s gone. Our generation is a lot more open-minded about things like that and I think a lot of older people really underestimate that. I think that s the problem.
You ve a bit of a gay following yourself, don t you?
A bit of one! she exclaims, laughing. Jesus! It s huge!
Is that strange?
Well, I take it as a huge compliment really, she smiles. It s one of the biggest compliments you could get, isn t it?
Despite being a gay icon, Spiteri is resolutely heterosexual and has been involved in a relationship with Ashley Heath fashion editor of The Face and Arena Pour Homme for several years now. Does she find it difficult combining a steady relationship with a career in the music business?
No, not really, she shakes her head. Like, we ve been going out with each other for a long, long time, so he s been there when it s not been that good and he s there now that it s unbelievably good and he knows how hard I ve worked to get things to this point. He knows what it means to me so he s more than happy. He knows I ve got to go on tour and I ve gotta work. But he has to work as well and I understand that. You know, when he s in production he sometimes doesn t come home until three in the morning for two weeks running. But it s not a hassle. He s got lots of meetings and interviews and has to go to different places and stuff.
To be honest with you, we have a really good life. Yeah, sometimes it s difficult to see each other but at least it s not like we re both stuck doing jobs we hate. I think that doing a job you hate puts a lot more pressure on a relationship than doing a job you actually really enjoy. And to me it s a really privileged job that both of us do, that s the way I look at it.
Still it must be a bit difficult living life in the public eye?
Well, I don t really, she shrugs. I m kind of guarded about that. You know, you re entitled to some privacy sometimes. And sometimes I just need to be a normal person. That s why I went to live in Paris for a while. I went there because I could be a normal person there. But it s not really that bad at home anyway. Sure, I m on telly and in papers with the band but I don t get written about the way, say, Liam and Noel do. But that s because I don t want it. But I think it s probably very difficult for Liam and Noel at this stage. They re probably the biggest phenomenon to happen in the UK for years and years. And you know, they play on it, it s their thing. But then sometimes the wild animal gets let off the leash and you just can t control it anymore. And I m not even prepared to put the leash on the animal and let it have a wee roam around. I m just nah (shakes head). You know, sometimes there are tabloid people around outside but I m always quite straight with them. I ll let them take their photographs and then ask them to go away. That s it. I do my thing, I get on with it and I m nice to people. You start punching people or abusing them or telling them to fuck off then it gets messy.
Speaking of tabloid terriers, what are your thoughts on Michael Hutchence s death?
I thought it was a terrible pity. You know, to me, when anybody takes their own life . . . it s just a very dark place to go. I d met him a few times and he seemed like a very decent man. I think it s a great shame for his family and friends.
I think all this talk about the pressures of fame causing people to kill themselves is bullshit though. The thing that everybody forgets is that there s a lot of people out there who ve committed suicide. You know, I ve had two friends who had nothing to do with music who committed suicide. It was just the pressures of life, full stop, not the pressures of being a fucking pop star!
It s like suddenly because you re a pop star it s really glamorous to commit suicide. But the truth is that there s nothing different between Michael Hutchence committing suicide and Joe Bloggs committing suicide. It s the same thing, it s desperation. It s feeling like you ve nowhere to turn or whatever. But to be honest, I don t really know. I don t have, as far as I m concerned, suicidal tendencies. But it s a desperate hour. And at the end of the day we all come in the same way and we all go out the same way. And that s it. You know, we re all the same. Just because people recognise somebody when they walk down the street, because their faces are plastered all over the telly and the bloody papers, doesn t make them all that different.
Although she s of Italian descent, Sharleen Spiteri was born and raised in Glasgow. Does she feel that her band s recently restored popularity is in any way part of the same new wave of Scottish talent that s brought people like Irvine Welsh, Ewan McGregor and Shirley Manson to prominence over the last couple of years?
Well I m quite proud to be Scottish, she concedes, but, at the end of the day, I m not out pushing any kind of hey Scotland s come back! kind of thing. I was never part of any scene really, to be honest with you. Live by them, die by them, and all that. No, I m just doing my own thing. It s about me and my band. You know, I ve been there when everyone wants a bit of you and I ve been there when nobody wants a bit of you. And I know that when nobody wanted a bit of us, we took it upon ourselves to keep it going and keep it running. Even though a lot of people journalists in particular tried to pull Texas apart at that point.
You re not holding any grudges I hope?
No, of course I don t, she laughs. The only time I would hold a grudge would be if someone wrote something personal about me. Like, I don t mind people saying they don t like the album or a gig or something. There was a gig review in the NME recently that wasn t all that favourable but I still thought it was a fair review. He called me the Emma Thompson of rock but I laughed at that, I found it funny. He contradicted himself a few times but it was fine. Basically he said I was a great singer, Texas are an alright band but he didn t like the show. But that s just the guy s opinion, that s what he s there to do, that s his job. And that s fine by me.
But somebody else reviewed the same show for Melody Maker and he was bitching about me and got really personal. And if I walk into a place and see the guy sitting there I ll go over and say it to him you re a wanker mate! I will!! Like, if you re gonna write personal things about me, don t expect me to smile when I see you just because you re a journalist and you think I need something off you. I won t. I just refuse point blank to do it. If someone introduces me to a journalist and I know that they ve written something really bad and personal now I don t mind someone saying my record s crap, that s fine, they can say that, that s nothing, it s not bad but when they ve been really personal and bitchy and have said really horrible things about you, then . . .
Then what? I gulp.
Then you talk fighting talk!
Fellow scribes, you have been warned. Sharleen Spiteri the Beatrice Dalle of rock is not to be messed with! n