Texas - excited by new direction
from Dotmusic - 6 January 1997

Those who remember Texas as polished practioners of blue-eyed Scots pop are in for a big surprise. The band's superb fourth album, White On Blonde, released in February 1997 and their first since 1993's Rick's Road, is drawn more from Motown, Stax and Hi Studio sounds, the current strain of British trip hop and all mixed with the mature songwriting depth of Chrissie Hynde.

When a new track, Good Advice, was recently played on Manchester's Kiss FM, a panellist on the Drivetime Hit Or Miss slot asked, "is that the same Texas?" before the panel unanimously decided it was a hit. Say What You Want is actually the first single from the new album, but will perform the same role in changing the public's perceptions. That said, the more astute members of the public will hear a continuation of the influences that made Texas's cover Al Green's Tired Of Being Alone their last chart hit.

Sharleen Spiteri, Texas's lead singer and co-writer, was well aware that changes were underfoot, and that the band had to go away and, to paraphrase Bono of U2, re-invent themselves. Says Spiteri, "It would have been the biggest mistake to do the same album as Rick's Road. After we finished touring that album we had to change and move on. As a band, we couldn't go in the studio and have 14 songs ready, and then just record them as the next album. But we were lucky that we had built a studio in the back of my house in Glasgow, and we just recorded loads of songs, about 50 of them."

Spiteri says she and the Texas boys - Johnny McElhone (bass, co-writer), Ally McErlane (guitar), Richard Hynd (drums/programming) and Eddie Campbell (keyboards/programming) - took inspiration not just from brace of records drawn from Sixties American soul and pop, British Northern soul and Studio One reggae from Jamaica, but from a pile of music documentaries. "We shut ourselves away and watched lots of them, learning new things from them," she says. "Like the Marvin Gaye documentary, when he said he did every vocal lying down, so that's what I did. It was just to do things differently. At no point did we go into the studio and play, which put us in a different position straightaway, and kept us off automatic pilot."

Besides the Glasgow sessions, Texas sent a demo of Halo to producer Mike Hedges - the band loved what he had achieved on the Manic Street Preachers' Everything Must Go. Hedges was keen to work on the track, but felt he couldn't improve on what he heard as a finished song. Instead, he simply upgraded the demo, and added his customary swirling strings. Through Bobby Bluebell, the band met Dave Stewart, and quickly co-wrote and recorded Put Your Arms Around Me with Stewart in the producer's chair. The third and last collaboration was with Manchester dance duo Rae and Christian, aka. Grand Central.

Spiteri says, "There were no rules to this record. And because we had no studio deadline, we could try out the songs in as many different ways as we wanted. We had to get it right, so it was as long as it took. It was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, since the record came together over a long period." It was during this period the Texas's label, Mercury, had to be extra-patient and supportive. "They recognised we weren't ready, and let us get on with it," says Spiteri. "When we wanted to do Grand Central remixes of Say What You, it was no problem, because they believed in what we were doing."


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