Sharleen blows her cool

from Heat Magazine - 11-17 November 1999 by Nick Duerden

She's our most succesfull pop star and she gets to cavort on beds with male models. So why is Sharleen Spiteri in a bad mood? "Fucking flu" she tells Nick Duerden.
It is a cold, crisp day in the north, and Sharleen Spiteri is suffering from a lack of sufficient sleep. Last night's hotel had an air conditioning system that didn't know its hot from its cold. So the Texas singer tossed and turned throughout the night, one moment sweating, the next freezing. "I thought I had the fucking flu or something," she says.

Nevertheless, she looks delightfully rumpled today in the kind of manner only ever truly achieved by the rich and famous. She strides into a Manchester eatery under an artfully created birds' nest of black hair, and is wearing worn Jeans that are decadently fashionable and, doubtless, very expensive. She is the liveliest of company, picking delicately at a plate of hummus, but insisting on a plate of sausage and mash for heat as a hangover cure. Mash, it seems, is good for soaking up alcohol in the stomach. "You're bringing out my maternal side," she says. Later, she will reveal a fondness for Robbie, and refer to his one time bandmate Gary Barlow as "fuckface". Apparently, on an Italian pop show recently, he accidentally cracked her head open with his guitar, then blamed his attendant security. "If it wasn't for them," says the woman who stands at 5ft 5", "1 would have had him."
Texas are here in Manchester halfway through a sold-out UK tour to further promote a very succesfull album. Following the four-million-selling, career-saving White On Blonde, The Hush has already shifted over three million copies in just six months. They are one of Britain's biggest bands, about to set their sights on America which they confidently believe they will crack. This is all a very different story from just three years ago.
Back then, Texas were on the brink of ruin. Their record company were threatening to drop them, and they themselves were considering splitting. Since the top ten success of their 1989 debut single, I Don't Want A Lover, and the album Southside, Texas had been on a gradual downward slide. Their second album, Mothers Heaven, performed disappointingly, and very few people even noticed when they released a third, Ricks Road. With the exception of France, who still considered them splendid, Texas were uniformly regarded as a band dull enough to render even Del Amitri as rock gods.
But then a very peculiar thing happened. Texas became hip, seemingly overnight. Purportedly steered by her journalist boyfriend, Ashley Heath (then editor of fashion magazine Arena Homme Plus), Sharleen became a sex siren, the band's sole focal point, and someone most adept at pouting provocatively before the camera lens. While the often exotic photo shoots looked like she was selling perfume, she was in fact selling the band. It worked wonders, too: suddenly, Texas were everywhere. And now look at them. Huge. Sharleen Spiteri, svengali boyfriend loitering somewhere in the shadows, has mounted the most successful make over in recent pop history.


How does it feel to have sold upwards of seven million albums in less than three years?
How does it feel? It feels very secure. [Laughs] But I also feel incredibly grateful for it, because we were lucky enough to get a second chance. That doesn't happen much these days. I still find it hard to believe that we broke big on our fourth album. Nobody from the record company will admit to it now, but even when we delivered Say What You Want (White On Blonde's first single), no one was particularly impressed. We loved it, but I think they were simply no longer interested in us. It was like they were waiting for the record to fail so they could get rid of us. Instead, however, we sold an obscene amount of albums and suddenly they love us. I tell you, becoming very successful gives you an awful lot of power.

Why was the album such a success, given Texas' then somewhat dull image?
Simple: because it was a great record. We'd made the best music of our lives, and people were responding to it.

The image reinvention certainly helped though, didn't it?
I find it funny the way people are so obsessed about my supposed "reinvention". We've been around for ten years, so of course we're going to reinvent ourselves. It's called progression.

True, but the suddenly glamorous image seemed very calculated towards making you quickly famous.
Everyone is convinced that the record sold because I draped myself all over the press to plug it. In actual fact, I didn't start appearing on magazine covers until the second single, Halo, was already in the charts. We were becoming successful, so there was a demand for interviews, and I gave them.

Were the rest of the band happy to take a step back?
Absolutely. It took all the pressure off them. Let's face it, an attractive woman in a band is a pretty effective focal point. We were convinced we'd made a great record - the best of our career - and we wanted people to hear it. And the way to do that is to promote it. So I did.

Is it true that your boyfriend had a guiding hand in the makeover?
Not really. Obviously, having a boyfriend that works in journalism helps to give you an insight into how the whole business works, but I used to be a hairdresser, so I know a fair bit about image myself. We did talk about how to present ourselves because we knew that initially people wouldn't be interested in Texas and we wanted to change their minds. The whole music business Is a game in that respect, and we played it. Wouldn't you have done the same? Wouldn't anyone?

Had you always wanted to be famous?
No, never had. Still don't, in fact. I've never been bothered with it, to be honest. It doesn't interest me at all. Anyone can be famous. You can be famous for wearing high-heeled shoes, or blowing off presidents. I want people to say I'm a great singer, a great songwriter, that's all. If I simply wanted to become famous, then I would have got my tits out long ago. And I never have. Never will, either.

Did it ever feel slightly foolish to be rolling around on exotic beaches like a supermodel merely to sell a band that used to wear woolly jerseys and hobnail boots?

No, I had a great time, and they're great photographs. I'll keep them forever and show them to my children so that they can be proud of their mother. Everyone likes to look good in pictures, and those pictures make me look fantastic. Ten years ago I was very selfconscious about the way I looked, but I'm almost 32 now, and I've accepted that I've got a giant nose and other blemishes. But am I going to get major surgery? Nah, fuck it. I'll just ask photographers not to accentuate it and to light me in a flattering manner, that's all.

Subsequent collaborations with Rae & Christian and Wu-Tang Clan also seemed like a very determined effort to suddenly become chic. Were they?
I met Rae & Christian ages ago through my boyfriend, and I spent years namechecking the Wu-Tang Clan because I was a fan. Both came to work with us because they knew we were good at what we did musically. I've never been interested in being chic or trendy or cool. I just want two things: to make good music and work with people I admire.

Did any members of the WuTang Clan come on to you?
[Aghast] Absolutely not! But I know what you mean. If you put any man or woman in a room together there's bound to be something, some kind of spark. When they were first told that we'd love to work with them, they were like [adopts cheeky American drawl], "Hey, is that the chick with the funky red dress from that video [BlackEyed Boy]? I like her! ", but they were very respectful towards me. I was in awe of them. They're all huge guys, and they kept calling me "girlie". But then they heard me sing, and they were convinced I was black! [Fondly] Method Man is a lovely guy, you know.

Do you feel sexy?
Not first thing in the morning, I don't. I can look very rough indeed. But I don't want to be obviously sexy. I try to think what I find sexy in women - and it's not Pamela Anderson - and then work on that. I think the sexiest word in the English language is "no". It makes perfect sense, because everyone wants what they can't have. If you actually look at all the supposedly steamy photographs I've done, I'm actually revealing very little flesh indeed.

In the video for Summer Son, you effectively dry-hump a handsome man in bed. Did he leave you, um, tongue-tied?
Very funny. I'll tell you why I did that video. It was to suggest that it is possible to be unbelievably sexy and keep all your clothes on. That video was all about the power of suggestion, but ironically it wasn't allowed to be shown on television before seven o'clock because it was too raunchy. What hypocritical bullshit. All I ever see on MTV are women in ridiculous push-up bras, cleavage everywhere, and touching themselves. I wanted to make an alternative, but keep it just as sexy.

It is also, presumably, fairly good fun cavorting with a male model of your choice?
Well, I have to admit, it's a pretty good way to spend a day. [Abruptly changing subject] Incidentally, did you know that Summer Son has just broken us in Germany? Which is good news because Germany is the third biggest market in the world. We're massive there now.

Not bigger than David Hasselhoff, surely? Germany, after all, is his stronghold.
Do you know what? I think we're even bigger than him. How about that?

Congratulations.
Thank you, very kind.

You exude confidence the way a teenager does testosterone. Does it ever spill over into arrogance?
When I was a hairdresser, people thought I was really arrogant. Now, because of the band, I'm almost allowed to have an ego, but most people tend to think of me as level headed. Well, that's what they tell me to my face, anyway. Put it this way, I've not changed at all. I'm very ambitious, always have been. There are still a lot of people out there who don't like us and probably hate me, but I don't care about them. We're a band who sell a lot of records. That brings peace of mind and, yes, a certain arrogance. But, y'know, we've worked hard to get into this position. I'm not about to apologise for it.

One more thing. What, if anything, turns you off in a man?
Beards. When they get as big as that bloke's in The Royle Family, bits of food get stuck in thein. Disgusting! My father [a seaman] used to go off to sea for months at a time and come back home with a bloody great bush of a beard. Me and my sister would go after him with the scissors, screaming like banshees.

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