Size does matter
from i-D Magazine - no 186 - May 1999

After the rebirth of cool that was White on Blonde, Texas are finally ready to capitalise on their credibility. And for Sharleen Spiteri, this time it's personal...

Armed with a wedge of crisp tenners ready to blow at the bar, it's impossible to deny a slight tinge of disappointment when Sharleen Spiteri's choice of beverage turns out to be a cup of tea. Ask what she's doing at the weekend and she talks excitedly about staying in to await delivery of a new fridge. Getting on a domestic roll, she waxes lyrical about the draught excluders she's just fitted in her new Primrose Hill home. "I think I'm turning into my mum," she concludes.

Sharleen Spiteri may be a woman who stands accused of many things, but domestic obsession isn't one of them. She's been criticised for trying to add credibility to her soul-tinged radio-friendly rock by aligning herself with the likes of Rae and Christian and the Wu-Tang Clan. When she employed Juergen Teller to shoot the cover of Texas' 1997 album White On Blonde, it was said she brought him in an attempt to re-invent herself as a moody, hip and highly marketable frontwoman Even her choice of boyfriend, Arena Homme Plus editor Ashley Heath, who she's been seeing for years, has been called her svengali figure, a calculated move to position herself within the sphere of all things cool.

" I've never ever seen it written where someone's gone, 'Yeah Sharleen's alright, she knows what she's doing'," she says. "But it's like fuck them, who cares? Everyone seems to forget that I used to be a hairdresser, I used to do shoots constantly and teach all over the world. I was very much part of the whole industry before I was ever in a band, then suddenly it got to this point where everyone was saying Texas are trying to re-invent themselves. People want a story though, they want to invent something."

When Sharleen first appeared on the cover of i-D back in March '97, readers wrote in to complain: why should we want to feature someone like Spiteri? She was old news: her debut single, I Don't Want a Lover, hit number eight way back in '89. Her records shifted millions and she'd spent far too much time at the top of the charts. In 1997, Texas were one of the most played acts on British radio. Mass market, stadium-sized exposure - how uncool is that?

"I don't want to make cool music," she retorts angrily. "What is cool music? It might be cool today but it's not going to be cool tomorrow. People still talk about I Don't Want A Lover and that was ten years ago; to me that's far cooler than writing some fucking stupid song that sold 20 copies. It's like, don't waste my time, pretentious fucks. I'm not interested in being trendy. I went through all that when I was 16. It seems it's more important nowadays to be into the right music, wear the right trainers, sit in the right bars and have the right furniture. It's too much effort, I'm too old and it's too boring." Hence her fad for draught, excluders.

There was a time, though, when Sharleen did care what people thought and she'd sit through interviews desperately trying to be liked. Even so, after the third Texas album, Ricks Road, the backlash kicked in. People lost interest, the press wrote her off and Spiteri took it all very personally. The whole experience left her feeling crushed and betrayed, she says. For a while Texas plugged away on the European tour circuit; they went "where the love was". But when the tour ended in '95, Spiteri had had enough and took off to Paris for a year to live with her mate. For a while it was touch and go. But today she's got an Ivor Novello award for 'outstanding body of work' sitting on her mantelpiece and a four million-selling comeback album. Finally she realised it was time to stop caring what people thought.

"We really fought to make that album," Sharleen admits. "A lot of people thought Texas had split up - some didn't know we'd ever existed - but we made a record because we believed in our ability to keep it going, we kept our values and rode it through. When people aren't interested, you really have to fight for what you believe in; we did and to come through the other end was the biggest gift anyone could ever have given us. All those people who went out and brought that record was the biggest compliment anyone could ever pay us."

At the end 1997, Texas played at the Hogmanay party in Edinburgh. With the castle as a backdrop and a sky exploding with fireworks, the curtain came down on what Sharleen describes as an unbelievable, fantastic year. That moment, playing to a rapturous New Year's audience, marked the end of the White On Blonde era and two days later, still riding on the buzz, she sat down with co-writer Johnny McElhone in her Glasgow recording studio and tried to do it again. The Hush, their fifth album, is the result. "This is the Texas album we've been building up to throughout our entire history," she says. "I really do believe we've nailed it."

Sharleen describes it as sensual, a collection of moods, hence the title. They spent weeks planning the running order; it's a record, she reckons, that will take your imagination to all sorts of different places when you put it on in your bedroom. Namechecked influences remain the classic Texas roll call: "You can hear the Roxy Music influences," she says. "Abba and the Human League all mixed in with The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, AI Green and Ann Peebles." The result is pure, polished summer-tinged pop with Spiteri's syrupy, smooth vocals stronger than ever, delivered lying as usual on her back.

For the album's artwork, this time Sharleen chose Gucci campaign photographer Luis Sanchez and headed out to Miami Beach where she languished in the sea for something more seductive than the pared down White On Blonde sleeve. "It was a case of let's go to the other end of the spectrum," she says, "the complete opposite of what Juergen Teller would do. He's very stripped down, very in your face. But because it's called The Hush, we wanted something shiny and glamorous. I've always loved the Roxy Music sleeves, classic late '70s album covers. It was more on that tip."

The source of inspiration for one track entitled The Girl actually came from Lauryn Hill. It refers to that rare thing: a woman with money and power, with the conviction to use it exactly the way she wants to. "She's stuck to her guns and I think that's what it's all about," Sharleen says. "I'm so aware a lot of people are quite prepared to sell their soul to get what they want, but I'm not and I don't think Lauryn is either. I look at men's magazines and see all these girl on the cover; you simply cannot get on one unless you're prepared to get your tits out and so many people do. It's inspiring seeing the way Lauryn Hill does it. And then she gets called an awkward bitch for it. It's so difficult if you're a woman and you've got an opinion. It's not considered an opinion, it's a fucking attitude problem and I find that very frustrating."

Inevitably Spiteri with her natural, androgynous good looks and flair for throwing together Prada with trainers has had countless offers to strip down and 'do something sexy'. But their idea of sexy, she says, is very different from her own. "Sexy is really all about imagining as opposed to seeing. That's why I love working with Juergen; his whole thing is about catching a real moment, something that you actually would do like sit in the bath. If it's all there in your face you don't even see it. But once you've shown it, you've shown it and you can't go back on it. I think it's laughable - if that's where the male sex are supposed to be at, it's very sad. Why do they have to have everything in pictures to understand how things work?"

At school, Sharleen was one of those girls who were approached by the boys - but sadly never for anything she had to offer. "I'm not an archetypal beauty. Everything's a mess, my nose is all bent," she says. "It was always, Sharleen, you know your mate, sort us out a date.' I was like a pimp at school. At the time it was like, 'You bastard', but it was actually a really good way to accept the way I am." In those days, Spiteri was convinced she was going to grow up to be a designer. She gave up her Saturdays to study fashion at Glasgow School Of Art, landing her first-ever discount card for the local art supplies shop. She spent countless nights cutting and embellishing outfits, standing on the kitchen table while her long-suffering mum pinned up her latest creation at two in the morning. It's not surprising then that when Muiccia Prada approached her to model for the Miu Miu line, Spiteri turned her down flat. "You're not going to get me stuck with one designer," she says. "I love clothes too much."

Back in '89, sporting tomboy denims and a Siouxie Sioux haircut, Spiteri modelled herself on Patti Smith. She made great music, she wasn't gorgeous and she wasn't blonde something to aspire to. But two years ago at the Q awards, Spiteri's mentor came crashing off her pedestal. "She did this whole thing: 'If these are all the people I've influenced then fuck it'. I thought, 'You rude cow'. PJ Harvey gave her the award - if I'd been presenting it I'd have belted her. To have been doing this for so long and to be so lucky to be doing it, she should frigging know better and she should be glad if she's influenced anyone." Since that moment, Spiteri's stopped playing Smith's music. "All I hear when I put her records on is just a really angry person. It's not good vibes to be giving out, it's like what on earth have you possibly got to be angry about?"

To this day, Spiteri remains eternally, sweetly grateful for her ten years in Texas, even those spent wallowing in the European pop wilderness. "I'm always very careful what I wish for," she says. "And I never tell anyone because they'll never come true." Texas, she thinks, was something that was always meant to happen, even though when she was first asked to sing she thought it was a wanky chat up line. She carefully avoids tempting fate; insisting on being the last to walk out on stage and always locking away the first pressing of every Texas record because superstition tells her to. She refuses to court fame for fame's sake. "It's easy to be invisible if you want to be," she says. Once a crazed Biblewielding lunatic forced his way into her dressing room in France. Even though he was ousted before he got to say his piece, it was an incredibly frightening moment for her. At 32, she's thinking about having kids; attention like that isn't what she needs.

Chances are, The Hush will do a White On Blonde and sell and sell, especially if Chris Evans takes it on as a personal crusade, as he has before. Next month Texas release the single In Our Lifetime. "The whole sentiment behind it is about finding yourself in a situation that's totally meant for you and taking it," Sharleen says. "You only get one chance, it's that once in a lifetime situation; you've got to grab it with both hands and never let it go." The tale of Texas possibly? The story of the girl who ditched a glittering career in hairdressing to join a band on a whim and who persevered in the face of endless criticism. Spiteri pauses for a moment. "Oh yes," she says. "I've never thought of it like that."
The Texas single, In Our Lifetime, is out on April 19 on Mercury, followed on May 10 by The Hush LP.


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