Life's a beach for Scotland's QUEEN OF COOL
from The Sunday Mail, 04 April 1999

SHE slithers seductively from the surf, fixing the camera with her intense gaze, every inch the sex siren.
Can this be the Scots girl who was once destined to be a crimper in a hair salon?
It is, but Sharleen Spiteri is now the queen of cool and has the world's hottest designers banging on her door.

Her photographers and stylists are hand-picked for each photo shoot. But there's no chance of the face of Texas falling for her own hype.
"I don't think of myself as a sex symbol," she says. "I think I can look sexy, but sex symbols like Madonna, I don't know. There are things I just wouldn't do, no matter how desperate I was. If I was more famous than Madonna, I still wouldn't pose for Playboy."
Having tucked away the check-shirted tomboy image of her early Texas days now she has turned 30, Sharleen has slipped comfortably in to the role of cool style icon. At last she is happy to let the focus fall on her.
"This is my time, my turn to get great photographers to help me look good. I won't be able to do it for much longer, so I'm making the most of it now."
And like Garbage sexbomb Shirley Manson, she stays in control of how her image is beamed out to the world. "I know the people I want to work with, exactly how I want to look. I know where I'm going."
That's not to say she has lost the affable charm that made her one of the gang. She realises people like the fact that she's in touch with reality and, despite dating fashion pundit Ashley Heath, Sharleen insists she doesn't live the big, glamorous pop star life.
In fact, she likes to keep life on the road a family affair, with her dad doing the lighting on tour!
The band recorded their new album, The Hush, in Glasgow and insiders reckon it will eclipse even the phenomenal success of 1997's White On Blonde, which sold two million copies and turned Texas's career around, kick-starting Sharleen's rebirth as a designer babe.
Hit singles including Say What You Want and Halo rocketed Texas from a band almost written off as has-beens to a major force in pop. And it raised Sharleen's profile to new heights.
"It was a conscious decision within the band for me to step forward," she recalls.
"I felt ready for it. I started to feel comfortable doing interviews and pictures on my own."
With the release of the single In Our Lifetime on April 19, the clamour for a piece of Texas has begun in earnest and the band are bracing themselves for the onslaught of publicity.
And with drummer Richard Hynd leaving the band after they finished recording the album - out next month - they were upset to find themselves at the centre of controversy.
A source close to the band said Hynd's departure was a mutual agreement. "Richard is leaving because he was unhappy at the more beats-orientated direction the band were heading in, with more drum machine programming and less live rock drumming."
For live shows scheduled for the summer, Texas have drafted in a drummer who's played with dark trip-hoppers Lamb and the funky Dust Junkys.
And their live shows will see them move into a more groove-led arena, with a DJ and extra guitarist added to the line-up. They are also considering some festival appearances - with Glastonbury being mooted as a possibility.
It seems that, as usual, Sharleen's one step ahead of the media posse as she charts Texas's course for world domination.
The new album may be called The Hush, but expect a lot of noise and hullabaloo from Sharleen and Texas this year.


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