Tsunami Relief Concert - interview with Sharleen Spiteri from Texas
from Scotland Today - 17 February 2005

We're now just a bit more than 48 hours away from one of the biggest gigs of the year and one of the star acts taking part at tsunami show at the SECC in Glasgow on Saturday night is Texas. With me now is Sharleen Spiteri lead singer of the band. You've almost come out of hibernatio to take part in this star studded show but you're delighted to be in the line up aren't you.

"We were really happy to be asked in the first place and it's something very worthwhile as everybody knows already. I don't really think I need to say too much about that but it's very nice to be asked to do it."

What was is about the Tsunami disaster that made Texas want to take part in Saturday's fund raising event?

"When you have a situation like what has happened where people all over the world... It was so devastating to everybody. It always seems so pretentious to me, I always think "Oh my God here they come, all the celebrities are being rolled out to bring the money in". I just think the world has been so giving already without the celebrities gettig rolled out but it's a long building process putting people's lives back together and it's affected the world over, almost every country. So people that have been lost and still haven't been found or whatever so there's a lot of rebuilding to do within the countries themselves and also to the people outside that so I think as a human being when you're asked to do things then you should really say yes. I'm looking forward to seeing loads of people. I'm obviously looking forward to seeing Franz Ferdinand because they're so hot at the moment and then you've got Teenage Fanclub who I'm a big fan of - I'm looking forward to seeing that. and I'll see a lot of people I haven't seen for a long time like Deacon Blue and Travis. There's a lot of great bands, a lot of great music. Eddi Reader I always love to see because I just think see's great, so yeah, it'll be interesting."

It's been a long time since Texas have played a gig on Scottish soil, without giving the game away too much what are you planning for Saturday night? Have you any surprises up your sleeve?

"You never know. I'll probably be more surprised then anybody! we're going to do a couple of songs, what everybody does and see what happens. As I say whenever we walk on stage there's an idea of what you're going to do but you never know by an audience and how people are going to react, where something's going to go. So yeah, looking forward to it."

You've been rehearsing for the show for the last couple of days, how's it been going?

"It's really good, it feels great to strap on my guitar and play music and sing because we've been stuck in the studio for quite a long time now making a new record so it feels good to actually stand up and play some songs. We did the Radio Aid thing as well which was a couple of weeks ago and that was really good too, for tsunami as well. We did it as a three piece and it just feels good to plug in and be a band and have it blasting and really belting it out. It feels good."

Everybody's going to have an enjoyable evening on Saturday night at the SECC, it's going to be a lot of fun. But of course, the object of the exercise is to raise as much money for this incredible cause as possible isn't it?

"Absolutely... That's the thing, sometimes you kinda wonder, it's like that double-edged sword - you're going to have a lot of fun and really enjoy yourself but you're obviously you're having a lot of fun to do something for people that have had a lot of pain in their lives so you know you've just got to kinda do that and get on with it."

Sharleen, have a good time on Saturday night and we hope you raise as much money as is humanly possible.

"Oh, I don't think it will be us that's raising it, I think it will be a group of people... I know that not just within people in music, I know that everybody's really helped. I know the hotels and stuff like that have been putting rooms up for people. Everybody's been helping in a lot of different ways so it's really, really good."

Good luck for Saturday.

"Thank you."

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