GLASGOW singer prepares to hit the road with her reunited band and tells how her love of what she does helps her stay grounded in a 'completely sexist' industry.
SHARLEEN Spiteri will be keeping her clothes on for the launch of the first Texas album in eight years – despite the music business being as sexist as ever.
Texas release The Conversation in May. It features Suede’s Bernard Butler, Primal Scream’s Barrie Cadogan and Mercury-nominated rocker Richard Hawley.
The album marks the band’s 25th anniversary and Sharleen insists there is still too much pressure being put on women to strip off to sell records.
The 45-year-old said: “The music industry is still a man’s world.
“Women sell massive amounts of records, but the business is still ruled by men.
“It is completely sexist. If you get into it, you have to be tough as nails to survive.
“You have to be upfront and stick to your guns a million times harder than everyone else will. The decision-makers behind the budgets are all men.
“Those budgets are based on whether the woman is skinny, what she looks like and whether she is going to show t*** and a***.
“Some people do the whole booty thing and are scantily clad. It is what they want to do. As long as that is who they are and want to be, that’s OK. But many are guided down that route instead of what they really want to be.
“Women are pushed into those areas to get them on the cover of men’s magazines. They are made to show a bit of skin.”
Sharleen claims that in refusing to get her kit off, she is merely following in a long line of credible Scottish female singers.
She said: “I have never done it. I love looking sexy, but it depends on your perception of sexy.
“Guys do cover shoots as well and want to look hot. It can be done in different ways.
“I always think what is sexy is what you don’t see.
“That’s how my mind works, which is probably why I’ve managed to stick to my guns.”
Sharleen added: “Scots are pretty good at not showing flesh – singers like Annie Lennox, going all the way back to Lulu.
“It must be our upbringing. We are too scared to take our clothes off.”
Sharleen lives in London with her 10-year-old daughter Misty Kyd, but will head out on tour with reunited Texas this year.
The singer, who split from Misty’s dad, journalist Ashley Heath, in 2004, said: “The album is a gathering of conversations between myself and my girlfriends and the things we talk about, whether it is falling in love with the wrong person or the right person.
“There is a whole load of baggage which comes with that at a certain age.
“You view these things from a different angle to the way you look at it at 18.
“My daughter is 10 and it is hysterical. I feel like I have a teenager.
“She has just come back from a half-term school holiday and seems three or four years older.
“She seems to be growing up fast, but not in a bad way. She is unbelievably independent and happy to do things for herself.”
Texas hit the road for showcase dates in May ahead of a full-scale tour in September.
The line-up includes guitarist Ally McErlaine, now fully recovered from a brain aneurysm he suffered in September 2009.
But former hairdresser Sharleen revealed she almost missed out on the chance to front the band with former Altered Images guitarist Johnny McLehone.
She recalled: “Johnny and I first met in 1986. The fact that we are still together is not too shabby, though we are a little bit ragged around the edges.
“It’s part of my life and my history.
“I met Johnny through a friend called Sparky who knew me because he played five-a-sides with some of the boys I shared a flat with.
“He had heard me singing in the kitchen and told Johnny that I was a really good singer.
“Sparky invited me to an audition for a band that was being put together. I said I would go, but I actually thought it was a wind-up so I didn’t bother turning up.
“I was working in Irvine Rusk at the time when I got the call asking where I was.
“I had to get my coat on and go to Sparky’s house where Johnny asked if I could write songs. I said yes, as you do when you are 17. I thought I was superhuman.
“These days, I sometimes think the music industry is a total farce.
“But I just want to make music and make records even if the music industry can grind you down.
“We understand the bull**** of it and how lucky we are. The most important factor is that we love what we do.
“Even after Ally came out of his coma, he said he was a guitar player and that is what he does.
“Making the music annihilates everything else and makes it worth it.”
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