Sexism, death and post-Covid comebacks: Texas' Sharleen Spiteri on a life less ordinary

Nothing was off limits when the Scottish pop icon spoke to Ed Power ahead of her Cork Opera House gig next Wednesday

Sharleen Spiteri: "We’ve stuck with it. We’ve rode the wave."

The past two years have been a blur for Sharleen Spiteri. In March, 2020, days before lockdown, her mother passed away. Twelve months later, her father died after a long struggle with dementia.

And then, amidst the heartache, her band, Texas, released their 10th album, Hi. It went straight to number one in Britain, making it their biggest hit since 1999’s The Hush. All the while, in the background, the pandemic rumbled ever onwards. As Spiteri takes it all in, she doesn’t know where to even start.

“You’re in your own little bubble of dealing with your family, trying to juggle being able to be together. And not being allowed to be together. All of that stuff. It’s like a mixture of everything. I’m in that space at the moment,” she says as she contemplates life post-lockdown. “I’m really looking forward to it, but I kind of feel I’ve walked into it as quite a different person.”

Covid, of course, played havoc with Texas, who were forced to push back a tour marking the 30th anniversary of the release in 1989 of their debut LP, Southside. However, something akin to normality is finally returning and Texas visit Ireland this week for a gig at Cork Opera House on February 9.

Spiteri (54) is looking forward to the show. And yet she isn’t entirely certain if she is prepared to carry on where she left off in early 2020. She’s not sure many of us are.

“It’s changed everybody. It’s changed the world we live in. It’s changed attitudes to life. It’s changed our relationships and our friendships. It’s changed our values. People have almost done a big clean out. It’s almost like it’s like, ‘well, I don’t need that. I don’t need that’,” she says.

“And it’s thrown up challenges. People have made changes in their life that they normally probably wouldn’t have made. Massive, massive changes in their life. I think we’ve all changed. And there is nothing better, when you maybe are struggling with emotions and feelings… there’s nothing better than music. Sometimes it unlocks a door to let your feelings out. That’s how I feel about it.”

Southside marked the beginning of a streak of hit records for Spiteri and her songwriting partner Johnny McElhone (58). The record’s big hit was I Don’t Want A Lover, a bluesy slice of Americana inspired by the twanging melancholy of composer Ry Cooder and illuminated by Spiteri’s firecracker voice.

The 90s brought further success and Texas became superstars all over again with 1997’s White On Blonde and singles Say What You Want, Black Eyed Boy and Put Your Arms Around Me. Spiteri, McElhone and their bandmates were, at the same time, eager to test the boundaries of what constituted pop and rock: the remix of Say What You Want, for instance, saw Spiteri pair up with the Method Man of rap stars Wu-Tang Clan. And yet, when a roll-call is made of the most important British songwriters of the past three decades,Spiteri’s name is not always as prominent as it should be. The reason is straightforward: female artists simply do not receive their due.

Sharleen Spiteri: "Everyone is ticking all the right boxes and minding their p's and q's"

“Women are devalued in all arenas. And everybody goes, ‘yeah but things are getting better’. Things aren’t getting better. They’re better at covering it up. Everyone is ticking all the right boxes and watching their ps and qs. The companies are going, ‘oh yeah — what boxes do we need to tick…oh yeah, women, ethnicity, sexuality …’ basically everyone gets their list and they’re ticking it.”

What are her feelings about Damon Albarn and his assertion, immediately debunked, that Taylor Swift didn’t write her own songs? Spiteri says that she isn’t familiar with Albarn’s remarks and Swift’s pushback. But she then continues: “If we’re talking about women as songwriters, musicians, being devalued, yeah we’ve always been devalued. And we continue to be devalued. The most powerful songwriter on the planet right now probably is Adele. She has managed to change the fact that, with streaming, she’s managed to get “shuffle” taken off [Spotify], which shows how powerful she is.”

Spiteri grew up in suburban Glasgow,the daughter of a window-dresser mother and a merchant seaman father. She worked as a hairdresser in the early years of Texas, which she and McElhone formed in 1986. Spiteri was new to the music industry. McElhone, though, was a veteran who had played with Scottish indie outfit Altered Images (behind hits such as Happy Birthday).

They named the band after their favourite movie, Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (with its iconic steel-pedal score by Ry Cooder). And they followed their own course from the outset. I Don’t Want A Lover was an Americana-influenced ballad arriving at the heyday of Kylie and Jason. White On Blonde gate-crashed Britpop with nary a zip-up tracksuit or Carry On reference in sight.

And in 2000, they hooked up with the New Radicals Gregg Alexander for Inner Smile, one of the great pop songs of the past two decades (with a memorable video in which Spiteri dressed as Elvis).

“We’ve stuck with it. We’ve rode the wave. You cannot be on the top all the time. You’ve got to be able to really ride those lows,” she says.

“I feel very proud of my band. They are in a female-fronted band. My band has suffered the consequences of being in a female-fronted band. There is a big load of baggage that comes with it. They stuck with it. They stuck with me. Johnny and me keep on writing our songs. That always was our focus. When I started and met Johnny, I thought, ‘if I can write just one song that’s a hit…wow’. That was all it was. ‘Wow, if I can actually do that’. I didn’t foresee that, almost 35 years later, I’d be still doing this.”

It was of course strange to return to the charts with a hit album while she was dealing with the death of her parents, she says. Yet, as time passes, she feels she is coming to a place where she can focus on the positives.

“My mum heard the record before she died. I remember we were in the hospital. She had her little headphones on. And she said, ‘oh yes, this is a very special record’. And my mum was very musical and a great singer herself. It’s that thing where sometimes you play a record and they go ‘yeah yeah.. that was… good?.” But my mum was like ‘this is really good’. You could tell by her face. I felt really chuffed my mum heard the record. And I felt really chuffed that my dad saw Texas back in a big way again before he died. As a parent you want your children to be okay.

“And my mum and dad knew that I was going to be good.”

• Texas bring their Southside anniversary tour to Cork Opera House on Wednesday February 9