By Elliott West
“Music has always been there for me and is what’s helped me through everything. It’s like my solace”.
Sharlene Spiteri
Introduction
Texas is a band that encapsulates the very soul of Glasgow in their music. Gritty, raw and soulful tunes with deep meaningful lyrics that make you want to dance and sing at the top of your voice. A Scottish rock band that was formed in 1986, a year when West Tip won the Grand National and Halley’s Comet became visible for the first time since 1910. Consisting of band members Johnny McElhone, Ally McElhone and Sharlene Spiteri, they took their name from the 1984 Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas and made their debut in March 1988 at the University of Dundee. Spiteri was a hairdresser at the time, working in the Irvine Rusk salon in Glasgow.
The Voice
Sharlene Spiteri is the voice at the centre of all that Texas has achieved. Her mop of black hair and a face that is chiselled with Maltese, Italian, Irish and German descent. Born in 1967 in Bellshill, Scotland, Sharlene came from a musical family. Her father Eddie was a guitar-playing merchant seaman and her mother was a singing window-dresser. Spiteri was interested in music from a very early age and saw music as a form of escape. She would go to the local record shop on a Saturday and buy a single and a plastic sleeve. She would then go back to her bedroom and play it. A bedroom that had Siouxsie Sioux painted on the wall. A singer who took her musical influences from The Clash, Blondie, Marvin Gaye, Prince, Diana Ross and Siouxsie Sioux.
The Big Break
Texas’s big break came in 1988 when they were signed up to Mercury Records. You only have to look at Spiteri’s lyrics to see the frenzy of thought and emotion in her songwriting, spelling mistakes, crossings outs, and an almost schizophrenic composition of words. Sharlene describes herself as “a lunatic” but they say genius comes from madness. An irrationality that produced their debut single “ I Don’t Want A Lover’ in January 1989. A single that achieved International success, reaching No.8 on the UK charts and No.77 on the Billboard charts in the USA. Their debut album, Southside was released in March 1989, and certified gold by the BPI. However their further releases from the album, ‘Thrill Has Gone’, Everyday Now’ and ‘Prayer For You’ failed to be smash hits.
Yet despite this setback, Texas would go on to achieve rock success. A band that has produced ten studio albums and a string of Scottish hit bangers that have rocked concert and festival venues. Songs like ‘Say What You Want’, ‘Black Eyed Boy”, ‘Summer Sun’, ‘Put Your Arms Around Me’, ‘In Our Lifetime’, ‘Halo’, ‘Inner Smile’, ‘Getaway’ and ‘In Demand’. With over thirty years of success, Texas is still going strong despite the youngest band member Ally McElhone having a near-fatal brain aneurysm, a grade-5 aneurysm where his wife found him unconscious and one where 97% of people die before getting to the hospital. Thankfully he survived and has lived to live the tale. The sting in the tale is that he lost his beloved guitar, one that created his sound for twenty years after a drunken night. After a barnstorming performance at Glastonbury, Texas will hit the tour road this September with dates across the UK including the OVO, Hydro, Glasgow and the O2 in London. They will be supported by KT Tunstall.