The big interview: Sharleen Spiteri

harleen Spiteri is at Heathrow Airport waiting to catch a flight to Switzerland for a concert.

She will probably be hoping for a less eventful flight than some she and her fellow bandmates have experienced in the past. “Back in the days, we were taken on helicopters and private jets to do TV shows and gigs, but there were times we’d be on some crappy plane and it was confessions time as we started plummeting to earth and you were thinking, ‘we’re all going to die’.”

These days, their lives aren’t quite so dramatic but having recently played a homecoming gig at Glasgow’s Barrowlands, the first since the band’s self-imposed hiatus three years ago, they are about to embark on a series of comeback gigs in the UK, including one at Doncaster Racecourse next weekend.

During the late 1990s and early noughties, Texas were one of the biggest British rock and pop bands around. But in 2008, having amassed more than a dozen top 10 UK singles, they decided to take a break. Since then, Spiteri has produced two solo records and one of the band members nearly lost his life. So how did it feel being back on stage with the band? “It was good, but we always said the break wasn’t a permanent thing,” says Spiteri, in her recognisable Scottish lilt.

“We decided to take time out and give Texas a bit of a rest and also give the public a bit of a rest from us. It’s weird, you become successful and you spend so long touring and making records that you can end up on autopilot and we wanted to get our edge back. It wasn’t a case of me being ready to do this, it was something I needed to do and shake out of my system. So I did my solo record and then I did a covers album with Phil Ramone, something I’d never have been able to do with Texas.”

Another reason for wanting to do a solo album was the nature of the songs. “When I started writing, I thought it was going to be another Texas record but the songs were really personal, they were too open and raw for Texas, so I realised it had to be a solo album,” she says. The ensuing record, Melody, reached number three in the UK charts selling more than 300,000 copies in the process. She followed this up with The Movie Songbook featuring cover versions of songs by artists as diverse as Billie Holiday and the Electric Light Orchestra.

Everything appeared to be going swimmingly until disaster struck in 2009 when Ally McErlaine, the Texas guitarist, collapsed with a brain aneurysm. “That was a real shock,” says Spiteri. “Ally’s the youngest member of the band and he was the last person you would think something like this would happen to.” The initial prognosis wasn’t good. “We were told he could die or that he might suffer serious brain damage. But against the odds he fought back and he’s totally healthy now and playing the guitar again and enjoying life. It was Ally who said he wanted to get back out and tour and make a new record, so that’s what we’re doing.”

Despite McErlaine’s brush with death, once they were back together it didn’t take long for the ribbing to start. “When we were rehearsing the sarcasm and cheek started instantly and there’s been some sick jokes flying around, like ‘I hope you’ve only got six months car tax and not 12,” she says, stifling a laugh.

So has this experience brought them closer together? “We’ve always been very close but when something like that happens it does make you appreciate what you’ve got,” she says. “We all grew up together, we were 17 and 18 when we started out, there’s been boyfriends and girlfriends, marriages, children, divorce, we’ve been through everything. We’ve always seen each other even when we’ve not been playing. We’re not one of those bands that goes on tour and everyone says, ‘hi, what you been up to?’ We’re part of each others’ lives and families.”

Spiteri’s own family roots are as incongruous as they are exotic. The family name is Maltese, throw in a French grandmother and a splash of Italian and Irish ancestry and you have a colourful mix – especially for someone brought up in Glasgow. Her father was a captain in the merchant navy, but it was her mother’s side of the family where the musical genes come from. “They were all good musicians in my mum’s family and growing up we used to go to my gran’s house and have a sing-along. My gran and grandad liked a good old knees up and they had a big piano and everyone would stand around singing.”

Despite all this she didn’t have a burning desire to be a singer as a child. “Funnily enough, even though I’ve always been surrounded by music it was my cousin who always talked about being in a band, I never really wanted to be a musician. I wanted to be an artist, or a vet. I always wanted to be something different, it was like ‘what will I be this week?’ My head was always in the clouds.” Also, when her family upped sticks to Loch Lomond she wasn’t exactly relocating to a musical Mecca. “Back then, I thought rock bands came from London and I didn’t know anyone in the music industry.”

Even so, the family sing-alongs had obviously rubbed off on her and by the time she was in her mid teens she was playing in local bands. Then in 1986 when she was 18, Spiteri, who was working as a part-time hairdresser, met bassist Johnny McElhone and together they set about starting a band. The duo soon grew to a quintet and Texas – the name of which they took from the Wim Wenders’ film Paris, Texas – was born.

Their first live performance was in 1988, at Dundee University Students Association, and within a year the band’s debut single, I Don’t Want A Lover, became a top 10 UK hit. But if they thought they’d hit the big time they were in for a disappointment, in this country at least. “By the time we were making our second record the Madchester scene had started and we were never really part of that. So in the UK Texas was non-existent but we were selling bucketloads of records all over Europe which enabled us to survive.”

The game-changing moment came in 1997 with the release of the single, Say What You Want, which was an international hit. The subsequent album, White on Blonde, went on to become the biggest-selling album of the year, yielding a string of hit singles including Halo, Black Eyed Boy and Put Your Arms Around Me. In 1998, the band released their fifth album The Hush, and it, too, reached the top of the charts.

By this time, Texas were one of the biggest bands around. “Suddenly we were massive and we’d be doing Top of the Pops one moment and Ant and Dec the next,” she recalls.

“You’re pulled from pillar to post because everyone wants a bit of you. People want you to write songs, sing duets with them, you get film scripts coming in – and it’s fantastic because you’re flying high.”

Despite the adulation that came their way Spiteri insists they didn’t set out to be rich and famous. “Everyone who’s ever been in a band wants to be the best band in the world but the idea of wanting to be famous is a bit naff, it certainly was back when we started. We didn’t start a band because we wanted to be celebrities – we did it because we love music.” This passion for music hasn’t dimmed. “Whether it’s folk, rock, or soul, we still educate each other with new ideas or new sounds and I might be listening to AC/DC one minute and Marvin Gaye the next.”

Texas have now sold a staggering 20 million albums during a career that will have spanned a quarter of a century by the turn of the year, and after their self-imposed break they’re enjoying playing together again. But will there be a new record?

“You reach what I call the taxi driver test, you’re in London and when the driver says ‘when are you gonna do a new Texas record?’” she says, doing her best cockney accent, “then you know it’s probably time for a new Texas album.

“We’ve started writing, we played a new song at the Glasgow gig and that went down well so we’re working on a new album but we don’t know when that will be finished.”

Looking back at her career thus far, the 43-year-old says she’s learnt to take the rough with the smooth. “One thing I can honestly say is that when you first get that taste of success, like we did in 1989, and then it disappears and you’re out in the wilderness for a bit you learn to appreciate and enjoy what you have. So when we became successful again in ’97, we made sure we enjoyed it and that’s what we continue to do.”

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Texas play Doncaster Racecourse on June 25. For ticket information call 01302 304200 or visit www.doncaster-racecourse.co.uk