Sharleen: I regret calling band Texas
THEY are one of the most successful Scottish bands ever – but singer
Sharleen Spiteri has admitted she regrets naming the group Texas.
The rock star said she and bandmates Ally McErlaine, Johnny McElhone and Stuart Kerr chose it back in 1986 to reflect ‘openness and freedom’.
But when they finally visited the southern American state, they hated the place. Glasgow-born Miss Spiteri, 52, said: ‘At that point you had Dallas on TV and everything it said was about wide open spaces, big Stetsons, riding horses and freedom. We went there and thought, “Oh my God, why did we call ourselves Texas?”. I’m not joking.
‘We went to Dallas first and I’ve never regretted calling ourselves a name as much. Everything it stood for in 1990 was very brash and very hard.
‘It was money, money, money and everything we were completely against and didn’t want to be.’
Despite reservations, the band stuck with the name and produced a string of top ten hits including I Don’t Want A Lover and Black Eyed Boy.
Yet Miss Spiteri – whose daughter Misty Kyd was born in 2002 – confesses she sometimes wishes she had become a vet instead of being a lead singer.
She said: ‘Animals don’t have any of the rubbish we have round about us and their love is true.’