Solo Sharleen branches out

Oct 17 2008 By Andy Welsh

AS one of the main songwriters and the singer in chart-topping group Texas, it was natural Sharleen Spiteri would become the figurehead for the band.

Couple that with the fact she’s friendly and down-to-earth, not to mention really pretty, and it’s easy to see why you wouldn’t recognise the other four members of the Scottish outfit if you walked past them in the street.

With such star qualities, Sharleen (pictured) has always been perfect solo artist material, and – after years of refusing record label requests to write her own material – she finally set off on her own.

“I hadn’t really thought about doing this before. There was no masterplan, honestly,” she says of her first solo album Melody, which has already been declared gold for 100,000 sales.

“Ever since we had our first hit, I Don’t Want A Lover, the record company had been saying, ‘Give us a solo record.’ But I’d always stuck to my guns and said, ‘No’.

“But I just felt ready. It wasn’t a case of ‘now or never’ or anything like that. It just felt right,” she continues.

“The music I was hearing in my head just didn’t fit with Texas or what the band was about so this was a record I needed to make on my own.”

Work on Melody began around two years ago, shortly after Sharleen broke up with her long-term partner and father of her five-year-old daughter, Misty.

“A lot of things changed in my life then,” she says. “Splitting up with my daughter’s dad made me question a lot of things. Everything.

“So much changed and I needed to step up to the challenge.”

As a result, Melody is a very personal-sounding record.

Take the title of single All The Times I’ve Cried, for example, or the lyrics of I’m Going To Haunt You - “Now I don’t need you, and I never did before”.

“I’ve always had a mix between things that happen to me and things I’ve observed. This record is very me, though,” she says.

Sharleen takes the record on the road next year, with a date at Birmingham Symphony Hall on February 8.

* Ticket Info

SHARLEEN SPITERI February 8, 2009: Symphony Hall. Tickets: 0121 780 3333