‘I’m like a Labrador, I get very excited’: Sharleen Spiteri in conversation at Glastonbury

Sharleen Spiteri appears on stage at the Cabaret tent relieved to see the sizeable crowd: “I’d worried no one would show up.” In fact it’s a “decent turnout” (in the words of the Guardian’s own Alexis Petridis) for the Texas frontwoman speaking about her musical career, which has lasted as long as her adult life. So long, in fact, that she’d only ever been to one festival ever before she started performing at them.

“I’ve been in a band since I was 17 years old. The truth is, I went to one festival in Scotland, and we played our first festival that year. My festival-going is playing them, basically.”

Spiteri was 17 years old and working as a hairdresser in her native Glasgow before forming the band with Johnny McElhone in the mid-1980s; the first song they ever wrote was I Don’t Want a Lover, which went on to be a massive hit. “Thirty-five years later, we’re still doing it.”

It is a tough fight, going up against the men, but it isn’t any different than if you’re stacking shelves in Tesco

Indeed Texas are playing the Pyramid stage later this afternoon, Spiteri noting that the number of their enduring hits may come as a surprise to younger audiences. “They go: ‘Texas – who are these old bastards?’ Then they go ‘oh, I know that song, I know that song, oh that was them’… That’s what I’m hoping for today and that everyone will have a great time.” The crowd cheers, bemusing Spiteri: “If you’re applauding me for that, what the fuck are you gonna do when I start singing?”

Sharleen Spiteri talks to Alexis Petridis. Photograph: Jonny Weeks/The Guardian

Spiteri is enjoyably ferocious and foul-mouthed about her experience of being a woman in the music industry, though as a fan she had never seen any difference between her heroes Joe Strummer and Debbie Harry. “I never really differentiated between female and male pop stars … I have never thought: ‘I’m a woman in music’. It is a tough fight, going up against the men, but it isn’t any different than if you’re stacking shelves in Tesco – it’s the way of the world.”

She recalls being patronised by (of all people) a session tambourinist, who rejected her feedback on technique with the comment: “You’re not a percussion player”. Spiteri responded: “No, but I’m a musician, and it’s my fucking record … He literally belittled me in front of my whole band, he was really condescending,” she says. (She also mentioned hanging up on Ol’ Dirty Bastard because of his greeting: “Yoyoyo, what’s up cupcake”.)

Spiteri commends her bandmates for “not taking the easy route” by bringing her onboard as singer. “Had they been a male-fronted band, they probably would have had a lot more recognition.”

But overall Spiteri seems pleased as punch to still be drawing a crowd. From performing on stage with the Wu-Tang Clan (in Glasgow last week) and recording at Abbey Road, “I never feel intimidated,” she says. “I’m like a Labrador … I get very excited, because I cannot believe my luck.”

(Incidentally, for the Arsenal fans, Spiteri confirms that she remains close friends with Thierry Henry – her daughter’s godfather.)