Spider
Words and Photographs by Willow Shields, Styling by Ellie Clark
SPIDER is a mid-twenties Irish pop-rock star in the making. In the process of putting this magazine together, I reached out to SPIDER’s team, thinking I would get no reply due to her undeniable level of fame gained over her last six years of hard graft. But, of course, I wouldn’t be writing this if she said no. So;
it all began with an email. As it so often does, the reply eliciting me exclaiming “hell yeah” actually out loud, to only myself, in my makeshift bedroom office. I then got to see SPIDER perform at Moth Club in Hackney, which gave me chills the whole time. Her stage presence oscillating between screaming storm to angelic seductress with each minute that went by, to say I was enthralled would be an understatement. Then, less than a month later we’re squished together in the back of a taxi along with stylist Ellie Clarke talking about train journeys, on our way to Richmond Park.
We spent the following three hours skulking around the woodland taking photographs, me forcing Jen to step into marshland then of course falling over myself. The day finished on the bank of the river Thames in a cafe under a bridge having the following conversation, sitting at a metal table, and trying to not stay past closing time.
right image: SPIDER wears: corset by Haus Dahlia, Thorn Top by Freya Mckee, skirt & shoes model’s own
Who are you?
My name is SPIDER, I’m a 24 year old, I’m gonna say ‘rock’ artist, from Ireland. Hashtag Ireland hashtag rock. I’ve been making music as SPIDER for about three years now and yeah; I like to rock out, I like to throw shit around. I’m also a Scorpio.
What’s the biggest thing that you’re a fangirl of?
Right now? I’m such a fangirl of any nineties female fronted rock band, especially from the Riot Grrrl movement. I’ve been digging into that so much recently. I found a picture of Veruca Salt on pinterest and I was like “Who are these two women? This is so cool,” then I found their album, and then I was just like [chefs kiss, scream]. I could not consume it in a sane way. I’m a really big fan of Veruca Salt, Bikini Kill, Kathleen Hanna. Just any female fronted band from the nineties, I’m so into everything from that era, like the aesthetic of it. Everything they were saying. I’ve also always been a stan of Lorde, so that’s always there. What else? Off the top of my head that’s it.
How do you feel about the film “Ten Things I Hate About You?”
I love that film. I’ve only ever watched it one time. I do this thing where I don’t really watch movies more than once. Unless I really love them. But the only film I’ve watched more than once is Twilight.
We should talk about Twilight.
I literally have on my Hinge profile ‘My controversial opinion is: Twilight is the best movie of all time,’ and I wholeheartedly believe that. The rest of these guys are like: “Oh Pulp Fiction.” Im like, fuck Pulp Fiction, Twilight! The art that is Twilight...The soundtrack? It’s got Decode by Paramore on there! Come on.
What is your favourite Twilight scene, and character?
My favourite character used to be Jasper before I was old enough to clock that they said CONFEDERATE ARMY. [Laughs in disbelief]. I think my favourite character is probably Alice, I see myself in her, I relate to her. I think my favourite scene... I’m literally going through a montage of scenes right now. Oh man, you know the bit where Bella’s in danger and her, Edward and Jacob are about to go up into the mountains? With the tent? And Jacob is so smug that he has to hold Bella because Edward’s too cold and hes such a fucking bitch about it. So petty about it. That’s actually my favourite scene because it’s so petty, like it’s crazy.
SPIDER wears: Thorn Top & Essence Midi Skirt by Freya Mckee
I think the first time I ever saw you was on TikTok, I don’t even know what video it was, I just remember immediately following you. How do you find being a presence on social media in this...trash fire of a world right now?
Very weird. I feel like I’ve always had quite a weird relationship with it, I feel like I’ve always just seen it as a means to an end more so than anything else. When I first started making videos on tiktok to promote my music it was just... I saw other people doing it and having success so I was like ‘Okay. What do I have to lose?’ I was in my final year of university and I’d moved to London to do this and I’d kind of given myself three years to make things happen or else, you know? So I was like ‘just post the fucking TikTok.’ I was posting for a month or two and then I posted one specific one that popped off a bit, and that especially helped me get my foot in the door. But at the same time [claps hands], I think casting your net out to a wide pool of people in order to find your audience, especially as a person of colour doing alternative music, trying to communicate a very specific message...nothing could have prepared me for the eras of hate I would get. I think when you’re making art as a Person of Colour online, you think ‘there’s nothing I could possibly say in this to make people... or create some type of hate train.’ It doesn’t matter, you could say anything.
My first hate train... It wasn’t even hate, it was just people trying to pick up on something, you know, distort what I was saying. I misspoke and said I was from a small town. I’m from a small suburb of Dublin called Tallaght, and some would argue it’s not small, some would ARGUE. Me personally, the whole country’s small as fuck. Dublins the capital so it’s big, but in comparison to a lot of things, it’s small. And it also feels claustrophobic. It felt claustrophobic to me. As a person of colour growing up there, it’s going to feel small to me. It was a lot of people being like ‘Tallaght is not a small town, it’s actually home to 1.6 million people.’ First of all, there’s only, like, 4.5 million people in Ireland so...like, what? I also got people going ‘I actually looked up this song to laugh at you but it’s actually good.’ Like, okay? Thank you? That was my first experience of viratily too, I’d never been seen so quickly by that many people.
And then the second time, I just had a bunch of my content reported by a bunch of people, by a bunch of bigots on tiktok. Because I was saying something about wanting to make more coming of age videos that center people of colour, because all of it is so white, and I was like; I made this music video and I wanted to put people of colour in the forefront doing what the tumblr generation, skins generation do. People mass reported it and got it taken down. I said something about it on TikTok and a bunch of creators who weren’t white or weren’t men were in the comments being like ‘oh this also happened to me too,’ ‘I was also targeted by the same group too,’ and it was just like ‘Oh, if you’re trying to create stuff on TikTok and you’re not a white man, you’re putting a target on your back for all sorts of stuff.’
Then the third time was more recently, I was promoting one of my songs ‘straight out of the oven,’ and it’s my least political song. I’m just being like ‘I wanna be hot,’ that’s it. That’s it. I did this video with pictures my friend had [taken] and I was in a bikini, it was literally so harmless. I hadn’t shaved my armpits. People were so angry. People were also angry because I said in the video that I left my Catholic family to go and make rock music or whatever. They were also mad that I called myself a Black Irish person. Even though I’m Black and I’m from Ireland. When I looked at the stats it was mostly white men between the ages of 18-30, not even old people. It was literally white men in our age group, from mostly Ireland. They were saying ‘You’re not from Ireland’, [calling me] ‘paper Irish’, which is a term that they describe kids of colour in Ireland, they call us paper Irish because ‘we’re not Irish, we’re only Irish on our passport.’ I got a lot of that. A lot of different eras of hate.
Each era of music I’ve put out, I’ve got a different era of hate. Now I’m like, it doesn’t matter what I do or say. In some ways it’s weird because I feel like TikTok is so empowering for where we’re at now. I’ve got so many opportunities, I’ve got to perform a lot, I signed my first distribution deal off the back of TikTok. But it’s a double edged sword because it’s also very disempowering, because you’re opening yourself up to so much vitriol from people who don’t want to see you occupying a certain freedom that they don’t think you should have. So it’s very double edged. It does burn you out, and it’s not talked about either, because as artists you’re supposed to do it and not really feel the effects. We’re just machines pumping out content. It’s also a more intense story for artists of colour, and people don’t really talk about it. To answer your question, I don’t know. I still have to use it because it’s the most popular platform right now, so I have to use it to promote and everything but i think...It’s a different awareness that I have of it now that I’ve been an artist for a while, and I’ve been promoting in a specific way for a while.
I know you mentioned just wanting to be hot in ‘straight out of the oven.’ What are your everyday steps to being hot? Advice to the people...
Number one is kindness, kindness is so hot. I just think being a kind person is so fucking hot and sexy. Also me, personally, I have to meditate. I have to get my energy stable, grounded, because then I can respond from a place I want to respond from. I get overstimulated so easily, when I wake up in the morning I get up and I immediately have to meditate because i cannot, i can’t... Sensitive to the world. Two things everyone should do: Kindness and Meditation, if you wanna be hot and sexy. What else? I think being the most intense version of yourself, being authentic and literally being the most intense version of yourself. Why are we dilluting ourselves for people we don’t even know yet? You know? I also think a part of being sexy is being unforgettable and you can only be unforgettable if you’re not like anyone else, so why would you be... not yourself?
So you’re a Scorpio sun, what are your other signs?
Aquarius rising, Capricorn moon. And my Venus is in Libra.
What’s your favourite pasta shape?
You know what I tried out? You know the ones that look like little cups? [Conchiglie] The pasta sauce gets in them and they feel like little boats. Apart from that, Fusilli. Those are my two favourites.
Why SPIDER? You’ve probably been asked this so many times, so read me the manuscript baby!
I’m screaming. You know, I still really enjoy telling this story. So basically I’ve always been very spiritual, and looked into the meanings of everything. I’m that bitch who will see anything and be like ‘oh my god! Is that a sign?’ As the pandemic was starting, I had stopped making music. I went through this really terrible music industry experience when I was nineteen so I went into this deep depression. I was like ‘I don’t want to make anything any more,’ ‘I don’t want to make music,’ That lasted like a year and a half/ two years. Then the pandemic was happening, and I still wasn’t making anything, but I was seeing all of these spiders in my room all of a sudden. And I was like ‘this is really weird.’ They were showing up every day, and I also hate spiders, and my flatmate had to keep taking them out. So I was just like ‘I’m gonna google if this has any spiritual meaning.’ I found out that spiders can appear as an animal totem, or a physical manifestation of spirit guides to creatives who haven’t been creating. As a thing to be like ‘you gotta get back on your zoom,’ ‘you gotta start creating things again.’ There’s also links to the spider spirit being connected to the spirit of storytelling in lots of different traditions. They gave humanity the first alphabet because of the spirit of writing and creativity. The connection between past and present and stuff. I was like ‘that really resonates!’ I was like, if I’m going to do music again, I think I’ll call myself SPIDER. It’s so crazy because there was this one [spider] that was small, quite chunky but small, it was just outside my windowsill, and never opened that window because I was so scared of it coming in. But the day I decided to call myself SPIDER and posted about it to my friends, it died. Ever since then, I feel like spiders are my signs for things. Literally before I made a TikTok account, I believe in spirit guides so I was like ‘can you give me a sign,’ and there was a spider in the sink when I went into the bathroom. I was like...’okay.’
We ended the interview bonding over our love of pizza and Timothee Chalamet, while the rain pattered outside. SPIDER put me onto Role Model that day. We sipped tea and ate pastries until the rain stopped, and then got the train towards home together in the dark, peacefully, in tired silence.