SPIDER: "I always try to ask myself, 'If nobody was watching, what would I do?'"

SPIDER intended to celebrate the release of her new EP with a bubble tea in the park – before getting caught in a hailstorm, and quickly deciding to return home and eat some spaghetti instead.

“It was what the universe wanted – to just be humble about it!” she laughs. “So the celebration was just getting to see everyone’s reactions to it. That was enough for me.”

In conversation, the Irish star’s horizontally laidback energy provides a captivating contrast to the emotionally tumultuous and brilliantly balls-to-the-wall music she’s released across a string of EPs, including 2022’s C.O.A and 2023’s HELL OR HIGH WATER – both which have clocked up serious streaming figures, and resonated powerfully with her ever-growing online fanbase. There’s been plenty of real-world milestones too, including a support slot for the massive K-pop group Blackpink, and her first ever headline show, which took place at the Camden Assembly in London this month.

Her latest project, the largely self-produced an object of desire, is arguably her most personal, and most brazenly vulnerable, release to date, drawing from her own experiences growing up in a staunchly Catholic Nigerian household in Tallaght.

“There was an aspect to this one that scared me a bit,” she says of the EP. “Because I’m talking about things like intimacy, and asking myself questions that I haven’t even figured out the answer to yet. I’m thinking about all this stuff as an adult, but with these preconceived things in my brain that come from a very religious upbringing. It’s about trying to compartmentalise those things, and be like, ‘What do I actually think about intimacy, and desire, and objectification, and the concept of purity?’

“A lot of the time, I felt like I was writing these songs in this Catholic backdrop of my brain.” she adds – referencing the live performance video for the EP’s stand-out single, ‘straight out the oven!’, recorded on a set designed to look like “your Catholic neighbour’s living room.”

Of course, she’s not the only contemporary Irish artist whose music has been shaped by the looming presence of the Catholic Church in her childhood – with Kojaque, Fontaines D.C., and CMAT having all explored the theme in their work.

“Art and being able to make art is becoming way more accessible, and it’s giving rise to so many people from different backgrounds now being able to express themselves - and draw a lot of influence from their own upbringings,” SPIDER posits. “That means loads of us from these really Catholic backgrounds are now making art. There’s a generation of artists who grew up within the Catholic school system, and in those families, and we’re all realising that we had similar experiences.

“I also really like The Last Dinner Party, and they use a lot of religious imagery,” she continues. “They have a song, ‘My Lady Of Mercy’, that’s about growing up in a Catholic school. It was such a validating thing for me to hear as I was finishing off the project.”

Was it a struggle, coming from that background, to break out and follow quite a provocative creative vision?

“I have a natural thing within me, of just wanting to rebel and cause trouble,” she smiles. “I always try to ask myself, ‘If nobody was watching, what would I do?’ Or, ‘If I knew everybody would love what I did, and there would be no push back whatsoever – what would I do?' That’s how you get to the most authentic expression of you.

“When I was working through all these questions with this EP, I was very much trying to break away from these religious notions,” she adds. “And that manifested in how I chose to style myself, and how I chose to do the video.”

And her family’s response?

“I actually spoke to my parents when the EP came out,” she tells me. “They really liked it. I think it’s just an understanding that it’s self-expression. Deep down, there is a small understanding of: ‘Is everything we learn from organised religion correct and healthy? Maybe not!’”

Having mostly made music within the confines of her bedroom in her teenage years, SPIDER left her family home in Dublin for London at the relatively young age of 18.

“I definitely wouldn’t be the artist I am now if I hadn’t done that move,” she reflects. “I really was on my own for the very first time, and that opens you up so much. I knew I needed to be a bit uncomfortable, if that makes sense. I knew I wanted to do music really badly, but I knew I had a safety net here. So I knew I had to throw myself in the deep end if I really wanted to do this, and do it well. I needed to go, and have no plan B.”

There was also another factor behind her decision to relocate. Although, internationally, a new generation of acts are challenging the white male-dominated image of the heavy and alternative music scenes, that kind of progress doesn’t happen everywhere overnight.

“When I was leaving, it was something I was thinking about,” SPIDER resumes. “I was genuinely like, ‘I don’t know how possible it’s going to be for me to succeed in the way I want to succeed, being an alternative Black woman in Ireland.’ I just didn’t really see it for myself, so I made the executive decision to get the fuck out, and do it somewhere else – and see what happens.”

In many places, she argues, “it’s still not a mainstream thing to be a person of colour and be making guitar music.”

“That fact that it’s still used as headlines means it’s not a mainstream thing,” she points out. “Clearly things haven’t progressed far enough to the point where that’s just normal. Hopefully we get to that place.

“But it’s definitely still an important thing to talk about,” she continues. “I sometimes get a comment from a younger Black person, being like, ‘Oh, I saw your video and it pushed me closer into learning how to make guitar music.’”

But SPIDER feels that change is gradually coming in Ireland – as showcased by the genre-transcending sounds and styles coming out of the homegrown scene.

“There is a community of people of colour from Ireland who are doing alternative music, and doing it well,” she says. “One of my flatmates, Bukky, is from Cork, and they do alternative music as well. They’re actually supporting me at my Camden headline show. We both found ourselves over here, but we were both in Ireland, wanting to do alternative music. That gives me hope.”

In terms of her own career, SPIDER’s defiant spirit continues to guide her every creative move – whether that’s by overcoming insecurities and challenging herself to prove her production chops in the studio, or overcoming “all the subliminal messages” that told her that “a Black woman rarely succeeds in alternative music.”

“I felt like I was always working to try and ignore that,” she recalls. “I was trying to be like, ‘No, I see it – it can happen.’ So the first time I had a viral moment with my music, and saw people were willing to take it in… That was huge for me.

“It was very validating to be like, ‘There are people looking for this. I can do this and succeed in this area. I can take up this space – it’s meant for me.’”

an object of desire is out now.