SPIDER came to the world of guitar music much later than most. The Irish-Nigerian musician's father, who grew up in a family that was strongly religious and valued her studies, forbade her to go to concerts. “I grew up knowing it wasn't something I could really do, so I let it go,” she recalls. She added that this wasn't to say that her parents didn't like music, they just “didn't have much of a creative bent” and that they had two CDs played on rotation in her house. recalled. rich girl with Gwen Stefani Burn Written by Asher.
Instead, Ms. Spider's entrance came when she began studying music in classes at a Catholic school in Dublin. However, it was after a negotiation with her father that she would also take science subjects. She was inspired by being in a room with pianos, guitars, and “people who could interact with music in a way I'd never seen before.” She went to youth group as well. When it came to picking up the guitar herself, she tried to learn the simplest songs as possible. “She couldn't be bothered to look up the actual code, so she picked something close to it,” she recalls.
The internet also played a big role in her adolescence. Going online not only allowed me to learn about different genres and bands, but also introduced me to fandom culture. “I spent most of my time in a corner of the internet,” she says, citing artists like Halsey, 5 Seconds of Summer and Lorde as examples. “That's when I thought, 'I want to do this too,'” she recalls.
By the way, SPIDER's first gig was a concert to see her “stan band” 5SOS, which required her supervision. “It took two friends to convince her parents,” she says. Thankfully, they managed to succeed – “My life changed after that.” There's no doubt they're a pop band, but SPIDER says 5SOS' guitar influence was so obvious that he wanted to know who inspired them. She felt the same way about bands like All Time Low and Green Day.
fan favorite
Although the artist who would become SPIDER was confident in creating fan accounts for personalities within the band (“That was my thing”), he was not particularly interested in the academic side of music. did. In fact, she almost failed her music theory class. “I was never very technically gifted,” she says.
Later, as a teenager, SPIDER started playing keyboards and writing songs, and got into “heavier stuff” (mostly female-fronted '90s rock bands). But she gave up on the guitar after one summer of lessons when she was 12 (“she was really bad at it,” she says), and it wasn't until she was 21 that she finally started incorporating it into her music. was. She was also hated for a “nasty” acoustic guitar-driven song that was played on Irish radio in 2016.
This meant that when she moved to London to pursue music, she “didn't want to see a single instrument”. I was very against acoustic guitar. “I felt like throwing up just looking at it,” she laughs. But her eyes were opened as she was able to live in London and go to gigs and see live bands. This introduction to a live environment “slowly but surely changed my mind,” she says. “I started seeing a lot of guitar-based music that really moved me and touched my soul. And I was like, ‘Wait!’” I stopped lying to myself and realized that I've always been into guitar music. I realized that I like it. ”
During a period of self-reflection during the pandemic, she went back and started listening to a lot of music on her guitar. While she returned to quarantine with her family, one of her housemates had left his guitar behind in her apartment, so SPIDER decided to make use of the instruments they had lying around. While relearning her basic chords, playing and writing songs on the guitar, she had an epiphany. “Oh, am I a guitar girl now?” she remembers saying to herself.
Although she didn't have any particular guitar heroes (and still doesn't), she says she's now influenced by female-fronted '90s rock bands like Bikini Kill and Hole. Masu. But she had recently read about her life, and one of her artist girlfriends who inspired that story was Courtney Love. “I really liked when people said she couldn't actually play the guitar that well. And that really resonated with me, because I feel that way about myself sometimes.” she says. “And yet she was able to make really great music.” This gave her even more confidence, she says. “It's great to know that some of the best rock songs weren't written by guitar legends. You don't have to be a prodigy to write a good song.”
suitable job
SPIDER may have been introduced to the guitar world much later than others, but she has certainly made up for lost time. On her new third EP, object of desire, she played all the riffs herself. She spent a summer teaching herself how to produce guitar by avidly watching studio sessions and “making the worst beats on the planet,” and ended up self-producing three of her five songs. became. “That was really important to me,” she says, “and I had no idea what to do before.” She produced her first EP and part of her second EP, but there was a big difference. She wasn't playing a real guitar in those. “Using her MIDI keyboard with VSTs and standard plug-ins, I imagined what the guitar would sound like in her head and tried to recreate it,” she recalls. .
These studio sessions also helped SPIDER find their own unique sound, combining elements of not only pop, but also punk, grunge, rock, and pop. “5, 6, 7, 8 More than anything, she says, “I didn't want to rely on men,'' looking back on her studio sessions thus far. She said, “As an alternative girl, I felt weird about having to go to men's studios to make alternative music. I don't know why.”
SPIDER's dream for the future is to become a proper guitarist. For now, her process is to “just do it, do everything, and record what I think is cool,” although she would like to play guitar live as well, but she's not into the idea. She feels “scared,” she says. “Playing real guitar is a studio job for me, because I can be bad at it in the privacy of the studio,” she says. “I'm not worried about whether I can actually play well. I'm more concerned about whether it sounds cool and inspires me.” ,” she added. “It may take some time to get there, but my final form will be pretty cool to play guitar on stage.”
catch your self
When it comes to live performance, the gig environment is where SPIDER and her music truly shine. It's more “fun for me,” she says, to fly around and involve people. “A lot of the music is very upbeat, so it makes sense for me to get in people's faces,” she says.when guitar When I saw her perform at The Great Escape festival in Brighton a few years ago, she immediately won the hearts of the arm-in-arm audience. She was told not to expect much at the show, so she went into it with a “I'll do whatever I want'' attitude and carried that energy into every show.
What SPIDER, who has already supported BLACKPINK, Connie Constance, and Lynx, has noticed is that the audience at her own shows is often much older than her. “Because it's mostly men, sometimes I feel like I have to assert myself a little bit,” she says. “I can't leave them any room to question if I'm shy or not. On stage I'm like, 'I'm really here.'”
Although she loves rock as a genre, she says, “I was nervous because I wondered if I could claim that space if I couldn't play the guitar all the time.'' But what has helped her is to see rock and alternative as “ideas rather than abilities.” There are a lot of people who know guitar skills and chords, but it's the people on the margins of society who elevate it. If your mind is not alternative, are you? ”
TikTok has been an unexpected big boost for SPIDER, and as she modestly puts it, “we've had some little moments.” But because of some people (or some kind of people) who found her videos, “I have a love-hate relationship with that damn app,” she says. She appreciates the fact that “having a woman of color doing alternative music levels the playing field a lot,” but she's received a lot of hate online in the process. have faced. “When you cast your net wide to capture your audience, you also catch people who hate your fucking guts,” she said in a very matter-of-fact way, referring specifically to the white supremacist corner of the platform. He spoke in a tone.
But she doesn't let the haters get her down. In fact, it had the opposite effect, making SPIDER even more opinionated. object of desireHer third EP, just released, is a personal exploration of topics such as intimacy, desire, and objectification.
“What are the boundaries between them?” she asks rhetorically. “As a young woman navigating the dating scene and just being a physical person and interacting with other physical people, I have a lot of questions that I didn't feel like anyone would answer. She hopes that by sharing her feelings, people will relate to the topic and “give them permission to feel a certain way.” There's a lot of taboo when it comes to this kind of thing, so I hope the EP helps remove that. ”
In terms of big ambitions, SPIDER is aiming high. “I definitely want to be one of the biggest rock stars in the world, but I don't want to put pressure on any particular project to get me there.” Her goal is to use her platform to “open doors for other girls, other girls of color, and people who don't really play the guitar very well.”