Q&A

PIP RUSH Fire-breathing trash sculptor, talks to EOIN BUTLER

Describe the Spider for people who don't know what it is. It's an enormous tripod, comprised of three 30-metre crane arms. It emits lasers, bolts of lightning and flames that shoot 30 metres into the air (pictured right). There's a DJ booth about 15 metres up in the air and, beneath that, there's a stage for bands to play on. As soon as they start to play, this whole structure comes to life: lights flash to the beat and the hydraulic moving parts dance in time to the music.

So how do you get this enormous structure to dance in time to live music?There are lots of ways of doing it, but the one that works best for us is to have a piano player perform in time to the music on a special keyboard we've rigged up.

Wow, that sounds absolutely incredible. Now that we've got everyone's attention, will the Spider actually be coming to Electric Picnic?No, I'm afraid it's so difficult to transport we can only really bring it to Glastonbury. We are bringing something just as good called the Afterburner. It's not quite as big as the Spider, but it has a DJ booth and it can accommodate about 5,000 people in the round. We're also bringing a show called Lords of Lightning where two men in chainmail stand on Van de Graaff generators and shoot bolts of lightning out of their fingertips.

Your work received high praise in LSD magazine recently. Would a correspondent from, say, Three Pints and a Kebab magazine be equally impressed?Of course. If people had to take drugs in order to enjoy our show, I don't think we'd be doing a very good job.

Arcadia originated from something called the Free Party scene. What was that about?The Free Party scene is a culture that valued people getting together for the sake of celebration, rather than for the sake of earning big bucks for some promoter. That's very much where our roots are.

So at what point did you sell out?The elders in our movement would be called New Age Travellers, but that was the last generation. They lived completely outside of the system. But free parties became illegal and it became a bit of a headache, battling with police. Nowadays we try to make enough money to get a licence, to pay for the overheads that come with putting on a big gig.

Do you still consider yourselves travellers?Absolutely, because this is a tribal instinct people will always have. They want to travel. They want to live on the road. They want to see new places and experience new things. We pay taxes now, we contribute to society, we try to work with the police. But that doesn't mean we take every corporate gig we can get. We've found a way of living very cheaply on the road.

Do you ever pretend you've left your wallet in the car?That works for me sometimes. You know, I grew up in the English countryside. Practically all of my family were artists of one description or another. But I never wanted to be an artist. My parents were so poor, I couldn't understand why they did it. Other families around us made so much money driving tractors and stuff. But once I became a teenager: being on the road, travelling around, being invited to other countries . . . I loved it.

Did you steal the Spider idea from U2? Be honest. Believe it or not, they both came out at exactly the same time. We brought our designs to a company and they were like, "Oh my God". They pulled out a bunch of drawings from the U2 people and it was pretty much the same idea. But these things do happen. Different human beings do come to the same realisations at exactly the same time.

Finally, why should people come and see you at Electric Picnic given that, you know, the Spider isn't actually going to be there?Because it's going to be an amazing show. At the very least, they should make a point of finding out what time the Lords of Lightning are on because people are not going to want to miss that. They should also look out for our headline acts. They're not going to be published, but we're arranged for some really top-class surprise acts to play. We've got an incredible sound system, it's going to be playing well into the night . . . what more do you want?

Arcadia will be appearing at Electric Picnic, Stradbally, Co Laois, September 2nd-4th, see electricpicnic.ie