How did you begin graffiting ? 

Seeing it all the time when I was travelling to school. Then after a year I wanted to add my own. My friends got me into it. 

What paints do you use ? 

Acrylics, enamels, oils, spray paints. When I get commercial work I try to buy good brand paints. If I had to buy paints I usually by all the cheapies stuff, or all the usual colours, and mix them together to come up with unusual combinations. 

When I was 16. I had to go to court. I had 13 charges against me. It was a bit of a slap in the face. I went to Hornsby courts. They are very strict on youths up there. I know if you went through Glebe courts or Blacktown court it wouldn’t be so bad.  I was charged and not convicted. I got a 2 to 3 year bond and had to do community service for months. They were going to get me to clean trains. I thought that was cool, cause I could learn the time tables of trains, and how to access train yards. But they thought that was too much of a temptation so they got me to clean Pennant Hills railway station. The supervisors ended up being really cool guys. They gave me money for lunch, and let me leave early. I think they felt sorry for me. 

Any good chase stories ? 

No, I was always cautions and paranoid. A lot of my art was done in daylight, I just picked the right times to do it. I’ve had a few chases, even with legal walls. I've had some miss understandings with security guards.

To us writers, the differences are obvious. Australia has a really high standard of graffiti. Being so far away from the major centres of graffiti art, like New York and Europe, graffiti in Australia developed it’s own styles and attitudes. It still looks towards America for inspiration, and there’s a lot of influence from other parts of Hip Hop culture, like music and fashion.  

Personally, I was influenced more by LA graffiti then NY graffiti. I was influenced a lot from books like Spraycan Art, by Henry Chalfant and James Prigoff, and Subway Art, by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant. 

Has graffiti changed in Sydney over the past ten years ? 

Yer, kids that do graffiti now do not seem to have any influences. Things just seem to be coming out of there heads, there doesn’t seem to be anyone they can look to for influences. 

There were a lot more regular graffiti artists around in the early 90s, back then you can see artists influencing each another. The North Shore artists had their own style, the Inner West had their own style, every part of Sydney had an individual style and culture. But it’s not like that now, instead of having unique graffiti communities in every part of Sydney, now it seems like it is everyone for themselves. Graffiti artists now are more likely to work individually, rather then collaborativly. 

When I was growing up I was influenced by North Shore graffiti artists like Demote and Prince. I use to see their work and it would hype me up to do my own work. Unique, Mistery, all those guys. I grew up searching and photographing their work. Lately it has been Phiba’s wildstyles. 

The last couple of years, I’ve been interested in other things. Graffiti will always be a part of my life but it is no longer the number one thing. I’ve been through art school and I can see graffiti with a better perspective now. 

What other interest do you have besides graffiti ? 

Skateboarding, music, writing, and reading. I read a book recently that influenced me a bit. It was about Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein.   Ninety-nine percent of the media, only reports Britain’s side of the Northern Ireland situation, we never see the Sinn Fein side of the argument which is just as valid. Reading that book really made me think of what my priorities are in life. It made me feel like I’ve been just playing around with my life, wasting all those hours skating and spray painting. Maybe I could have been doing something more important. In Northern Ireland, there are kids as young as ten in riots, fighting for their basic rights. We are lucky in Australia, as we don’t have to do that. It would be cool to be involved in some worthwhile causes. 

Hopefully I would have created some music that’s worth listening to, have some paintings that’s worth looking at. Just to not be bored with being creative, and creating something significant if I’m going to create. 

Anything else you would like to add ? 

You should do what you want because you enjoy it. There are too many people following the rules of graffiti rather than breaking them. I’m all for drips, I’m all for cheap paints, I’m all for using abandon buildings where no one else is going to see my work. Graffiti artists don’t have to do their work on the main train lines. They don’t have to work with the best coloured paints. They don’t have to have five pieces edged to edge. I think it is better to do one good work every three weeks then have ten crappy ones that all look the same. Or even ten excellent ones that all look exactly the same. 

Graffiti artists should be out there for more then recreating their logo, which is what too many artists are doing. I can’t understand how they can do that. Doing the same thing over and over again, with just a slightly different colour or letter shape. It’s good to have a style, or something that people can recognise as your work. Like Phiba’s cats or my self portraits, but everything shouldn’t be measured, stencilled out and repeated.