Interview in Clout #7 | More Ewok Photos! Click here to purchase this issue!
Interview by J. Anaya

How’s Cali treating you?
It’s all right; the weather’s nice, people are babies when it comes to any type of unpleasureness. It’s pretty weird.

What made you start doing graffiti?
I don’t know, it’s just one of those things I thought was cool. I saw it through various stages of my life when I was younger and it always appealed to me. It was always this mysterious thing. It seemed like there was a lot to know and a lot behind it but I didn’t know about it. I would see tags and stuff and I couldn’t read them but I just thought it looked real cool and it was kind of like this rebellious thing where you just vandalized shit and it just seemed kind of appealing. When I was younger, we would drive through Chicago on the way to my grandparents’ house. I would see tags and pieces in weird spots that I could recall being an eight year old before I knew the first thing about graff. It just seemed interesting, I don’t know, it was just attractive I guess. I’m not exactly sure why.

With your pieces popping up in music videos, did you move out here to become an actor?
Ummm…no, but if somebody wants to put me on, I’m open as long as I get to like make out with someone in a movie or something like that; preferably a Selma Hayak movie.

I see you’re writing AWR again. How’d that come about?
It was basically because Norm finally convinced me I was basically trying to play Switzerland in the whole thing ‘cause of the beef between AWR and KIL and things just kinda went into the AWR direction after a while. Basically I was just ready to be cool with everybody and just go from there but Norm really convinced me that it was the right thing to do and I just decided there was no reason not to. Everyone in the crew has been super cool to me whether I was pushing or not putting it up and that’s pretty much what it’s all about – if people have your back then that’s all that matters. In certain other cases people didn’t have my back so you can figure out what you want from there…

How’s your art career going?
It’s kinda off and on; it just depends on the time I can put into it. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes I’m really inspired and things go moderately well. Other times I’m just at a standstill with it. Right now I’m kinda in between trying to work on other stuff outside of just stuff to pay the bills but it’s hard to find the time.

So are you profiting from it?
Yeah, here and there. I’ve gotten to a point where I can be involved in art shows every couple months or so, but it’s not like solo shows where I’m able to focus on that for months and months at a time, which is what I’d like to be able to do at some point in my life. Right now it’s kind of like doing what I got to do. I mean my job is really cool but as far as just putting a hundred percent focus on other art ventures I’m not quite there yet.

So if you had more time to put into your art, you’d be throwing one man shows?
Yeah, the thing that’s most frustrating is that now there’s a lot of stuff that I want to do but just finding time to do that. And I need to be in a position financially where I can afford to not work and focus solely on that for six months to a year at a time just to really achieve what I want to. Then I could actually work on stuff for eight hours a day for several months on in just to kind of get into it, ‘cause right now it’s just work during the day then come home, maybe watch TV or eat a pizza and hopefully try and get a little something done here and there, but it’s just in short little stints before I go to bed so I never really feel like I’m in the zone where I can pump out quality stuff. I know I got it in me but my situation doesn’t really permit me to focus on it as much as I’d like to.

What inspires your creativity and originality in graffiti?
I guess it’s more or less just not really having a desire to do what’s already been done. To some degree you’re always gonna do it by virtue of your doing graffiti and your doing letters and there’s several generations of styles and things that have influenced everybody, but I think as far as me trying to carve out my own style, it’s more or less I don’t even see the point doing it if you’re just gonna use someone else’s style. I think it’s rad to be influenced by other people and build off of it but as far as I’m gonna try and be GHOST or REAS or RIME, all those people are fresh but what’s the point in being their recycled spin off? You gotta blaze your own trail – that’s the only thing that matters. I think to me more than anything as graff goes is at the end of your career what did you contribute to it, like stylistically or bombing wise or whatever, like you need to have something to hang your hat on that was like this is what I contributed to graffiti on the whole and if it inspired other people, cool, but if not at least you can have your own satisfaction that you added something to the mix and maybe you spawned somebody else to come and do the same thing or at least left that door open where other people that were influenced by it might try to go off the beaten path and do shit other than the popular style for the time is. I mean you’ll see thirty kids try to do a style that REVOK was doing three years ago and it just gets old. I couldn’t really stay satisfied recycling somebody’s shit. Every once in a while I’ll get really amped on somebody’s shit and maybe I can even see little remnants of stuff in it; for the most part you can’t just straight up bite someone’s shit. You just can’t live off somebody else’s contributions. You gotta do your own thing!

Do you think that your art career will eventually take the place of your graff career? 
I guess I don’t really think about it. When I was sixteen I thought I would be skateboarding ‘till I was eighty so chances of that is it’s not gonna happen so I don’t know chances are I’m gonna stop writing, just to look at it realistically. I don’t ever think one will replace the other. I just try to take bits and pieces from both and incorporate them in both; what I learn in graff I try to incorporate it into my fine art shit and vice versa. I can kind of learn shit from both of them so as long as they both have something to offer me, as far as just my interest in it I’ll keep doing both and I can’t foresee either one of them really just getting bored with it or tired of it. I definitely paint graff a lot less than I did when I was younger just due to being a man or an older dude trying to make a living and support my kid. I just try to enjoy it every time I go out and hopefully add a little something to what I’ve been working on, twist something a different way or flip my letters a different way than I’ve ever done it before. It’s hard because even when you do something that’s off the beaten path, you kind of fall into a pattern of doing the same off the beaten path thing over and over again so that becomes your new thing. So I’m constantly trying to rip myself away from whatever I’m getting too comfortable with. There’s kind of a fine line between developing something that you can make it better than you did the last time and just using it as a crutch and it’s just like falling back into the same patter of this is how I do my “E”. This is how I do my “K” and so on and so forth. I get bored pretty easily with my shit so I try and keep it interesting. I’d rather do a bad piece that pushes me in another direction than just do a good piece that is basically the same piece I’ve done four times in a row.

Do you think there will ever be another issue of life sucks die?
Yeah, I think eventually it will rise above the ashes like the great phoenix. I don’t know what form; it might be a book or something a little different than what we were last coming with. We still have the same desire to make a dumb publication and voice our dumb opinion about shit. It’s just a matter of the right time presenting itself I guess. Hopefully it will come soon. I think everybody has the desire to do it, it’s just the ability to do it I guess as far as having the time and the energy to put into something that’s basically a running joke (laughs) rather than something that you can actually pay your bills with. I mean we never really made actual money with it; at best we were kinda able to have the magazine semi support itself. We always had these pipe dreams that maybe someday we’d actually be able to do it for a living or at least make a decent chunk of money to really justify devoting as much time to it as we did but as you get older you just don’t have 20 hours to pump into something that’s not paying your bills. It will happen sooner or later. We will get our shit together and do something else.

Is there anything more that you guys wanted to accomplish with the mag?
Yeah, I think there’s always something more even if it’s just a continuation of the juvenile shit we were doing already. I think it had its place; I mean the best thing about doing the magazine was seeing people’s reaction to it. That was basically your payment when some kid writes you a letter saying, “Man that’s the best graff mag ever.”  We got that a lot and it’s kinda flattering ‘cause it’s hard to be the best at anything, not saying that we necessarily were but I definitely think we gave the people what they wanted and they didn’t even know they wanted it at the time (laughs). Our main goal was trying something different; I guess it’s the same approach that some of us take with our graff. It’s like we were sick of all the same graff magazines with the same layouts and same boring interviews with writers with questions like what’s your favorite paint, or who do you like to paint with. Where I was coming from is, if all you know about somebody is their persona as a writer or whatever like by seeing their stuff when you never met them, why would you wanna know what kind of paint they use? You can basically get all that shit by doing your homework and seeing their shit. I wanna know what kind of cereal GHOST eats or whatever- just dumb shit like that is more interesting to me than “Who do you bomb with?” All those interviews just ran together, same question same answers.

Well then this question will fit you perfectly. do you still have your shower shoe fetish?
I’ve gotten over it to some degree. It’s definitely a problem if I gotta use an unfamiliar shower, but I’ve gotten to a point where I’m comfortable in my own apartment. It’s just one of those weird quirks I guess. I just really don’t like the feeling of my feet touching something wet so if I have to be in a place where other people’s wet feet have been I like to have my sandals on unless it’s my own shower. For a long time I couldn’t take a shower in my own place or if I moved into a new place it would take like six months before I could start showering there without my sandals. It just drove me nuts thinking other people’s feet and shit touching the same stuff, but I’m getting better. You still wont find me out by the pool anytime soon with out sandals.

(Laughs) So when you go in the pool you wear the sandals?
Nah I don’t even go in the fuckin’ pool; anytime I’m by a public pool I always see some band-aid floating around in there with a bloody pussy pad or a clump of hair and pocket lint. I can’t even fuck with that…

Who’s your biggest hero G.G. or Jay Z?
That’s a tough one. They both changed the game in their own rite. Aw man if I have to say it as applied to my own life I’d probably rather live like Jay-Z than G.G. but I will definitely give G.G. his dap for pushing the envelope.

So you don’t shit on your self?
(Laughs) Yeah, you just gotta respect it but you don’t have to like it or accept it, but I mean anyone that will cut them self with a bottle, shit on them self and then roll around in it, that’s some ill stuff.

I think Jay-Z used to do it his early shows..
(Laughs) Yeah, perhaps…

Ok you wanna break down your secret infatuation for Paris Hilton?
Nah not really (laughs). I don’t know, it’s just something about bitches that I’m attracted to, and she seems like one of the worst people on the planet for whatever that’s worth. I think I’m always drawn to some tabloid type shit based on the content of our magazines being infatuated with pop culture and just totally retarded shit that gets over blown and everyone obsesses about it. I think it just falls right into place. I have a problem with dumb blondes, but I’m working on it.

How many times have you watched her video?
All the way through…none because I can only get choppy little pieces of it off the Internet, but I guess I could piece them all together. I did see it for sale in the window of some store on Melrose.

Would you have been suprised to see one of your peices in her video?
I would have been stoked; that would have been the highlight of my career. For sure that would have trumped that Mustang commercial or that J-Kwon video. My little question mark was in there. I wanna get a piece in the duet video of J-Lo and Mark Anthony (laughs).

Do you think she’s overrated?
Yeah, the whole bitch thing just got played out with J-Lo. I don’t know, she’s just like a bitch and not even in a cool way!

You’re involved in RIME’s new concept called the "Exchange.” You want to tell us about it?
Yeah, I’m actually the worst person in the exchange to be talking about it cause I’ve been super slacking. I haven’t been able to get out the last couple weekends. It’s a good idea that RIME came up with. He called up me, REVOK, YES2, SEVER and GESO. We all draw outlines for each other then mail them back and forth; like I drew a sketch for GESO and he painted that piece and he drew a sketch for me and I half way painted that piece then it got buffed. Then I flaked off and haven’t finished it. That’s the jest of it. The whole point of it is to try new shit. I know RIME is mad at me for holding it up but shit’s been crazy the last few weeks. I’ve been dodging this guy trying to serve me legal papers, but I want to get on it and get it going.

What can we expect from you as an artist and a writer?
I don’t know, what kind of question is that? Let me think…ask me again.

What can we expect from you as an artist and a writer?
You can expect the unexpected. (Laughter)

Any last words?
This is protected by the red the black and the green, you sissiesssssssssssss! Shout out to my daughter "Froggy."

How about the guy trying to serve you the papers?
(Laughs) Nah, I did away with him.