10 Spot Interview with Koi YME crew
Photo provided by Nick Gervin
INTERVIEW by Nick Gervin
Q1: What is style to you?
For me, having style means having the ability to put breath into shapes. It's having the ability to animate dead strokes and put them in motion. Style gives life to letters.
Q2: What motivates you to get up?
The only thing that motivates me to get up is that gratifying feeling of getting-over with a properly executed panel. It hits you in that brief moment when you pause, between packing your bag and walking out of the spot.
Q:3 Why freight trains?
By painting on a freight train, you're sending your work off on an adventure out into the world to have a life of its own. It'll go places and be seen by others, and if it's lucky, it'll weather on that boxcar. It'll fade in the sun, collect rust, scars, and other markings, stories. When it comes back around and I catch it at a crossing, sometimes years later, it's like seeing an old friend. That's why I write on freight trains.
Photo provided by Nick Gervin
Q4: What does your graffiti say about yourself?
It's hard for me to say what graffiti says about myself, but I'd hope that it tells a bit of my story. Where I come from, my home, my crew. My esthetic tends to be neat and clean, balanced, which I imagine is a reflection of how I try to live my life.
Q5: Who is a writer you respect and why?
There are many writers out there whom I respect for various reasons, but a choice writer who comes to mind would be The Solo Artist. Obviously, their history and body of work is simply awesome. But what I really respect about TSA is their deep respect for American railroad and freight train art culture, their expansive wealth of knowledge and experience on the rails, but most of all I respect their dedication to maintaining a healthy and vibrant culture amongst individuals in the community. They understand the importance of family, friendship, and crew. They're dedicated to nurturing the subculture of freight train graffiti and instilling that respect in the coming generations who will covet this legacy and keep it alive.
Q6: Can you recall your first experience with the rails?
My first experience with the rails was memorable, to say the least: Years ago, VANE (SFL crew) and I are wandering back from a bridge spot of theirs and happen upon a short layup amongst some farmland. It's the first time either of us have had an opportunity to paint a train. So, in classic "toy" mentality, in the middle of the afternoon, in broad daylight with little-to-no tree coverage from this field, we start in. Each of us get about halfway through filling in our lousy toss-ups (VANE on the left, myself on the right) when I hear someone yell, "Hey!" I freeze and look up the line to my left, past VANE, at a pickup truck stopped on the tracks. We didn't realize but at the end of the line (only a few boxcars away) was a small dirt road crossing, connecting the fields on either side of the tracks. In the process of crossing over to the next field, the farmer noticed us. From his pick-up truck he yells, "What the hell are you two doing!?" I immediately shoulder my bag and start a brisk walk in the opposite direction. VANE tries the honest approach and says, "Hey, we’re just doing a bit of painting. We're leaving now." The guy responds with, "You better be leaving! Or else I'm gonna call the cops!... Actually, I am the cops!" That was a strange response, I think to myself. I stop and turn around to check on VANE, who's still trying to maintain a conversation with this lying hick. I say to VANE, "Hey, forget talking with this dude. Let's just get the fuck out of here!" VANE acknowledges, bags up the cans and follows me in the opposite direction. VANE says, "We're alright, be cool. Let's just calmly walk away." Meanwhile, I'm already in panic mode and begin scoping for places to ditch into the woods in case we need to ghost. We pass a few boxcars down the line with no word from the farmer before I check over my shoulder. Turns out, there's two farmers in the pick-up, and they don't think we're moving fast enough. The two climb out of the truck and onto the ballast. They start into a full sprint, heading our way. I say to VANE, "They're coming for us! We gotta get out of here!" We both turn and hop a link between boxcars and dive into the swampy, briar-filled wood on the other side of the line. Hunched over, ducking branches and dodging swampy water, VANE and I bolt for about a hundred yards or so before we hear: Bang, BANG! Panting for breath, I turn to VANE and say, "Holy shit! That was a gun! They're shooting a fucking gun!?" Totally shook, we both freeze and listen... BANG! Another shot, clearly coming from the farmers, close behind. We wait and listen for another moment, then it dawns on us: these are warning shots, to freak us out and scare us out of the spot. Right? VANE says, "Lets keep moving." Crouched low, we hustle through the woods and out of the spot to the edge of the field, following the road a ways back to the car, the whole time waiting for the pick-up truck to roll up on us. We make it to the car and drive away.
Q7: What are some of the harshest lessons you have learned from graff?
Graffiti has taught me so much, but one of the harshest lessons I've learned (that I think all writers learn) is that the first time you ever write a single piece of illegal graffiti, whether you know it or not, you enter the arena. In the arena, it's survival of the freshest.
Q8: When were the golden years of writing for you and what were things like then?
If my writing career has a "golden year", which, respectfully I'm not sure that it has yet, it would have been within the first 3 years of writing. When I first started, life was a bit more simple; I was able to write more often and it was all still so new. On that note, I look forward to each mission with the added nostalgia of those years.
Photo by Nick Gervin
Q9: Does your graffiti have any political influences or messages?
When I first started writing, my graffiti had a lot more political influence, with a clear message. I gradually progressed to focusing more on the craft, thus my political message lay in the act of graffiti writing alone. More recently, with the current political climate, those messages have become more clear and polarized.
Q10: Can you share some of your crew's history or stories?
I rep the street crew SFL, as well as the legendary freight crew YME. Both of which have roots in Maine, with a rich history dating back to the 1990's. There's already a decent amount of history out there on these crews, so I'll share some history on NBD, a crew I founded in 2007. Born out of the lack of having initials to sign next to a throw, I started writing No Big Deal, more or less as a joke, a catch phrase I had with friends. It became a habit and in a few years I put writing partner EAST COAST WALKER down. Early on, NBD represented a greater group of non-writing members, but ECW and myself were the ones who repped it in the street, and mostly on freights. Nocturnal Boogie Down has been our go-to acronym for the crew for most of its existence, with others such as Never Back Down, Natural Born Deviants, No Bad Days, Nefarious Brothers Divine, and the Northern Barnacle Division following. The only other writer to rep NBD is VANE, put down in 2016.
Photo provided by Nick Gervin
Photo by Nick Gervin