Five questions for five flicks 

Featured artist - 2LOCO

2LOCO is a graffiti writer from Sydney. He has been painting since the mid 90's and is an active member of KOS & 76 CREW. He's travelled to some crazy places to paint steel such as China, Indonesia & South Africa to name a few. We caught up to find out a bit more about him and asked for his favourite five flicks.

1. What got you into graffiti?

My father is the one that got me into it without wanting to. He used to hire vhs videos back in the mid 80s and brought home movies such as Beat Street, Breakdance, Colours, The Warriors and Tougher Than Leather from memory. My father being a bus driver with the government gave us free bus, ferry and train rides so often we would catch the rattlers, ridgy comengs or grey ghosts as far as Blacktown, Liverpool, Hurstville and Bondi as we lived city ways and back in the 80's the lines was an art gallery with every space smashed.

Every time I would be so intrigued and would point and tell my father "look look very beautiful" and he would reply every time with "no no no son of a bitches a bunch of lowlifes" hahaha sorry papá I became a lowlife son of a bitch. Once the mid 90's came around and I became old enough to catch the train and jig school thats when I started tagging and meeting other writers as we had moved to Sydney's West and graffiti was smack bang in your face everywhere you went. Yearly trips to visit family to the graffiti capital Melbourne also played a strong part. I guess the rest is history.......

2. How would you describe your style?

Ive got an array of styles due to certain situations and certain circumstances. For example if Im on a chill wall my style is more of a New York interlocking Sydney public feel. On trains it could be from a dirty Euro trash style to an unorthodox cutting letters big 3ds steez or big, simple, bold, fatcap drippy blockbusters as I usually freestyle whats on the top of my head depending on the situation. Im an all rounder writer and know Im not lacking in any department in whatever situation Im thrown at.

3. Do you have a good chase story?

Oh wow where do I begin? Having mostly painted illegal situations the last 2 decades I definitely would have genuine non bullshit chase stories to tell from being shot at by security in the metro tunnels of Milan to escaping through escape hatches in Paris to punching on with security in Sydney or running from police through farm lands in New Zealand. But my most memorable chase story would be at a certain local backjump that I used to pump once or twice a week for at least 4 months straight. My mate and I got spotted a minute into painting on one of the new waratah models and we got called upon the loud speaker and told that the cops where on the way.

We decided to leave but not run in the direction we came but hide in between the lines in a sly ditch not far from the train to wait for the next train to come in and give that one a shot. Not even 2 minutes and both sides of the fence police had swarmed and blocked and had torches pointing everywhere and kept yelling "we can see you come out you mongrels" but they couldn't see shit. We hid for 2 hours until they moved away from the fence and just circled around really slow in their cars and on foot so we made our 1.5 kilometer crawl on our stomachs and knees over train rocks while avoiding being seen by the police and passing trains. Another 2 hours later we finally got to our ride and couldn't believe we got away. Had the cops jumped on the live lines we would've got crusted no doubt. After that close call this spot was set up by police and private security everyday for the next 3 months.

4. Looks like you have done a lot of travelling, can you tell us about a crazy mission abroad?

Being an active and consistent train writer especially on overseas missions has its many stories and rewards especially when your avoiding being caught and "banged up abroad" from crawling under sensors to hiding in trains at turnbacks or worming my way under electric fences as examples. A recent trip to Beijing in China with a couple of boss players on that red carpet steez brings back a fond and crazy mission on the Beijing Subway. We subbed out a newish yard on lucky line 13 that we believe has not been hit before as security was quite high-tech and present. So for 2 nights straight we studied every movement and scheduled routine. Getting into the yard unseen was another mission of its own by walking through a crazy field with spikey plants, avoiding falling in swamps and scaling a dodgy wall.

Once in we had to walk through and past active buildings to finally reach a few hiding spots moving back and forth like ninjas. On the night we painted we broke open a window to climb and crawl into a locked up hanger. 2 of the crew found buckets to stand on for all 5 of us as these subway trains stood pretty high and 5 minutes into finally painting we hear a voice over the loud speaker in Chinese. We freaked out and didnt know what the hell so we grabbed our bags and ran from the hanger towards a bush we can hide in and observe. As I jumped a fence to get to the bush my left palm got pierced by a fence spike injuring my median nerve. Now hiding in this bush on the lookout with a bleeding hand with zero strength and force in it was killing my vibe.

After 15 minutes we all agreed that it was a pre recorded message and not directed towards us as nothing appeared so we ran back into the hanger and jammed it like champions with me painting with 1 hand with the injured hand wrapped in 2 gloves to help stop the bleeding all while moving the bucket side to side stepping up and down to finish my panel. We finished got flicks and escaped with the boys helping me scale the wall as I only had 1 active hand. Once we hit the street we stole a bicycle each and went and got us some celebration beers for our journey back to our hotel. 2 days later my hand was almost back to normal and recovered faster than expected but still attempted missions them 2 nights so injuring it again was at a higher risk but I was ok.

5. What motivates you to keep painting?

Definitely the active younger generation that have been killing it over the years putting in alot of blood, sweat and tears. Even though Ive painted longer or even more I still feel I gotta keep up and feed from their hunger as I aint getting any younger and my motivation at times gets sloppy and half arsed. Today's train writers have the luxury of ghost fat caps and a whole range of high pressure paints which motivates me even more because I can rip a panel in 3-5 minutes or something semi decent in 10 minutes.

Overseas missions ticking off exotic and difficult systems is another motivation booster that still gives me that mad feeling and rush like it was my first panel. As of lately the writers from my generation that are pulling of wall burners and murals on the norm have been giving me mad motivation to push my imagination and skill and focus on the more chill side of things, but crazy voices in my head keep telling me to "keep it rail till my legs fail" haha graffiti fucks my life but I wouldn't change it any other way.

Thank you BSP, for writers by writers...

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