Five questions for five flicks 

Featured artist - BLENDS

BLENDS is a graffiti writer from Brisbane. He started painting back in 97 and was soon hooked on the lifestyle and out painting panels in Brissy. He has his own unique style that has evolved and adapted over the years and is a member of DTS CREW who have produced some of the most quality train graffiti Australia has seen. We caught up to find out a bit more about him and asked for his 5 favourite flicks.

1. What got you into graffiti?

When I was young my best friend’s elder sister was into graff and she had a big stack of early Hype magazines, we used to trawl through at them for hours and copy the B-boy characters holding uzi’s and wearing exaggerated fila’s.  Once we started painting I was obsessed and pretty quickly that’s all I wanted to do, eat, rack, paint, repeat. 



2. How would you describe your style and who were your influencers?

I like to keep my style evolving and experiment with new things but I think it’s always had a consistent aesthetic to it over the years. 
Graffiti sometimes has a lot of imaginary rules for an art form that supposed to be about breaking the rules.
Early influences were many but PMC, THC & AKM crews stand out from the 90’s in Brisbane then with DTS we had a really strong crew style going, we called it the crew soup, we all contributed flavours and shared ideas and techniques. It was a great time with a lot of people pushing the boundaries and geeing each other up.

Brisbane was a small city comparatively and not known for its creative culture but being outsiders forced us to band together and create our own niche subculture that turned into a strong and influential scene. That 2000’s period produced a lot of talented artist that have gone onto do big things here and abroad.

3. You're a member of DTS Crew who are known to produce quality graffiti in Australia and abroad, could you tell us about a memorable mission with the crew?

Many memorable missions and good times over the years! Sofles and my whole car running on my local West line was a highlight. The overseas trips were also a really memorable, the whole crew traveled around Euro in 2008, before that Solfes Okies and me went to Thailand, me and Okies also went on a train/tourist tour to new Zealand and Japan which was a lot of fun and mischief.

4. Do you have a good chase story?

We planned a whole train, I think it would have been one of the first in Bris, we had a shit load of paint stuffed into duffle bags, a bunch of ladders and a big crew of people. We subbed the spot and cut the fence but as our suspicious mob walked in with face covers on, bolt cutters in hand and enough gear for a bank robbery cops happened to creep past the street beside the yard and put on their red and blues, we had to turn straight around with all our gear and leg it back along a single track with high walls on either side trapping us in.

The cops were trying to cut us off and all the dogs barking in the yards near the tracks were not helping us, we had to hide sometimes only a couple of meters away from the cops in the dark and hope they didn’t spot us. 
At one point the cops were on foot above us on a bridge, shinning their torches around but they couldn’t get on the right angle to spot light under the bridge which was lucky because we were all lined up under there like the usual suspects.

This game of cat and mouse went on for about an hour and eventually we got away, the scary thing was if we ever got caught and raided back then they would have had a field day. We were lucky to get away mostly unscathed after tempting fate so many times.

5. What motivates you to keep painting?

Now it’s more of a free creative outlet and getting to hang with mates instead of being the most up like it used to be. 
My day job is creative so I’m not always itching to paint after I’ve been painting all week but doing a piece is a totally different vibe, its for us, there’s no money involved and there’s no rules or client. I think that’s why I’ll keep coming back.

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