Interview with Pant1 (TRES Alicante) and local organizer of the spanish elimination of write4gold 2005, Bas2 (GHS Berlin) and Nose (25 Heidelberg)

we think everybody knows, but basicly questions at first, what is your name and your crew and where you com from? since when did you paint?

Bas2: My name is Bas2 GHS AC CMD KD and I come from Berlin/Germany. I did my first piece in summer 1983, I did a Power83 Piece. I really started painting then in 1986, with the full power of my heart and my mind.

Nose:  I´m Nose from the Chosen Few Crew and I come from Heidelberg, Germany. First piece painted in 1989, regularely since 1993.

Pant, you was the organizer of the whole competition, at first, what is your writing name and your crew and where you come from?

Pant1: my crews are "fcaps" from torrevieja, and "tres", people from orihuela, cartagena, valencia and torrevieja

Your crew paint a long time but you are very young but you paint very nice, how long did you paint and since when did you paint for the tres crew? tell us anything about your crew and the history. Do you plan travels with your crew in foreign countries?

Pant1: yes, i paint 6 years ago. a painted with people from tres crew many years ago but it's a relative new crew. we planned traveling to germany this june, and some more travels in the mind

Pant, for you as a spanish writer and also participant of write4gold, what is your opinion about the write4gold elimination in spain?tell us anything about your experience with some kind of battle

Pant1: i think that kap did what was necessary do to win write4gold. they made a good wall, a bit "oldschool", what everybody thought that the jury wanted. but i don't think that they are the best group to represent spain in write4gold final. i dont know really who is. i think that the results in any class of battle is very subjective, and anybody want a different verdict.

Pant, what you think about the occupation of the jury? Nose and Bas2 and Zeta are the correctly guys to judge in spain?

Pant1: in my opinion they were objective with the results, in the line that write4gold asks. i'm completely agree with the results of tag, throw-up and sketch. the jury don't know the paths of each one and that is a factor to bearing in mind.

Nose, it was the first time for you as judge at write4gold, your opinion, impressions?

Nose: Yeah, it was the first time as a judge. I participated twice in the competition with my crew and damn!, it is really hard to do a good job! On the one hand, you try accurately to consider your long personal experience an knowledge, on the other hand you strive to be as objective as possible! but anyway, it was very interesting and fun!

Bas2, do you think there are a big different in quality of the crews in scandinavia and spain at example?

Bas2: The crews in scandinavia painted more simple, the spanish crews did a lot with realistic characters. But both venues where very interesting. The simple pieces of MCE Crew i really liked. But I also liked the concept wall of the XL Crew, the wall was very clean and nead, it was very graphical.

Nose,you are very close and involved into the spanish graffiti scene, what you think about the participants at write4gold, there was good crews to represent spain?

Nose: Spain has become in the last years a very big, very (style-)diversified, high quality and well organised graffiti scene, there are lots of good crews, especially with respect to concept painting. I think (pure) style writers are less organized, they go out all by theirself or just concentrate on steel… At Write4Gold Spain, I missed some more style writers (maybe due to their vague organization) and more experienced concept crews but overall it was a good mix with some older and some younger crews and definitely reflected the (style-) diversity, high quality and good organisation of the iberic scene.

And Bas2,  you are very close and involved into the berlin graffiti scene, what you think about the participants at write4gold german east, there are good crews to represent berlin?

Bas2: It is a good mixture... with PRC and BAD Crew as mainly Trainwriters and T2B who are known for highclass concept painting with nice styles. I don´t know the FLS Crew really, but we gonna see.

Nose, its was your idea to choose the topic beastie boys for the categorie concept painting?

Nose: No, it was a decision of the three judges together…we first thought of some other funny topics, but Zeta, the spanish judge had doubts of the english skills of the spanish writers, so at least we chose the more general and comprehensive topic "Beastie Boys". 

Bas2: Yeah, it just came into my head during some beers with the other jury peeps on the balcony from the hotel. There are a lot of sceneries you can paint around the pieces to this topic. And also for the style, you can make a style very Beastie. Like with arows and other things.

Pant, for you as participating crew, the topic was easy to convert?

Pant1: i liked it. it was very original and i think that people also liked.

Nose, your favourite was the xtra largos wall, why the kap crew win the competition? they was better in other categories like sketching or?

Nose:  They were my favourite in terms of coloration, technique, creativity and the effect of the whole piece but there was definitively to little style on their wall (in size and words – they just wrote the word ‘boys’), in addition, they lost points in all other categories. The Kap-Crew got more style-points, therefore became second in concept painting and also were pretty good in the other categories. But anyway, it was a really close competition, the first three places had almost equal points

And Bas2, your favourite was the lpc crew, why the kap crew win in your opinion the competition?

Bas2: I really liked the Beastie Boys style of the LPC Crew, the style was really Beastie, with all the arows and connections. The KAP Crew concept was also great. So on the end they been both on the first place. So we asked them how the battle should end. We gave them two ways. The first way is a 20min Battle, with one word and only 2 colours or 2 the second way was that the crew with the better ranking in concept painting gonna win. So before they decided they didn´t know who was better in the concept painting. It took them a while to decide but then they choosed the concept way. That was than the winning for KAP Crew. But I think both crews took the whole thing very cool. KAP Crew partyed their winning and LPC congratulated them and showed how to be a proud looser.

Nose, what you think about the judgement system, the weighting of the different categories?

Nose: Overall I think the judgement system is very sophisticated and the weighting is adequate. It could be interesting to introduce something like a “style percentage” that reduces the weighting in case the crew doesn’t write the proposed words. To prevent that one writer carries the whole crew, you could think about the rule that each category has to be solved by another writer.

And you Bas2, what you think about the judging system?

Bas2: I think alltogether it is good judgement system. I really love bombing like Tags and Throw-Ups. To see nice sketch books is also great. You hang around at somebodys house, the weather is to bad to paint and then just looking into sketch books or draw into a sketch book is a pleasure. The painting part of the system is also splitted in good parts, like if a style is readable or the colouring, static, creativity and so on. All this comes than to a end result, what i think is valuable. But some people gonna think, that they did the best wall and so they don´t care about the Tags/Throw Up part and there they loose a lot of points. So homes if you goint to participate at write 4 gold take care about every category, it´s not all about technique and photorealism!!! Style on the end is your key to win and you need in all 4 categorys style.

Pant, do you think the participants recognized the system of judging? mean the percent of decision in the categories at example? its easy to understand that you need good points in all categories to win the competition?

Pant1:  i don't really know. in our case we tried to work in all fields, not only in the concept painting. for example lcp crew reach the second place by throw-up and sketching fields.

do you prefer legal stuff or the fast illegal stuff like trains and bombings?

Nose: I like both equally!

Bas2: I love the whole nine! Trains, Street, Trucks even to bomb fucking tunnels where nobody probably ever gonna see it. But I also love to do legal stuff, nice walls with the full power of style, where it is possible to show you full development of your writing skillz.

Pant, what you think about the future of write4gold in the next years in spain? do you think we should separate the portugese and spanish writers in 2 competitions?

Pant1:  from my point of view it will be much better. this year we didn't have time to promote it, or money to do it better and you had a lot of registrations and we a lot of visitors. the place is good, a turistic zone, and pleople like coming. it's ok to do an iberican competition. we're close to.

Nose and Bas, what you think about streetart and stickers?

Nose:  its okay, and a part of a developement, but i dont really follow it...

Bas2: Streetart is OK, but I rather like more silver bombings. If I would do stickers or stencils, I would show more connection to writing. For me it is still about putting up your name if I go out to do illegal. So like as an example to put a washing machine on a sticker or some other symbol, would not represent me. I probably gonna do a stencil with a helicopter which get shot from a cloud where a GHS piece is chilling on, that is just because they are sending in the moment helicopters out in Berlin to catch writers by night. If I do this, than it is my first stencil work I did. I´m a old school head so my passion is the real graffiti way, with can and everything free hand.

Do you prefer special kind of styles? what you think about 3d styles?

Nose: I like very classic styles (New York, Berlin, Heidelberg), but since I travel a lot and see lots of different styles I became very tolerant…as far as it has ‘funk’ a 3d style can burn equally!

Bas2:I love New York style… But from the New York point I like simple, bubble and wild style. Also Block Busters could look very nice! 3D Styles are not my favourite styles, there are not many guys with good 3D Style. The best 3D Styler for me is Delta, the other guy who is able to do phat 3´D Styles is Shek. He is just sometimes painting 3D Style and you always will see nice letters when you take all the 3D´s away. That is the main point, most of the 3D Styles are wack from the ground letter, without all the technique. I think most of the 3D guys should first learn to write nice styles without all the eye catching techniques and when they are able to do nice styles, than they should start to develop this style into 3D. That is exactly what Delta and Shek did.

Pant, what you think about the chance to win for KAP in the european final?

Pant1: you look for old shool styles, and spain has reputation of newschool styles such as the south of france. it will be difficut, but not imposible.

many thanks for the interview, greetings?

Nose: Thank you for the nice conversation! Peace to the spanish writers, my 25 friends and 50 cent!

Bas2: It was a pleasure to answer…. Greetings or shout outs to: My whole GHS Team Jagany, Wesp, Khan, Leroy, Bisaz, Atom, Skume, Doc, Dhor, Agro, Stok, Kool Kai, Toke, Omsk, Kent,Inka, Besh Nose, Kane, Scotty, Komet, Flash, Desk, Wane, Dash, Wen, Cope, HL, Okzid, Nesk, Poet, Kacao, York, Mr Vegas, Bolek the Molek, PeterBS, Bates, Tiws, Eso, Migel, Stone, Zeal, Deko, Skar, Shek, Kism, Titus, Brocke, Brasil, Rew, Fler, Phos, Amok, Dike, Tok, Tick, Jimmy, Shaw, Kamel, Hopsa, PBS Twins, Lite, Esher, Brone, Kage, AAM, Uzi, the Danish queen, Stoli Vodka Company, the Desperate Housewives, Denise Richards, Tuborg Beer …. MGS, OGS, GFA, PBS, COD, MRN, 156, BAR, CMD, AGGRO, AGS, RCB, KD and all the persons I forgot………….!!!!!

Pant1: thanks to the jury and organizers and best regards to al the crews for coming to write4gold spain.