Chain 3 Interview @149st

CHAIN 3 INTERVIEW

©1996, 2003 @149st Do not republish without permission.

When did you start writing?
In junior high school around 1974.

What was your main inspiration?
My classmates they started writing. Everybody had little tags like CRISCO-KID RGM 175 CHAIN 2 which was Tony-Tone from Cold Crush. I just got the idea from them because they were writing all over the place and I wanted to be a part of that.

Who was your main mentor?
Probably those people who I mentioned because they were the ones that took me out writing. If it weren't for them I'd probably be still hitting in my hallway. They use to snap on me about that. As time went by my best influences were TRACY 168, RIFF 170, BUTCH 2. I was always interested in the best of art. I never liked throw-ups or toys.

What was the first lay-up that you hit?
Baychester lay-up

Was Chain the first name you painted?
The first name I wrote was SPARK 170. I didn't like that name so I stopped writing it.

When did you meet up with the TDS crew?
We made it up. One day we just came together. Me MR.JINX 174 and KOOL131 we were hanging on East Tremont and we wanted to make us up a crew. We wanted to make up a crew of writers that were the best at that time. We were after PHASE 2 and them. It was our era. It was me KOOL131 and MR.JINX 174. At first I wanted to call it The Squad, but they wanted something more hard hitting, more powerful, so we came up with The Death Squad. We went to Printing High School and told PART about it. PESO was the next one and those were the main people of TDS.

How did you hook up with TMT?
There comes a time when crews don't hang together it's creative differences or what ever. What ever it was two of the best couldn't stick together at that time, so they kept the TDS thing going. One day I hung out with a member of this crew called MTA (Mad Transit Artists) which was one of my friends from along time ago. His name was Felix. He wrote CHINO MALO. He introduced me to BEST 174, TEAN 5 and KADE 198. We met between 174st and East Tremont. They were at this spot where they were looking up at these trains so I asked them a couple of questions and they asked me a couple of questions about the past and they knew who I was they knew I wrote for TDS. So they formed a crew and asked me to come along. I said I don't know about this racking thing. They said you don't have to worry about it. I was just the style behind them, they got their own thing.

What were your favorite brands of paint and colors to use?
It didn't matter what the name was because everyone likes to use Krylon, Rustoleum and Red Devil. Red Devil was the one that don't drip. Krylon was a good paint but krylon run out fast. Rustoleum had the best colors because everybody loved the Federal Safety colors. When they first came out my favorite color was Federal Safety Blue. Rustoleum was great but, Rustoleum dripped. The only ones I ever saw use Rustoleum great was probably RIFF 170 and LEE you could look at their pieces and they didn't have drips I guess its the way you use it. One of my favorites was Flecto purple it sprayed like a Uni-wide marker, but the color was great. Those were the best at that time.

Do you have a favorite line you use to hit?
The 2, 4, 5 because if you were any kind of great writer that's where you went. Everybody came to the 2,4,5 they were most respected.

Could you give a list of the wild style names that you pieced with?
TIME 2, DAC, PEEL, SHAMPOO, POD, DOSE, DR. PHIBES, WORD. I like different styles you get bored using the same name. I got that from RIFF170 he was the one who could make two letters look great. Me Kool and Part were like the second addition of WORD, WORM and WARM. BOT was WARM. PEL was WORD. RIFF was WORM and PART took that over. We were like the second generation of PHASE, RIFF and PEL. We took over where they left off.

Was there any kind of music that you use to listen to that influenced different designs and pieces that you did?
Soul Makosa, Just Begun, Apache definitely Apache, Rock Creek Park

What was your favorite wild style ?
It was probably time the first wild style piece I did in '74, when the long 3d first came out. Then after that it was just history. Everything was wild style.

What do you think of today's movement?
I have my ups and downs about it because the emphasis is on the characters and the background and not on the letters. The pieces that are out here now are not as strong as they were back then. There are very few writers that can letter and everything all together well.

Do you have any advice for today's writers?
Know your history, your heroes who the best, who was famous.

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