December 2011 - Monthly Recap by Bombing Science

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unknown_barcelona new jersey

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vancouver

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barcelona

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lisbon

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lisbon

miami

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miami

montreal

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new york city

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new york city

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toronto

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toronto

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sigh_barcelona richmond

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sigh_barcelona richmond

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sigh_richmond montreal

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paris

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sigh_richmond toronto

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Five 8

BombingScience: First off, who are you, where you from, and all the usual blabla people start interviews with?

BombingScience: What do you concentrate your efforts on? What are your main focuses for graff?

Five8: I am Five8 representing the FAM out of Montreal.

Five8: Most of my efforts in bombing are put toward using fonts for burners and rollers. I’ll do the occasional throw-up but i’ve pretty much accepted I’ll never be an all city streetlevel bomber so I concentrate more on going big on high-visibility spots that I think will have longevity. Rollers are my absolute favourite form of graffiti to work with and one of my first rollers was done in an old woodcut font with a fat 3D pushing it off the wall. It was so bold and crisp that I was really inspired to delve deeper. I’ve been exploring and studying fonts ever since, sometimes taking a break to try and work on some of my own letter styles but never really feeling satisfied with what I was producing. Only recently I’ve developed a couple of my own styles that I feel are original, although they are font inspired. I’ve also been developing my portraiture skills, but let’s save that for another time.

BombingScience: How long have you been getting busy? Five8: I picked up my first can around 2002 but only started getting serious with it around 2004. BombingScience: Why the name Five8? Five8: Prior to 2008 I was going by another name. I decided to take on a new identity and thought it would be fun to incorporate a number into a name like AndrÈ 3000 or Royce da 5’9». I especially liked how the latter sounded. After putting some thought into a name to place ahead of my own height, I eventually dropped it completely and stuck with the numbers exclusively.

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BombingScience: How would you describe the scene in Montreal? What has changed significantly since you started? Five8: You can tell about the strength of a city’s graffiti scene from the way it bounces back from a big buff, and homie, Montreal is a-boomin’. We lost a lot of history with that big buff a couple years back, but it got filled back up in no time. Lots of work coming from generations younger than myself and they’re bringing a lot of talent. Montreal is also a nice melting pot of styles. A lot of European, and Central and South American artists come through with an array of styles that influence younger artists trying to find themselves stylistically. This process is an undeniable factor in the production of Montreal’s unique styles. We have an incredible amount of active writers who also manage to make a living producing artwork from talents born from their graff-roots, and there is more talent brewing with the younger generations. I don’t travel very far very often but it is my impression that Montreal has definitely made a mark on

the global scene, and that is backed up by the amount and the status of visitors we get as well as the work our locals are putting in abroad. We could do with less beef, however. Its a shame when people who take pleasure from the same activity fight each other instead of fighting those who seek to end the practise altogether. BombingScience: Montreal has been pioneering for a long time when it comes to rollers. Do you think being from MTL is the reason you concentrated a lot of your work on rollers? Five8: It must have if a person’s surroundings have any affect on their actions, but I wouldn’t say it was a conscious reaction. In my earlier years I believed that rollers were a part of every writer’s repertoire. I’m approaching 30 rollers now and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the thing I love most about rollers is the mission behind each one. It’s what I love about graffiti in general, but when I accomplish a crisp, bold, professional roller

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in a spot that would otherwise go for tens of thousands of dollars to advertise on, I’m on top of the world. BombingScience: What are your basic steps for getting a roller done? Five8: Most important, like anything else you do in life, should be planning. I like to go by the spot during the day and scope out the terrain; see what the ground is like to stand on, plan an entrance and exit strategy. I’ll also check the spot at night to see what the lighting is like. I take note of how high I can reach with just my bare hands and try to figure out what size extend-o pole I’ll need. Sometimes I take a picture of the wall and study it at home. This is all in preparation for building the letters perfectly in proportion to each other and in relation to the wall. I wanna make sure im covering as much viewable wall space as possible without compromising the structure of the letters. Nothing worse than having to warp your letters by stretching them cause the wall was wider than you thought,

but you don’t have a pole long enough to go any higher so as to keep your letters in proportion. I choose a font for my rollers based on how much time I think i can spend at a spot and also how long it will take to paint. If the ground is difficult to maneuver on, say for instance it’s on a huge slope that tends to crumble beneath your feet sending you sliding down often, you probably want to choose something simple cause it will take a while to get even the simplest letters done cleanly. I would also choose simple letters for spots im not comfortable staying at all night and just want to be in and out. Next is to choose some colours, usually it’s decided for me based on the stock I have, and again on how long i plan to stay at the spot. If I feel comfortable spending many hours there, I’ll go all out with a different colour for fill, outline/3D, and uni, plus I might even throw in highlights in the fill and/or 3D. Knowing the right amount of paint to bring to be able to complete the roller and not have too much to sacrifice or carry back home with you comes with experience only. After I have my

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letters chosen and either printed or drawn on paper, and my colours are chosen and put into more convenient containers than metal buckets, I make sure I have a separate tray and roller brush for each colour so as not to contaminate any of them. When I’m painting, I’m very concerned about professionalism. I put a lot of effort into constructing the letters as they were designed, and making sure each letter is as thick and tall as the next. I prefer the spots where I can take my time and really get each line razor sharp, sometime you gotta sacrifice cleanliness for speed though, and drips are inevitable either way but disappear from a distance, just got to accept that. Somewhere in the painting process between watching my back and trying to ignore the muscle fatigue in my arms and shoulders, there may be a few beers and definitely a few spliffs. After applying the finishing touches and taking a step back to admire what I’ve been working on for 5 hours, I gather all the supplies I want to conserve and put them in garbage bags and then into my backpack or messenger bag or what-have-you. I’ll wash

mostly everything and use it again next time. I never leave any garbage at the spot. I finish off the night by smoking a victory spliff and tripping over what I just did. The mission isn’t over until I have daytime pictures of the spot in all its glory. BombingScience: What would be your best roller experience? Five8: Each roller mission has been a unique and exciting experience. From the quiet solo missions to the whole-crew banger. From the closed highway exit lean-over, to the plateau rooftop with the amazing view. BombingScience: Your worst? Five8: It was a 3 person mission and the target was the remaining walls of a torndown processing plant of some kind. I had initially scoped it from the bus then did some reconnaissance work at the site with Snob to create a plan of action. It was a couple of months between when I first discovered

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the spot from the bus to when we scoped it out live during the day, and only a week between then and when we set out to paint it. Needless to say, we were all pretty pumped to get this hot spot done. On the way to finally do this thing, the outcome of our night was foreshadowed by the bursting of one of the tires on our vehicle; a poetic metaphor representing the bursting of our hopes for that evening. For when we arrived at the spot, after changing that tire, we discovered the walls we had hoped to paint had been torn down. Could have been demolished earlier that very same day, for all we knew. Another unpleasant experience was the time when I shook a bucket of paint around at the location I was preparing to do a roller at, and it burst open in my face. The lid hit me square in the nose and my face was covered in paint. Didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get it done that time either.. BombingScience: Share us your best partners to get rollers done, and your worst. Five8: Everyone Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever done a roller with

has been a pleasure to paint with. BombingScience: Is there anyone from here or out of town who you think his roller work is significant? Five8: Without a doubt the leader of the roller game in Canada is Stare KG NME. He is a really innovative writer in all aspects of graffiti. His rollers go beyond letters often by incorporating themes that make playful use of their location. They are always in the hotest of spots usually involving 3 of more colours and the ones that involve painting an actual picture like the piggy banks and birthday cake are epic. Freckr MQC, also from Montreal, sets the standard for size around here. It was a sad day in Montreal when the MQC roller at the end of Decarie facing Turcot got buffed. From abroad, I really like the work that Above does. When it comes to rollers he is the perfect example of professional. This dude writes whole sentences and each letter is so well painted, you could put a level to his lines and they would be perfect. His Word

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Play series is just unbelievable. 1UP crew from Germany is dominating europe with crazy quantity and lean-overs in the most ridiculous spots. BombingScience: Do you think in a close or distant future, you will leave designed fonts and exclusively design your own calligraphy? Five8: I dont think I’ll ever stop using fonts. I want to keep working on my own letters but there will always a place and time for fonts. Display fonts are perfect for when you want to make an impact and easy legibility for roller or blockbuster situations. Typography is very interesting to me and I’ve only scratched the surface. When I become interested in a certain style of fonts, I research and experiment with it to the point where it influences my style of painting all around. When I was heavily into western woodcuts I would mostly paint in black and white and incorporated a lot of patterns. Most recently I’ve been having a lot of fun with disco and retro fonts which have really inspired me to use a lot of colour. These influences have extended to my artwork outside of graff as well. I’ll continue to work with them well into the future. BombingScience: What is your opinion on writers making a living off graffiti

buff it. Why should they earn a living off this artform and the actual artists not? The way I see it is if you’ve got talent and passion in anything, and theres a market for your skills where people are willing to pay you to do what you love, why wouldn’t you take that opportunity? Don’t we all deserve to have a job we actually enjoy? BombingScience: Would you do a roller on some ill highway spot for a big company and get paid for it? Five8: No. I really dislike guerilla advertising. I dont even like to paint company logos in my legal commercial work. If a company really wants to tap into the graff market, they should do so by buying artwork without influencing the creative process. BombingScience: Last but not least, what is your Bombing Science? Five8: 1.18L spots + 11.6oz letters + 7g planning + 730µ friends, blaze at 420∞ for 5:14. HANDLE WITH CARE! Peace to all Montreal writers past, present and future. Dre, FlÈo, Sure, Soma, Siez and Kismet in TDot, Rage5 and DHS crew, Snob, Ment BYN, and Germ. Thanks Bombing Science, I’m out!

Five8: The only people who really make money off graffiti are the companies that

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jarus

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kerse

killa ef

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rload

zore

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place_syhis

179

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place_mistx

place_svezajeza

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alts

arose one

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azek

bhave

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bluefoot

prezm

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shyne

usual suspects

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case_vienna

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sigh more _richmond _toronto

_richmond jihadsigh _salt lake city

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olito_montreal

ones_missoula

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rime _los angeles sigh _richmond

sighsteel _richmond _miami

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sigh swer _richmond _mexico

unknown _malmo sigh_richmond

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rumors sigh__ richmond chicago

sigh _richmond skam _toronto

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scan_montreal

sigh_richmond

osker_toronto

nixon sigh_richmond

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cren_berlin

soten_copenhagen

unknown_miami

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