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You could get a good shot from there I just spotted a 'Romeo', an old tag of mine.

- It was January, February '86 when we started writing our names...

it started around our own neighborhoods and then around Helsinki.

We were little boys back then and rolled in our own hoods

Here in Itä-Pasila there was a lot of cool stuff around construction sites, train tunnels etc.

So there was a lot of surface where to make your own mark and from there it all started

- When you were a kid, you hardly had any patience to draw...

and if you had just been drawing images of war or something silly...

and then suddenly. Graffiti!

It seemed so difficult with its weird shapes.

- So it was all about learning since we didn’t know anything about it.

All we knew was that we wanted to write our own names, be painters and wreck the city

and we had to learn how it works.

We were so young that with our small allowances even getting the spray cans felt almost impossible.

- When we went to tag our own names in a another part of town...

we found other people's tags and realised…

that there were others doing this...

and it was being done in every part of the city.

- And then something just clicked in my head.

and I was like, goddamn, this is something I want to do!

I hardly knew what spray can was...

and I hadn’t even painted a moped or anything before I went to do my first piece

All the colours and shapes...

I had to master them...

The early eighties graffiti scene was extremely good...

because there were new people coming in and the progress was amazing

all the time more colours and characters started to appear

it was cool back then and you didn’t run over anybody's piece

there was that respect.

And if some spot was already painted...

you went around looking for another one.

It was a fine and fruitful period for Finnish Graffiti.

- Then a new phase started, which slowly developed into an ’all city phase’...

where I, writer from Herttoniemi, a long time tagger of the backseats of busses…

got myself into slightly bigger circles...

And then we founded TDF: The Diamonds Five

Which later on became TDC...

So the number of the crew members wasn’t so strictly defined.

- We started to sketch the pieces together And painted them together...

according to the plans...

so that everybody had their parts to play.

and we could make bigger pieces and do them faster...

- And probably cooler aswell

since everybody had painted on their own names...

and when we put our forces together...

we could go bigger and better.

- Sometimes we went at it with a big posse...

something like 5-10 guys at a time wrecking trams...

sometimes things stayed cool...

there were always somebody looking out for us and telling us when to tag

not to go all out all the time...

that everybody should take turns and shit...

but because of the fact that we were such rascals...

it often got out of hand anyway...

and we were all a bunch of termites with markers

wrecking the shit...

Then we would force the doors open and run away...

then we would maybe walk around a block...

or then take another tram line...

maybe some of us started considering toning it down...

some wanted to continue...

and then eventually everybody went their own way.

Perhaps some of them started to think that...

since we wrecked the shit out of those trams

that we would eventually get caught and heavily sanctioned.

- We wanted to go...well...big… - Yeah big!

And what would be a better spot than that big wall next to Kulosaari Metro station

and of course we had couple of guys on a look out.

- But at the end of the day they were just hanging around -Just there to hang out and feeling the vibes

- And it was a quite a surprise when someone went to check after hearing something like a car nearby

- He went to take a peek around the corner and found two security guards standing.

- Then we had to run like hell - Yeah

- We had to leave all the spray cans and everything behind...

- Among other things, my jacket with a note form school inside its pocket, which stated my name.

- And then, one day a police officer called from the Pengerkatu police station...

asking if I had lost 73 cans of spray paint.

- The officer then said what we had done looked goddamn fabulous

- And he would see fit that if we finish what we had started, since it was so fabulous

- On top of that we could paint the other walls of the building too as a bonus of sorts.

- When walking between the Siilitie and Herttoniemi Metro stations, you could always recognize other painters when you saw them...

and then you were just like ‘Yo yo, whats up dude? Whats your tag?'...

and that is how you got to know other painters...

There were people hanging out at the Railway Station and Citykäytävä where you could find other painters...

- When you saw cool tags, you were interested to know who and from where they were from...

you were kinda hunting for them and would usually find them hanging out at some local spots...

especially if you didn’t know which school someone was going to...

since you could always find the bad boys smoking cigarettes around schools during recesses

you quickly got to know people from all around the city...

and then you would hang out with them for a while, tagging electric boxes or going on tram rides

and that was the mission, tagging together, thats it!

and it wasn't a big deal if you didn't become better friends

you just kept on going.

- When the Lepakko Hip Hop jams started, you got so many contacts, which was awesome.

There were breakdancers, rappers, painters, everybody was united...

The jams in Lepakko were extremely nice and they had a really positive vibe...

like it is with real Hip Hop to have fun, which is the main point. Enjoy what you do!

- It’s funny how much this graffiti and hi p hop thing had united people...

last year someone could have been your worst enemy but when they became painters...

when you shared the same circles, you became friends on a deeper level.

- Back then, there were no fights whatsoever, people had fun and respected one another...

We were competing for who tagged the most, painted the most, was the best beatboxer…

was the best rapper, scratcher. There was no violence back then.

- The first wave of painters were these fucking breakers, dj’s and ‘hip hoppers'.

But we came in with a rougher attitude.

If these old school guys had done 10-20 pieces a year, we did about 300 a year…

There was a big difference there already...

And of course they were tagging too, but we tagged the shit out of places...for real…

- The amount of new people that came in just exploded.

- And of course you could see that from the walls. There were new names and new pieces...

and in many spots the wall space got smaller and smaller.

- We were the kings back then. We got new subordinates that worshipped us. And it was...

- We didn’t really like the styles… a lot of silver, hasty shapes and all...

it kinda killed the vibe…

we stepped out from doing pieces for a while because of that.

- Some of them would just tag wherever… new buildings, old buildings, fine buildings...

- There was no question about the fact that it wasn't some underpass...

or some electric box etc.

- There was no chance that I would have painted a wall of some nice wooden building…

located within a garden or church wall...

- When you really go tag, you don’t fucking spare anything…

You don’t have any specific targets, you just wrecked everything...homes, cars…

Fuck...we painted live frogs and entire trees with chrome...

shit like that...

Maybe that wasn't very romantic but...

- The old school painters started to fade out a little and the new generation of painters were just starting…

- So it really didn’t look that creative… It was more about how creative you could be at wrecking…

- You didn’t go home before all your fucking cans were empty. You emptied them on the walls.

- Quite quickly one could see the scribbling that had filled the walls.

- But where it was most visible was at the Lepakko jams…

- I think it was during the 1989 Lepakko jams...

where you could see that the clientele had really changed.

- We would come into these jams with a big crew...

wreaking havoc and fucking people up...

Quite idiotic behavior.

Maybe they weren't too happy about that...

Because they really had this ‘hip hop united’ thing…

But we were...

maybe a little too crazy for that.

- The early nineties were...

a golden age of sorts…

There started to be quite a lot of painters...

you had different styles and attitudes evolving in different parts of the city

- When the Citykäytävä hangarounds split up… in the end of 1991…

People started doing their pieces more...

and it evolved into this underground thing...

where things happened more within your own crew.

- It didn’t seem so serious then...

we thought that we are painting nice things with nice colours

and what we were doing was more beautiful than those grey concrete walls.

Sometimes people passed by when you were painting…

but they didn’t seem to mind much.

You had to be careful in certain places

so that the cops couldn't see what you were doing...

because then you'd have to stop...

You also had to hide from the taxi drivers because they had this ULA phone connection...

that they could call the cops with.

But because no one had cellphones...

if someone would mind you painting, it would take time before they reach a phone...

and something would happen.

- Feeling some pressure?

- The marker's quite dry…

- No, it doesn’t matter…

- It'll be classical.

- It wasn’t that dry when it started to open up. - Yeah, yeah.

- They got a deal to do a legal piece at Rekola station - Yeah.

- We didn’t approve of that at all…

- I was at a juvenile institution at the time…

- Fuck, that they would come to do legal pieces at our stations!

- Yeah, are they these...?

- Comedy and Krylon did this 52-meter wide ‘Fuck The Cops’ on top of it.

- It was unreal, because it was summer and the track makes a slight curve...

from the Korso station...

and you could see this chrome mirror...

that would reflect the evening sun. - Yeah, yeah.

- What’s up with this now?

- Why is it not coming off?

-There is still some left in the letter S...

- What punishments could get from those things back then?

- You wouldn’t necessarily get anything. - Mostly it was just a visit to the police station…

where they would preach to you a little and they would then see about it.

- Back in the day, in the mid-nineties and even at end of nineties...

you would usually do some reconciling and/or pay the cleaning fees...

which were quite reasonable back then...

and you would try to learn from your mistakes…

you tried not to get caught but that didn’t always work out.

- If you have started out with block letters…

and when the wall was filled with those...

the next option was to paint on top of them

and then you had to make it a bit bigger...

- You couldn't be weak...

you had to be strong…

you had to have style.

- Yeah, you had to practice first…

before doing anything to the walls.

- Graffiti quickly became popular and then it wasn’t enough anymore…

that you would only be seen in many places...

It became more about how you were seen.

A kind of visual competition, where the thing was...

to make your name seen in the coolest possible way.

- In the eighties big brand logos started to appear...

and I would see that graffiti came to complement them...

so this is the aspect of graffiti that makes it an art form...

- Art mirrors the society around it and graffiti has reflected the kind of societal change in Finland…

where trademarks and logos started to appear in the city…

in the shops, at the shelves and on people’s clothes.

- There's another one…. - What?

- There’s another one…

- During the so called first 'train boom'...

was when I saw painted trains...

rolling on these tracks.

There was pieces by Comedy, Krylon, Pyro, Comet etc.

It had a kind of effect on me that...

This is the thing!

I have to start doing this as well!

This is totally insane!

That there is no bigger way of expressing yourself than this!

These fucking trains going back and forth…

with your name on the side.

Then it took a couple of years before I got…

Well... those are the ugly new ones...

...to paint those trains back then.

- There's a certain limit here…

perhaps I was aware that…

for Finnish State Railway...

the trains are in a way

important phallic symbols...

The railway company wouldn't look well upon the fact that people would paint them.

- It was in the early nineties when there were pieces and tags everywhere...

and I got the feeling that any fool can…

or not necessarily a fool…

Anybody could go and do a piece at Pulu, Galleria or on the streets

those places didn’t require much effort

and of course they were completely full...

and in order to really stand out...

you had to do something wild...

But painting trains wasn’t something

that everybody was going for.

- When the train fever hit me…

I started to choose colours more on the basis of...

how quickly the paint would come out from the can

and not so much from an aesthetic perspective.

- It's from where the entire thing comes from...

it’s the highest form of graffiti that exists.

- We’ve had these fucking crazy moments…

where we’ve spotted an empty cart

and went at it full force...

and suddenly...Fuck! There were conductors on board...

all four of them, started walking towards us shouting...

'- What the fuck?'

the four of us had completely wrecked the cart...

We just had to force the doors open…

while the train was moving at 30-40 Km/h.

We then jumped into the snow hoping that we wouldn't hit any poles.

- Yeah

- It was like that back then.

- Let’s go.

- The logic of 'me tagging this ugly concrete wall...

to make it more beautiful’ Doesn’t necessarily justify me doing it.

- In my opinion, the goal was to make the city more beautiful…

so our crew had a good cause.

- Well it's a dilemma…

Where are you allowed paint? And where you aren’t?

I think that it’s up to each painter to decide

I wouldn’t necessarily go and paint on...

let’s say, historical sites or religious sanctuaries

But if this city was built solely out of pyramids...

I'd definitely tag them.

- I haven’t touched private property, Someone's house or something...

I’ve had quite clear limits on where I have painted.

The places have always had something in common...

like underpasses, train stops...

Or...something like...

abandoned houses or the walls of some storage building....

into places where I've felt that painting does no harm...

I can of course be wrong about that, someone might still get upset.

"THE NEXT TIME YOU CLEAN THIS WALL… THERE WILL BE PICTURES OF COCKS ON IT IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE HOPING FOR??”

- Well fuck, if you have started painting and doing this thing…

you just have to fucking ignore that kind of shit.

Tax payers money…fuck it… I’m not interested.

We do have our own code on where we don't paint.

Everybody has it up in here.

"SECURITY"

- Yeah, all good.

- We’ve never messed around with property of an individual

in a way this is all common property, this society…

but when the powers that be fuck around...

and there is all this corruption and everything…

then you just pick up your backpack full of paint...

and go wreck the shit out of places.

- Why you would you just stay at home…

and follow all this crooked shit?

When you have your own way of making a stand...

You can go out there and write what you think.

Your own view...

Onto these trains, stations or somewhere else.

I feel that you even have right to do so.

- Yes, I have showed some mercy… my ethics don’t bend..

- I show mercy when I see that there are four cameras...

Then I say that let’s not tag here, we go somewhere else…

- However drunk I would be, I would get this feeling from somewhere…

that this tag doesn't look good here… nor it is easily removable…

But of course, while in my teens and sometimes after…

I’ve felt the need to fuck shit up.

But it never was my thing..

- But hey, you are from Eira. I’m from Korso..that says it all..

- Yeah, maybe there’s some difference between a well-off rich kid…

and the true concrete jungle king.

- In our hallway there was dog shit and flames and neighbors shouting…

- Yeah, yeah.

- Even though your neighbors probably shouted too…

You have this 200-year old jugend castle with its ornaments and shit...

- Yeah, maybe it comes from there then.. - Well it has to come from somewhere!

-Once I was tagging a seat with a fresh marker.

I got up and happened to look over my shoulder...

and saw an old lady sit on it...

she was wearing a electric blue fleece jacket...

and before I could open my mouth as to warn her or something

because I really didn’t want her to sit on it.

but she had already sat down...

when she got up, she had my tag's imprint on her back.

That’s something that I could have been left undone.

- Then the fucking cellphones appeared and shit got quite hectic…

It took about one and half years from there and phone records came along.

Nobody knew about any of that shit back then.

Nowadays you have to fucking send smoke signals…

when we are going out to paint.

- I got called in for a Police interrogation...

I didn’t know for what since they didn’t explain.

I decided to go and I hadn’t really thought much of it

so I went in with some sketches in my pocket...

I ended up spending a couple of nights there.

It was back then in the early 2000’s when they started to become…

more interested about this thing and wanted to stop it.

- It was like The Inquisition all over...

and one could say that the cultural history of Finnish graffiti…

was destroyed in a Talebanish way.

They cleaned everything, even the really old ones…

There was nothing left anywhere.

- When the Zero Tolerance and the persecution started…

it had an effect on the styles a lot.

And I think that at some point the styles had become really bad…

because the point was to paint as fast as possible...

and that became the main thing...

The style came second.

- We were thinking that this cannot take many years…

that their campaign would run out of money at some point...

But surprisingly enough. It didn’t.

- These northern Helsinki neighbourhoods which are close to railway tracks

have been extremely restless and violent places.

And also tagged as fuck.

So from here they started the control...

and then the Vandal Squads stepped into the picture.

They wore plain clothes at the stations…

and they also had these old ticket vending booths...

where they sat and peeked between closed curtains.

There were like four guards inside, waiting, with their batons ready…

for someone to make a wrong fucking move.

- With these security companies…

there was no...

No reason or moral in their way of operating.

- When the telephone surveillance and the overall heat from the cops came…

it caused some people to go and snitch.

Then you trusted your own crew more...

who really kept their mouths shut.

When you got caught, you stayed quiet…

since you knew that others would follow. That's that.

Which didn’t mean you wouldn’t get sentenced…

because in our case, if you admit, you’re sentenced.

If you don’t, you're sentenced.

Its like… fuck the whole thing.

- I like doing what I do…

and not one punk ass security guard or police could scare me...

in a way that I would stop doing it.

I just kept going and made the whole thing more reasonable...

For example, I always had a couple of guys on the look out.

so that nobody would come, when you are doing something.

- Of course there were less painters around…

since many had got enough of the persecution, cleaning...

and the punishments that were severe.

The ones who stayed, were those who were the most enthusiastic...

and those who had nothing to lose, who had already got their 'bills'.

and of course they just kept wrecking shit...

just to fuck with them.

- Maybe it was a good thing for Finnish graffiti...

that this crew came and showed how to wreck shit...

maybe it kinda needed that, in order for things to change…

and when the control came, we didn't slow down...

but went in head first and did even more.

- The Police came to pick me up from home one Sunday morning…

I opened the door and they said ''Pack your stuff…

and take some books with you, because this might take a while.''

They locked me up for a month and then another…

and eventually they transferred me to a prison.

There I was with car thieves, and all kinds of other looneys,

like robbers and killers.

And even inside there I didn't feel scared or anything,

in a way that would have lead me to stop this art thing.

It made me think about all this in a new way.

The inmates were perplexed that I ended up there just because of graffiti…

and especially there.

Everybody was in there for some really serious shit.

But no biggie…

Of course I had the early symptoms of a first time inmate,

like carrying the shit buckets into the wrong place etc.

Eventually you get used to the routines,

because you're in there for quite some time.

I remember the day when we went on trial again in Vantaa...

going through the same things…

and there was a national TV news crew present.

There I woke up to the fact that this had become a big thing.

When I returned to prison, after I was acquitted,

so as to be released immediately.

The other inmates asked -"How did everything go?"

I told them it felt kinda weird that...

there was a big reporter show and in the end I got acquitted.

They said "Fucking wonderful! we were wondering…

what the fuck you were doing here anyway".

- We can't get through… he can't get there…

- Let's go now!

- All the things people do on this planet can’t be measured with money and shouldn’t…

everything can't be profit-driven

it is an absurd idea.

We are not a factory… The Earth is not a factory...

that would only strive...

to make profit and produce money.

The reason why I paint graffiti is because I like it…

and I don’t want any money from it…

I want to feed my soul with it and share it with others.

So, keep your money! I don’t want it!

And maybe that’s the thing which scares people the most…

That there are people who aren't interested in money…

cars, televisions and all these fucking pinnacles of hedonism.

- As soon as I got out from prison, we went and did more graffiti...

on to public transportation.

Because I was pissed off from being there for nothing.

There was no other way to show those security guards...

that we're back in business.

Even they understood that it doesn’t help.

- One guy got a month in prison for putting up concert posters.

Other people also suffered from this control of public space...

so then The Zero Tolerance campaign ended…

That was the peak of hysteria around graffiti.

In a way the whole thing fell to its own impossibility.

- We, the second generation, came and took over...

and I would guess that it must have been difficult for the old school guys...

and it’s difficult for me now, when its happening again…

but that's how it goes.

Someone needs take over.

There is always a new dictator to replace the old one.

That’s how it goes.

- Graffiti has been understood to be taken more easily and lightly

That this isn’t so serious…

Of course someone can see it as being so fucking serious...

there's that serious aspect to it too...

You can be playful with it....

- Don’t paint there where it’s oozing…

Let it dry for a moment…

Just like that…

You can colour the whole diamond inside.. - I want to also!

- Well, let Ari colour it now.

- You just couldn’t resist after that initial bite…

- Every once in a while I feel like I have to go and do a piece…

or then it’s a kind of call to go out and do my thing…

But that’s how it is with any other hobby...

be it fishing or whatever...

I think a fisherman feels that he needs to go fishing.

So…

It’s that simple.

- I do it because I can and I want to…

It runs in my blood.

Can you say it so? I don’t know…

the culture is part of me and my personality.

- Well…of course the trains still run to the depot...

you can go there and paint it’s not about that.

It’s all about whether or not you feel the call in you heart.

All the shitty fingernails and huge fucking bills…

Well.. fuck the bills...

I’ve gotten so many good friends out of this…

That’s the most important thing.

- Nowadays, the most important thing for me is amusing myself…

Well..I don't know if it's the most important...

But the thing that keeps me going.

- Of course there is no sense in it…

but what sense is there in ski jumping?

Or driving a Formula One car around a circuit? How stupid is that?

This thing is a culture, an art form.

I could do way more idiotic things.