We just spoke with The One for you and here are the answers.

1. Could you please introduce yourself?

The One, I have had this name since around 1992. I wanted a name that could be used in many ways & in the english language this word has variants like This, That Them & Those, it also appears in other languages with words like Die, Das, Der, Los, La, etc it goes on. Anyhow the plan was to have lots of variations that still meant the same thing for if I got bored with the letters, luckily this has not happened yet. The other reason for this word choice is its link with graffiti as I saw it when I was younger & it is still apparent today. This is that it is a word you see many many times every day but you just don’t take notice of it. Even looking back through this text you will see variants of ‘the’ many times. With this choice I wanted to create something interesting from something boring, just like you do every day with graffiti tools like paint & markers.

Lets say you been very active and to many places all over europe last years. We have heard you been unlucky several times, could you share some stories withg us?

I am always trying to keep as active as possible, the Uk is my home so I put more effort into doing things here & discovering how things work before I started travelling. When I did start travelling it really opened my eyes to a lot of new things, making some great new friends, finding new ways of doing things, checking new places & of course some time to have ideas for new plans. In terms of unlucky, yes it can happen to everyone. One thing that I can tell you for sure is that the Uk is one of the most serious places when it comes to graffiti. Doing it is one great thing but if you get caught here you are in some serious trouble. It’s pretty much standard that you will have a load of your time wasted & end up in Jail for a long period of time, usually measured in years. In all the countries I have visited I don’t really know many people that can get in jail for over a year for minor crimes. In the uk I could list many people with long sentences & compared to the damage you see in other countries they have done hardly anything & ended up with a sentence comparable to a pedophile or killing someone.

..and everyone got his own major story to tell about his trainwriting experience, whats yours? Any funny or exciting one?

There are just too many, every time I go on an adventure crazy stuff just happens. You really have to question reality with some of the things you see happening at night. One crazy story is for sure the first time I attempted to do a wholecar on ladders. I decided to really test myself on this one so rather than do just one car, I went for a full colour whole train of three cars. These where the longest cars on the system at the time in the Uk too so it was quite a mission to undertake. This was in a time before quality paint really existed in the Uk so the first plan was to rack all the cans which meant travelling to Germany & picking them all up. The base fill was 36 x Turquoise Blue Marabu’s which was a chore in itself to find. Apart from this we had all the classic colours of the time on the go, High Heat Auto K red & the classic among writers that was ‘Samtlila’ Belton. Many of these don’t even exist in the same quality now so it was definitely an experience using & moving around all of these cans. It took some time to plan but when all was in place for this mission it did happen. I set out after checking the weather & it was 50/50 if it would be ok. The drive to the place was quite bad as a storm had started & it was really raining on the journey. Just as I arrived in the night though it was like a dream, the storm just stopped when I got there. I checked everything out & sat inside the train to keep warm. Luckily all the heaters had been left on so it was warm & helped to dry the train out too. I got on with it quick time & about two thirds of the way through had to stop as some people arrived. In the waiting around for them to leave it just got too late so I had to leave this beast unfinished. I was real pissed but there was nothing I could do as you couldn’t paint the spot in daytime. I had picked a holiday night in the plan so there was a small chance that it would not get seen & I could finish it the next night. I drove back to the spot the next night & was totally shocked to find the whole thing there untouched. The workers where so lazy on this holiday that they had not even had a look around. I searched out the ladders & all the stashed cans then got on with finishing the piece. I got it all done, got flicks & proceeded to bomb all the rest cans on every other car in the yard. when they where gone, I got my pictures & left with mission accomplished. It was only later that I find out how pissed they where about this whole train. They wouldn’t let it run & took it straight to the buff in the dark the next night. They said it would be too expensive to clean it all so they just hauled it to the scrap yard straight away & scrapped the train with the piece still on it, the train was never to run again. Total Knock Out in two strikes.

Hows the trainwriting scene outside london?

Its really great, the Uk has lots of different models & many different companies so you get lots of cool colour combinations for your background. Like most capital cities, London has the biggest system & scene but there is lots going on all over the country these days.

Are you one a trainmodelhunter?

There are always great things that I see on my travels & think that would be nice but I am not really one of those people that only travel to a place for one objective. If i see something in real life it can give me an idea that I would never have had if I just looked up a picture on the internet.

You are not the one painting the legal Hall of Fame right?

Not really, I do like painting walls every now & again but this is just for fun & usually for chilling on a warm day in the summer or a sunny place.

How do you feel about that Banksy over Robbo story? Do you care or got an opinion to share about this case?

Its two different worlds colliding, but it makes a load of hype for both of them. The thing that I do know is that if Robbo says it is Tuesday then it is definitely Tuesday no matter what day of the week it is.

What is your point of view about trainspotters and this digital world. A lot of trainwriters dont want their photos up in the internet. But its hard to believe, cause dont you paint the train that anybody could see it at the end of the day?

This is a whole new era in Graffiti, things have changed so much with the digital revolution in photography. It used to be that if I gave somebody a photo of mine they would check it out & put it somewhere safe. If they wanted somebody else to see it they had to physically show it to them or loose their own copy by giving it away. Nowadays if you take a digital picture, give it to somebody then they can just send it out to anyone & you have no idea where it could end up. If I bother to put a load of effort into creating something then I would like to try & keep some control of it. Things are really different in the Uk with photo’s as not much runs currently. If things are not running then it is only you that has the pictures, its not like anyone can just go in the station & find your stuff. It is a different story in other places like Bucharest or Italy where stuff runs for a long time & anyone can just go take a flick & put it on the internet for everyone to see.

We know you been one of a few has an last ride with the old copenhagen s-train right? Do you remember that historical ride?

This is not one to forget, ever. Copenhagen has a really special place in my heart when it comes to Graffiti as I grew up seeing those red S Train cars covered in some of the most inspiring pieces & crazy destruction I had ever seen. Only in magazines, books, videos & friends photos though. When I first went there I really understood what graffiti means on trains. I did not travel to New York back in the day when Graffiti ran on all the trains, let alone experience a system where pieces just run all day. The most important thing here is that writers try to paint trains all day & all night too, 24 hours in Copenhagen can lead to a serious amount of pieces completed & a lot of time in Central Station taking flicks. I made some really great friends in Copenhagen & went on a lot of crazy adventures over there so the last days of the old S Trains where very special. Even before these trains where all pulled the mission was always to paint ‘the old one’. Of course this just got harder & harder as time went on & fewer where left. It got to a point where writers where just hanging out in the Central Station spotting ‘the old one’ just to try & work out where it would end up at night for an opportunity to try or planning its route in the daytime for a ‘final squeeze of the lemon’.

The last day did arrive though & was well prepared for on all parts. I had been out the night before so was already up for flicks of something else but we had the times for the last run so all arranged to meet on the train but in no particular place. The train ran the whole B Line through the city from Høje Taastrup to Holte & back again. I found the train on its out trip before it even reached the city & was met with a crazy atmosphere straight away. There was of course a load or writers riding the train, music playing, beer drinking, joint smoking, fun having & trouble causing. There was also a whole bunch of ’serious’ train spotters & train staff riding the train greeting people & giving away chocolate bars & other memorabilia of the special day. On the journey out everyone was checking the opening doors at each station as more writers arrived & moving cars to greet them. For one day it seemed like most people where friends which is not a normal situation in Copenhagen. Things got pretty out of order on that journey with the whirlwind of drunken writers going through the cars tagging & ripping down posters to see what old tags lived behind them un-buffed for years. The staff started to get really pissed with some people & we knew it so where not surprised when we arrived at Central Station to have the Police show up & take some people form the train. We got away from that one & the journey continued only to have some people wait to catch a load of outside tags in one of the stations. This was the final straw for the staff really so when the train got to the end of its last journey it was met full force by an army of Police at Høje Taastrup where a load of people got dragged off. There is not much arguing you can do with Danish police, they will just take you away but somehow writers still managed to stay on the train for the final part. The train drove all the passengers into the hanger of the main yard for a tour around the yard. Obviously the writers had all been there already but this was actually allowed?! Most of us just played stupid as we where getting shown what we all knew so well already but when that was over we were just allowed to roam around the layup outside. It was like a hall of fame, plenty of pieces, old tags & ghost tags that would not be buffed. I slipped away from all that eventually & walked to one end of the main yard to get some flicks from a piece a few days before that was laid up. I got back to the yard party to find a few more people getting ejected by the Police for causing trouble then we figured it was time to leave by the other end of the yard & ‘main exit’. It seemed strange to call it that because it was the only one I had never used before. We went that way & took some flicks of another set of pieces from the previous days & left to see what trouble people had got into through the day. We found out some the next day though as it was all front page of the newspaper in Central station. The story didn’t finish there though as I found the actual train that we had rode on the last journey laid up under the bridge in the main yard. I painted it there for the last time, in the early evening as soon as it was dark. We had to stop for each passing S Train at the station & as we hid underneath it was the first time that we knew it would only be ‘the new one’ passing by.

Many opinions on that but of course we would like to ask, what paint to use for fast train actions, any brand or product you can recommend?

I use all brands of paint old & new for pieces on trains & walls but if you want to do something quick then don’t even bother with cheap or poor quality cans. I would always prefer a finished piece with cans that are good & reliable than a unfinished abortion with wack cans.

What is your opinion on all these chase stories in the UK, it seems the UK law got one of the strongest sentence in europe right?

This is the way things are here, big brother is always watching you so you gotta watch for him. If you don’t then you could have a long time inside thinking about it & doing sketches you can’t paint.

Whats your favourite book and video about Graffiti? Anything to recommend?

There are so many things out there but the first thing that comes to mind is ‘Art In Consequence’ from the Ruhr area in Germany. This is really some serious destruction but with a lot of thought behind it too. Even though most of the work is black & white it really does show you how to push the boundries. There is a video with the book & many people dont know that there is a hidden part of the film at the end of the DVD. After it finishes, it all goes black. Fast forward through this & you get another section of the movie with colour throw ups & some other stuff too. I thought this could be a plan for another part, but in colour?

Thanks for the interview! Anythig to add?

Not really, just gonna keep doing what I am doing & see where it takes me!


Interview: notme