Welcome to Breaking the Rules, a series of podcasts dedicated to learn about the origins and history of graffiti in Spain through some of its protagonists.

Neither the Breaking the Rules team nor the podcast itself have any other vocation than to keep a record of a part of history that has not appeared in books or magazines and that goes beyond chronological dating. Through personal stories, memories, anecdotes and experiences we want to maintain the tradition.

The team are Hen67 and Musa71. We are helped and advised by Harrybones with the design, Adrián Robos with the technical aspects and Lalo López with the music. Without them this would be possible but it would be worse.

We warn that it will be the same guests who will be linking and creating the new episodes with their experiences as far as possible.

We hope that this treasure map of the culture that unites us will be of interest to you.

90s, break dancing, and custom-made baggy clothes

For this first episode of Breaking the Rules we have the presence of a writer with a great trajectory, talent and style: Zeus, from Mataró.

Zeus- Let me tell you a little bit, we arrived here in Mataró in 1985, my mother, my brothers and me. By that year the movies had already come out, Break Dance, Electric Boogaloo, Beat Street and all those. Break dancing was a social phenomenon, it had spread nationally, I even remember my older sister, who wasn't into graffiti at all, break dancing with her friends. They had a break dance group. That was in 86, I was 12 years old.

Musa71- Do you remember seeing those films on TV?

Z- I remember watching most of them at Fat and his brothers' house, the HE’s. That was our meeting place. We didn't have a video. I practically saw them all there, Wild Style, Style Wars, Beat Street…

I’d tried to dance a little, but I had no talent. My brother Heroe danced and started painting before me. He started dancing when he was 10, and he even had a tag, as a graffiti writer. He signed Say and even had some pieces done.

We came to the Plá d' En Boet neighbourhood in Mataró, where it all started. There were people like Kaoner, Koren, Enak, there were a bit older than us. They were teenagers and we were pre-teenagers. They, along with Demon and my brother, started painting around 86 when they were 10 years old, making their breaker pieces. And then a few more of us from the neighbourhood started a little later. We didn't fall in love with break dancing, but with graffiti.

At the end of '88 I was already doing tags, and I did my first piece in '89, at the beginning of March or so. It was a white plastic piece filled with some red rays, made with cardboard so they came out clean. I remember that my friend Dagon helped me a lot, because I still didn't have confidence with sprays. I had a lot of insecurities.

Zona was a bit more on the outskirts of my neighbourhood, on the periphery, which bordered the train tracks. That's where the prostitutes would go to do their work, the junkies would go to get high, the gays would go cruising, and we writers would go to spill our styles, and I remember the police there hassling us.

M- The beginnings are usually romantic, but the reality was much more difficult, or dangerous, wasn't it?

Of course, they were peripheral neighbourhoods. Our El Plà d'en Boet was a neighbourhood made up of social housing, a workers' neighbourhood. At that time there was a lot of delinquency, even the neighbours were demonstrating, asking for a police station because the streets were full of junkies... That's where the graffiti flourished.

M- Did you start with markers or directly with sprays?

My first tags were with an eraser, when I was 14 years old, at Miguel Biada secondary school. I remember the green desks, and I used to make my own tags with the eraser, which left a gap with my name on it. Then I bought an edding 850 which lasted me a long time, about 10 years. After that it was spray, Spray Color or Felton. More Spray Color, which had 12 colours in the range.

You have to think that we were at an age when we didn't have any money, 14-16 years old, so we had to steal them. In Mataró there were four places where we went to steal, one was the red shop, which was in the centre of the city, near Plaza Sta Ana, another was the “yaya”, a poor woman who had a haberdashery with 4 sprays and they always blew her away. The other two places were the Pryca (now Carrefour) and the Aki.

At Pryca they had the brand Duplicolor which we loved because it had a very wide range of colours, and the sprays were very small and fit well enough to take with you. Here the one who had the easiest time stealing was Tronek who managed to steal 12 sprays, 3 on each arm and 3 on each leg once.

We wore very baggy clothes, I remember Fat's mother used to make those clothes for us, she sewed extra fabric on the trousers; she added it to make them look like the clothes that appeared in the films we saw, the b boys that were on TV and all that.

M- I guess the mother didn't know that the baggy clothes had an extra function?

No, of course not, but that's how it started. I remember I wore a blue Adidas cap to school when I was 14, people looked at me and others said to me, “you're a very authentic and brave guy.” Imagine where we were... it was a bit third world. Those were tough years and we were very backward… We were way behind other European cities, like Berlin, Paris... and cities in the United States. We saw the pieces that were being made in other cities and we were amazed by the colours. And yet here with our 12 colours... very basic.

M- And how did you get the information?

Well, there were people who made fanzines like CFC, Save and Nekto made another one called Aerosol, and they travelled a lot to Europe, Paris, London, Madrid. We also got information from Madrid.

M- That’s very important, because not many people travelled back then...

No, no, of course, that's how it was. Heiz used to hitchhike. That's how he went to Madrid and I think he went to Paris too.

M- Your first contacts were your brother and his friends?

Yes, although we also went to Barcelona, to the University metro station, on Sundays, which was the meeting point, also at the jams, - in Mataró we did three, people came from the surrounding area and that's where you met them. I remember Fasim and Cash who unrolled very big sketches as if they were parchments and people were amazed.

My first graffiti group was with my brother and it was called The 2 Real Style, because it was the two of us, and the other group in Mataró was called Hermandad de Estilo, which was made up of the Fat brothers, Demon and Dagon. There was a little bit of a quarrel, not very healthy because we stopped talking to each other. I don't remember very well why... there were several reasons, because we were kids.

M- Do you remember the war in Barcelona?

No, I didn't live through it. It rings a bell because Heiz used to talk to us a lot about San Andrés and at that time it was the place where the best quality graffiti was done, in my opinion. A lot of good graffiti was painted there. People like Fasim, Free, Biz, Cash... although not all of them were from San Andrés, they all went there together. There, in my opinion, were the best. I remember Heiz telling me about Fasim and his pieces. And I remember going to Barcelona with my brother just to see them. The BCN Power Fasim, the Alta Tensión. I remember the emotion I felt when I saw those pieces.

Fasim and Cash were way ahead of the others. With plastic and a can they could make incredible pieces.

I remember that after watching Alta Tensión I couldn't sleep wondering how he had managed to do that. The cans, the colours were not the normal ones. Then I discovered that it was a brand called Limpex.

I was introduced to Fasim, I guess in '91, Heiz introduced me to him. But we became friends, Fasim, my brother and I, was at the end of 92 at the car wash where we painted with a lot of other people, Cisco, Fosa, Kapi, Sendy's, Dios, Heroe, Fasim, Free,... I'm sure I'm leaving some out.

From there we became friends and then we joined Art Attack Artists in 1993. Fasim created it and the group was formed by Biz, Fasim,Inupie, Cisco, keis, Dios, Fat from Alicante, Heroe, Cent and me.

Some years after Honet, Stak, Popay from Paris and Sixe joined us.

We all understood graffiti in the same way, and at the same time we all had quite different styles. When we went together to paint we had no problems and no arguments, we were very happy and very free. We had a lot of character but graffiti was what united us and we lasted quite a long time as a group. In my graffiti life, I think it was the best time.

M- What can you tell me about the trains?

The trains here in Mataró... we used to bomb them and paint them. We took advantage of New Year's Eve, for example, because we knew that the guards were drunk and didn't bother to keep watch. We would make silhouettes, tags... we would go in through the Zona, because it was very close to the tracks.

I remember painting a train, there was a security guard inside, and he was walking around. We used to hide between cars, because the cars used to be separated and we could see the sole of the security's boot. We would wait for him to pass and continue painting, not that we gave it much importance.

If we were seen once, but I don't remember. Once on New Year's Eve, instead of painting, we went to talk to them, all super drunk, and we told them we weren't going to paint that night. We were drinking with them.

M-Do you remember a moment that has marked you in your life as a writer?

I can't remember right now. What I can say is that in Mataró, which is a small town, the king was Wolf, but it was very easy to be the king here. In 89, with my friend Dagon, we went all over the city and in 3-4 days we had the city crushed. It wasn't very motivating to be king in a small city. So, my motivation changed to having a good style. Also the fact of being in a small city meant that you were an easy target.

On the trains, the problem were the same... once my mother's husband came home and gave us an incredible scolding because he had seen a train painted by us. So my brother and I tried to work out a good style; we focused our energy there.

M- You succeeded because I remember coming from Barcelona to Mataró to take photos of your pieces. I didn't have a camera but I went along just see them in person.

The area of Mataró was next to the railway and it was a transit area from Barcelona to the summer beaches, for tourism. So a lot of people who got off the train passed through the area.

Nowadays, people write to me and tell me that they had seen my pieces in the 90’ in Mataró.

M- Who were your contacts in other cities?

I knew and wrote with Fat from Alicante, I still have a letter from him. He had very good handwriting, a lot of style. We exchanged photos. But I'm not a person who socialises a lot. I met Pocho in Madrid, when he wrote Sems, but I didn't have much contact with him.

M- Did you go to the jam in Alicante in '93?

I went with Dios by train to Alicante, I think Biz and Keis were there too. There we got in touch with Fat, and we went to paint with him and Nova. I don't have a great memory of that because it was a party and as such we had a great party. Two or three very intense days. It went by very quickly.

Alsao I was in Madrid, in Alcorcón when Jonone and Jay One came, in 94, at the end of the year. It was an exhibition and we stayed in a hostel ... it was also two or three days of madness. I don't have a clear memory either...

Fasim and Cash were way ahead of the others. With plastic and a can they could make incredible pieces.

M- Wow, haha, we have chosen the person who has partied the most...

Man, I was very young, I remember a lot of laughs with Jonone. Inupie, Soda, Fasim and Mila were there too. We met All, Aeec, Melo.. We painted with Pocho... but don't ask me anymore.

M- Have you painted with anyone from outside who impressed you?

I painted in 1994, when I couldn't go to the Poble Espanyol exhibition, with Kami who came with Sento. I remember painting with Sento, who was a writer I liked a lot. We painted in Pueblo Nuevo, on a typical wall there. I'm not much of a mythomaniac. I look and I'm impressed by the person's work. I was impressed when I painted with him, what he painted, but he was a very normal person, he just wanted to know where he could see girls, and he wanted us to take him to the beach.

I have painted with Popay, Inca and Rew from Berlin, but they didn't impress me. Well Popay did, but I didn't have much contact with him. Of course, as I don't speak English, I don't have a good or bad impression. I don't interact much. I have a neutral impression.

I remember in 2010, Rime came, and we went to paint a wall with him, Aryz, Sawe, Spit and me. And it made me angry because he is a writer I admire, I liked him and I like his style but as I don't know English, I could only say "Nice to meet you".

I thought he was a nice guy. At least he smiled a lot.

M- How have your priorities changed in graffiti? I know you weren't worried about being the king of Mataró, but I know you are competitive, maybe not with others but with yourself.

Yes, with myself, yes, but I've changed a lot. Before, I was a very perfectionist person, and even if I didn't get the piece right, I would go home disappointed. I would go home fucked up, but now I think more about enjoying myself.

At the beginning, when I was a kid, I just wanted to enjoy myself, I didn't care about how the piece looked. Now I want to get that freedom back, and I don't want to compete with myself or anyone else. If there's one thing I don't like about graffiti now, at the moment, it's that.

In the last eight years of my life, I've dedicated myself more to the spiritual world and if there's one thing I don't like so much, it's competition. It creates problems, envy, jealousy... I'm not interested in that. I am interested in humility. I'm not interested in being better than anyone else. Simply the wild style gives me the opportunity to disappear, that's why I like that my first tag was with an eraser. Because with an object that is for erasing you are writing. It serves as a metaphor for me, and I'm now transferring it to a more spiritual moment in my life. I see that wild style is a way of disappearing and it's something internal, that has nothing to do with anyone. To disappear in the name, or to cross the wall, but not the physical one, but an internal one. To go beyond yourself. To surpass yourself.

M- I'd like you to hear an anecdote about your beginnings...

I've told you that I used to steal cans but not what happened to us. They caught me and Fat in the Pryca. When we were going out to pay some cans, two security came and told us "please come with us". They took us to the little room they had. "Take out the sprays you're carrying. A lady saw you take them.” We were freaking out. Then another guy on the walkie said: "We've got them all, they're out here". Of course, we weren't aware of it, we stole the sprays and we used them on the wall behind the Pryca.

They brought them all in, my brother, Demon, Dagon, Dez. And the hours would go by and we would ask the security for what we’ re waiting for. And he would say "We've called the national police and we're waiting for them. We have made a formal complaint. You've taken a lot of spray cans.

We didn't care much about that and we were only worried that it was time for DRagon Ball and that we were going to miss it.

The whole thing ended up in court and only Fat and I were convicted because we were over 16. The others weren't even that age. We were sentenced to two weeks of house arrest, which was nothing. I remember Fat's mother crying, in front of the judge, and the judge told her that it was no big deal. But she was worried.

M- Talking about Dragon Ball... I remember you were quite famous for the characters you guys made beside the piece.. they were from Dragon Ball oor Dr Slump, right?

My brother was in love with the manga. Everyy one of us, but my brother was passionate about it. There are a lot of people who remember us for that. My brother was more into Dr Slump tho. We always painted together.

M- I recently came across a fanzine that you told me was from Art Attack, which Inupie had made.

That fanzine was made by Dios and Inupie. In fact there's a photo of the party in Alicante, you'll see the faces we had. That photo is from the jam.

M- I like that fanzine because it wasn't the usual format.

It was a kind of collage, Inupie came up with the idea of making cheap (250 ptas). fanzine. The idea was a big page folded on itself and with many pieces. The inspiration came from the Phase2 fanzine, which was also collage style. I don't know if it came from there, we'd have to ask him, but I think so. IGT I think it was called... I was really freaked out because one of my pieces appeared in one of those, from 93. I still have it.

M- At that time there was already more information.

Yes, we talked about the previous period, from '87 to '92. From that time onwards it improved a little, until Montana colors was created in '94. I think that until Montana arrived, and in general, because there were people who had more possibilities, but in general everything was not very developed.

M- Did you ever go to the shop where Moockie sold paint? And later at the Game Over, the shop?

In Via Layetana, I only remember going to buy paint and Moockie was there. And yes, I went to the shop in Lesseps.. Once I started painting in the little park, close to the shop and I remember a graffiti and I asked my firiends: "the graffiti of Chechu, that appears in Spray Can Art, where was it? I was painting on that wall. Funny how I associated it without having seen it before.

M- Did you see Henry Chalfant when he came to Barcelona?

No, but you have to bear one thing in mind, we were kids in Mataró, and it was a considerable distance from Barcelona. We were quite archaic. Modernity was brought to Mataró by Heiz, who came to see a girl called Irene. We were lucky, because he well informed. I think he was very prolific, one of the best in Barcelona and he made his best pieces here... he made an incredible Sroas, and he made a piece with 100 sprays, which at that time was an enormous amount, and he made it huge. He brought the sprays in the shopping trolleys by train. Sometimes we painted with him, but now I'm not sure if we saw him paint that one or if we saw it finished. I have a photo of the piece but not of him painting it.

M- It's been 30 years...

Yes.. The other day Dios reminded me that we half-bought a CFC with a colour poster in the middle. We didn't even have enough money to buy one each. Dios kept it.

M- Where did you benched the trains?

I remember that I liked to watch them pass along the Argentona stream, which is the stream behind the Pryca, and there's a bridge over which the train passes at a certain height, and there was a good photo. It was cool to see it at a certain height, "like in New York"...

I also remember going to San Andrés, and also to Montcada i Reixac, I had forgotten, we used to sit on the grass.

I remember there was a bit of fear to move around the neighbourhoods, when we went to San Andrés you could get robbed easily, it was full of junkies. Once, I remember painting inLa Mina with my brother, in '91, I was 17 and my brother was 15... some kids came out with a huge two-span knife, but they were only 10 year olds, and they just showed it to us. I remember a piece of Fasim, a machine with a white syringe crossed out, I still have it. We moved around, but carefully… Once in Clot, some skin heads wanted to beat us up, and we had to run away to the metro station. It was a bit dangerous.

M- Tell me about the jams that used to take place here and the anti-graffiti law in Mataró.

There was a small graffiti boom. It became fashionable and people from all over Mataró came to paint in our neighbourhood, but as a result of this fashion, which lasted one or two years, Mataró ended up very badly painted, and the mayor at the time, Manuel Mas, passed an anti-graffiti law. It must have been the first, or one of the first in Spain, because television came to film us. I remember speaking on TV.

M- How did it affect you?

Well, today, looking through some papers I found a fine, well, not the fine, but the allegation of the fine. It's almost erased, but it must be the year 90 or 91. They started to get tougher, the police went around Zona.

I didn't talk much about the areas here... Zona was a bit more on the outskirts of my neighbourhood, on the periphery, which bordered the train tracks. That's where the prostitutes would go to do their work, the junkies would go to get high, the gays would go cruising, and we writers would go to spill our styles, and I remember the police there hassling us.

Once Fat and I went to talk to the Opel’s owner in our city, because the land belonged to the factory, and he let us paint, so the police wouldn't bother us, as long as we didn't paint the front.

M- Zona being so bad, didn't you ever have any problems?

Yes, of course, I remember one time, we were in there , and from there we walked to the Argentona stream, which was behind the Pryca. My cousin had broken his leg, and he walked there with the plaster cast along the tracks. Once there, a guy offered us heroin in silver to smoke, and we said yes , without knowing what was that and tried it. Then the guy offered to give us a lift, but that was a bit suspicious, because who offers drugs to kids and tells them to get in the car? My cousin confronted him.

The prostitutes were picking on us and the junkies were picking on us. I remember Wolf came one day pissed off because there was a guy jerking off while watching him paint. He confronted him. Wolf was very small but very strong, he had come to Spain fleeing from the war in El Salvador, and he was a guy who did 300 push-ups a day, but he wasn't really big, he was just very slim, you couldn't see it.

I remember another thing about him. Some heavies metal guys came to pick on us, and when they saw that Wolf was the smallest, they got into it with him, and what happened? he beat them up.

Then all the heavies metal guys from Mataró got together, more than a hundred people, a gang war, to beat up the rappers, and it was a big fight. In the end, as all the neighbourhood quacks were on our side, and they were very tough, they defended us and the blood didn't run to the river. The police showed up. It was a real gang war. It was amazing.

That was in the early 90’s.

The jams were something Fat and I organised, we went to the town hall, we asked for a place in a cultural centre, which we asked for several because we did three, one in the centre, another in our neighbourhood and another in the Cerdanyola neighbourhood. They gave us the equipment, we made a poster, of which I don't have any and I'd like to have one.

We went to the meeting point in Barcelona, we handed out the posters and the parties were cool, we even had stages. People came out to sing, Martian rap, because as we didn't know English, people made it up.

M- What a pity we don't have recordings... that's what I meant by precariousness, because there are no recordings and Martian rap has been lost.

My brother had a great talent for Martian rap, he was good at it. We had a little box of beats, and in the room we would rap. I remember Dez and Demon were dancers for BZN, they went on tour with them.

I focused on Wild Style, and I liked to dance, hip hop, and I stood out in the club but…

M- We've left out one thing that I'd like people to know... you didn't always write Zeus.

I started with Eswe. I have two basic names, one is Zeus and the other is Dose. This one I used to paint wildstyle and I did more Dose than Zeus at that time, because I was into wildstyle. I chose Zeus in 89 and Dose in 90. I was looking for a name that had more movement, that I liked the letters more. There was an evolution in that year, because I didn't like Zeus for wildstyle, the “e” at the end had more strength.

M- Did you paint every week?

When we had paint, we generally painted with latex. Heiz, I remember painting with tempera, which you mixed with water. A white mass that when it rained it washed away the filling and all that was left was the line.

The pieces were smaller, and didn't even have a cloud.

M- What are your influences?

The writers I liked the most and who influenced me the most were, at the beginning, the national writers, Fasim, Heiz, Biz, Cash. Above all Heiz, because of what I explained before... Then with the films,Seen, Skeme, Dero, Dondi, Poem, the BBC from Paris, from Berlin the Phos4, Odem, Cowboy…

M- What do you keep of these influences in your pieces?

I've always tried to change, I try not to repeat myself. Yes, my way of seeing the letters has changed, because it's a way of expressing myself.

M- Color or silver?

I prefer silver, I enjoy it more. With silver you can see everything, you can correct more easily. It gives you much less work and it's more direct. The color is secondary, it's important, but the most important thing is the style, the letter... Although color brings more freshness, more dynamism...

I think my fears have helped me to have a great imagination, which is my great talent for graffiti, because imagination is very necessary for wild style.

M-Tell me about the first graffiti exhibition that took place here.

It turned out that a gallery owner called Nicolas del Rio, who was quite well known, from the Trerte Gallery, was interested in us and graffiti. All this was possible because of Fat, who was the oldest of us. We did an exhibition, Wolf, Dez, Fat's brothers, my brother and I were in. I think it was the first graffiti exhibition in a gallery in the country, because it was in February 1991.

I have the catalogue of the exhibition.

M- Tell us about theArt Attack tv show…

We deduced that they had copied the name of the Art Attack arts and crafts tv show because they saw the centre of Barcelona full with our name... but that's difficult to know nowadays...

M- Who would you like to hear a podcast from?

I'd like to hear the story from Fasim, who has a good memory and knows how to explain things very well, in great detail.