Words: Sterling Royce Portrait: Nick Meyer
Coming from LA in the mid-’80s, the enormous force of MSK has avoided imploding and made strong efforts to keep their legacy alive. By now, on the West Coast at least, Mad Society Kings have solidified themselves as a dynasty. And the party don’t stop ’cause though they might come through and smash cities up, dudes refuse to be dinosaurs. From massive walls to graphic design, clothing, tattoos and gallery art, MSK evolves. But they’ve still got dudes on the streets, where just a tiny mosquito bite tag has a rich bloodline.
Baltimore native Norm seemed to have crawled right out of the water 10 years ago onto San Francisco soil as a walking, talking graffiti cretin. His ability to quickly master an incredible style makes him some sort of scary missing link. But he’s pretty creepy anyway—climbing around on famous fire escapes and popping up on roll downs in the middle of nowhere. Growing up across the Bay Bridge in Oakland, Steel started writing in ’95 and moved to San Francisco a decade ago. As one of the only writers to soak up the under-the-radar, rich East Bay graf scene, take it to the next level and still be writing today, sources say Steel’s some type of Yeti. We say he’s the last of a dying breed. Around the time these two set foot in SF for good, MSK was prolifically painting with a new style in some savage-ass spots.
So the guys got with the sick tight clique and went all out. Norm and Steel say that their crew and friends, like AWR and Seventh Letter, keep them painting and kind sponsors like Primal Urge Studios keep food on their table. “Dedication is very important to us,” they explain. But MSK even sheds restrictive sports team elements of egos, home field advantage and corny rules. They’re bigger fans of Pride Fighting, anyway. They also say that they’re into Neil Diamond and Slayer—traditional good time fun music. And in today’s climate of polarization, the two apply a good balance of humor and passion to their very diverse applications of graf. Mass Appeal had these two sit down in San Francisco and talk to each other about the wonder years.
STEEL: Have you moved around and lived in different cities to write?
NORM: Nah, I’ve lived here [in San Francisco] the entire time I’ve painted graffiti. I started writing graffiti here and I’ve been here writing graffiti the whole time, for the last decade.
S: What was the San Francisco scene like when you came here?
N: Just finishing up from Bles, Some, Twist and KR and all those crazy motherfuckers—Revok, Saber and Fate—doing their thing. So me coming into it was crazy ’cause I saw their graffiti and that’s why I wanted to write graffiti.
S: Who did you first meet from MSK?
N: Saber came to my house to paint my coffee table, ’cause some guys were supposed to paint my shop at the time and they knew Saber, so they invited Saber over. After that I basically saw those guys every day from then on, like, the homies. I met Fate right after that and he moved into my house. He said, “Me and you are gonna be boys. We’re gonna be friends for fuckin’ ever. I’m moving in.” He didn’t even ask, he just moved in. That was it. Insanity from that day forward.
S: When did you join MSK?
N: I got in the crew in 2002. It was an honor, that’s all I can say. It was an honor to be from the crew with the most talented graffiti writers in the world. As far as them being, LA-based then, Eclips started the crew, and it’s always been LA-based. Just, we have a lot of members in a lot of places now.
S: What generation of MSK would you consider yourself, coming into the scene after all this time?
N: The B team.
S: The B team? B team for life, son. Out of all our friends and everyone in the crew, who are your biggest influences on style?
N: I dunno, my style of graffiti is MSK-style, passed down. Our crew, you know, everybody’s style feeds off of other people. And new people come out with new shit and it evolved from that style. All the styles came from the crew. Nowadays, more tattoo stuff is involved in my brain, so that stuff’s kind of warping my mind a little bit to other ways of doing stuff. Alright, how’d you get down with MSK? Was there a particular person that took you under their wing?
S: The first people I painted with, out of MSK/AWR, was Bles and Grime. I had known Bles and Grime for a little while and was friends with them. The first person that really took me under their wing bombing and taking me out doing spots and rocking it was you.
N: You were driving, so you were taking me. That was part of the deal in the beginning. You had a car and we went to it crushing the city.
S: So yeah, Bles was the first person that really took me under his wing and gave me a lot of influence and schooled me. Then it would be you on the bombing tip, for sure. Our mentorship program involves tormenting your friends.
N: We just badger people to shit, fucking until they crack and think you’re a dick. Which is what happened to me. I had to live with Fate for three years and he killed me and it was insane. So I try to do the same for you.
S: And you get to the point where you hate your best friend, then you guys got that bond going. You got that MSK brotherhood.
N: Were you worried about getting lost in the mega-talent of MSK?
S: No, I was not. I don’t think anyone’s lost in the talent of MSK. I think each individual in the crew stands really strong with their own style and method of graffiti. There’s obviously some colossal talent in MSK. I think everyone is very good and everyone contributes their part.
N: Do you feel like the youngest generation? Do you think you might be the last generation?
S: I know I’m the youngest generation of MSK for right now. And I don’t know if I’m going to be the last generation or not.
N: There’s always more out there. There’s youngsters that are…
S: There are young kids coming up, better and faster all the time.
N: Actually it’s impossible for him to be the last generation because we got Lily Seo—named after Tie, the graffiti writer that passed away out here—the youngest member of MSK. She’s seven years old, so we’re still good.
S: Yeah, we got a ninja in training.
N: What influenced your style growing up?
S: My biggest influences growing up were Dream TDK (Rest In Peace), Bles, King157 and the entire Bay Area graffiti scene. When I was a youngster painting in Oakland my man Beats737 and Easoe took me under their wings and started schooling me on style. Later I met my boy Arows and he influenced me alot. San Francisco’s graffiti scene has always been very inspiring to me. When I started looking at graffiti magazines and paying attention to the Los Angeles scene MSK/AWR immediately stood out for their style and method, pretty much, their whole approach to graffiti. I’d say my style is a hybrid mix of the Oakland graffiti scene and the Los Angeles, specifically, MSK/AWR styles of graffiti.
N: Talk about being a well rounded writer.
S: It’s important to me to be diverse in graffiti to keep from going stale. If you can do a crazy technical piece, but can’t paint a straight letter or write your name for shit, then you’re not a well rounded writer. My favorite writers are the ones that apply themselves to every aspect. You got writers like Revok, Bates and Rime, who do everything from the baddest burner to solid-ass straight letters, and do it all well.
N: All I have to say about that is it has all these nice things about throw-ups, handstyles and shit, I kind of skipped that department, I just tried to learn how to do a wild ass piece and a nice block letter. I kind of missed throw-ups and tags. I don’t have any and they suck. So, that’s what I think about that. What’s your favorite thing to do?
S: Paint block letters and eat tacos…with mad chilies.
N: I’m not too much into that because I get a mad stomach ache, but I enjoy painting blocks. Yes, we paint a lot together, unfortunately.
S: We try not to.
N: It seems like writers from all over the country are moving here. How do you feel about it?
S: I guess San Francisco is just such a travel city. So it’s no surprise to me that a lot of people that are drawn here are into art and graffiti and participate in the scene.
N: Shit [here] gets buffed really quickly now. A few years ago it was a lot different [where] this person would come from here and they’d do a whole gang of shit. Then they’d be up and it would make you want to go and do more shit.
S: Why did you choose San Francisco to settle and live?
N: I like San Francisco a lot. It’s a good city. I have a lot going on here. I have a lot of hook-ups here. The only thing that sucks is that I’ve basically painted all the fun shit that I’d ever want to paint here, so that’s kind of boring. Looking for new and interesting spots is just a rarity here. I can go to New York and I can go one train line and I can see like 50 spots I’d like to paint and am capable of painting. All the old architecture where you can just get right up on stuff, and you know I like climbing.
S: How was it when you went to New York to paint?
N: The last time I went there, I did 19 spots in 16 days. On a mission, Jersey, Philly and New York. I painted most everything by myself except for with Screw. New York is the best place that I’ve been so far for vandalism. Your graffiti lives there. Mostly all the shit I’ve done there stays up, except for a few things that people hated on me or whatever. New York has the fire escapes, ledges—they got everything. People don’t even see that shit out there, it’s different. It’s a different sort of graffiti for somebody from our crew to come out there and do new and crazy shit, and it’s still there. It’s insane how cool it is. New York is the shit. It’s my favorite place. I got more shit running in New York right now than I do here.
S: Do you think when you went to New York, the kinds of spots you were doing, like fire escapes and blocks like we do out here, that it’s blowing up the spot in New York and getting a lot of attention?
N: I don’t want to say that whatever I do is awesome, but a lot of people have seen it. And a lot of people travel there from all over the world and see it. I actually think that by me going to paint in New York created like a whole gang of new hype for myself, that I would have never have had, no matter what, unless it was done there. ’Cause New York is such a hot, hot spot to paint. When I’m in New York I’m on a different schedule. I don’t have my life, like I have here. I eat pizza and bagels. I drink Red Bull and I scout spots in
the daytime and I paint at night. That’s all that I did. I didn’t do anything else, really.
S: Did you meet and paint with many New York writers?
N: I didn’t meet that many writers in New York, but the ones that I do know from there are the ones that you know, Rime, Ceaze, Screw. Screw especially. Screw is the fucking graffiti mastermind of fucking MSK. I got there and he had everything already looked out—he’s a fucking maniac. As far as meeting other people, I got really welcomed by Cope2, that guy is awesome, and a legend. And T-Kid, a legend. Like, two people who I look up to forever and are cool as hell, I had a great time with them. [They] gave me a wall and paint and got all the guys from Tuff City, Ces, Yes2 and Med. All those guys were mad cool, all real good people.
S: That’s dope. Were there any spots out there that were really crazy to paint?
N: In Philly, I got caught buffing a wall in the day time, but we were smoking dust and I asked the cops if they wanted to paint with me, and they weren’t too psyched on that. They put me in handcuffs and my boy Agua had to talk our way out of it. They ended up making us throw all of our shit in the river and they fuckin’ took all our paint and left us in these projects high on dust. That was real awesome.
S: Alright, what do you like about Steel’s graffiti?
N: Nothing. Nah, I think Steel has come a long way, I liked his shit from the beginning. What are your first memories of MSK doing the damn thing?
S: Old Can Control magazines I had with Gkae, Phable, Push, Bles, and Haze destroying freights, bombing, and doing fucking bad-ass pieces. Those guys were always shining in my eyes. Everything I would see from them when I was young would blow my mind. The first MSK/AWR stuff I saw in person was when Gkae was in the Bay Area smashing freeway bridges and billboards. Gkae is a beast.
N: What do you like about Norm’s graffiti?
S: I like that, in general, Norm is always pushing for doing a bigger spot or doing something with impact. A true fame whore. All of us keep each other motivated on outdoing the last spot. Norm’s very good at complaining and making good use of whatever space we’re working with.
N: A space hog, huh?
S: Yeah, between you and our boy Reyes, I gotta fight for every inch I can get. It’s a vicious game. That’s what makes you a strong graffiti writer, having that mental approach that you have to shine and conquer the spot. You came up doing graffiti late in the game and immediately started doing in-your-face blatant spots to solidify your name and reputation.
N: That’s a nice big word, solidify.
S: That was, good word.
