Erse was one of my own inspiration sources back in the day so I was glad to hear that he'd been
active through all these years with only a few absent periods. Not many good writers
have the energy to stay strong on the scene for this long. The pieces are constructed with
an architects preciseness, twining letter into each other to form a well balances frame.
Say what you will about bankers, some actually have artistic talents as you can see here.



How old are you and where do you come from?
I'm from a Stockholm suburb along the Red Line (14th).
I never ever disclose my age due to the fact that I want to be as
incognito as possible, but I have been active more than 20 years.

Tell us about your graffiti background, when did you start,
what was the scene like, why did you get interested?
It all started for me in early -86 when a friend of mine made a piece at my school. It said "Pinky".
This piece made a great impression on all of us (my friends and I already had a crew at that time
but we were only tagging at the time). Painting pieces was the new way to do it!

What crews and writers are you down with?
Until 1988 I was only piecing with my crew and did not know any other writers in Stockholm part from some red line toys. Our "crew" had no name but it was a tight gang of vandals/thief's that mixed graff with stealing successfully.
It was writers/vandals/thieves like Strike, Reiser, Dair, Craze (Cult), Day (Metal) and Nobel.

At this time there were very few writers on the short 14'th line. On the other red line (13)
it was a completely other scene with many hardcore masters that were painting along
the line since -85. We were always travelling the other lines during 87-88 to see what everybody
else was doing (Zappo, Cruel, Slay, Lady, Baze, Speed, Slice, Merley, Zack, SHOF and many others) - but we had never really hooked up with any of the other writers.

Then in -88 TracK called me up. He had seen my Erse pieces in the Stuvsta Hall of Fame and
asked me to join him on a wall he was working on in Flemmingsberg. That was the start where
I got to know most of the writers from Stockholm as Track was very well connected and basically
knew everybody at that time.

During 89-92 I made a piece almost every weekend with lots of different writers. During these years
I mostly painted with Bogie, Cult, Saye, Kaos and Metal. In 89-90 everything for me was about piecing train stations and various line walls.
Between the station and line attacks we made some trains (subways and commuter).
It was first in 90-91 the trains came more into focus and a lot of cars was made by
me and my gang - OSV (overnight sensations, founded by Track - that later became
OSV as in OS-vandals.
Members of the crew were Bogie, Erse, Ance, Estik, Track, Weston and Saye
with the hang arounds Cult and Seven).

These were golden years - really fucking golden. Me, Bogie and Cult basically owned the lay-ups
in Södertälje and Tumba. We went there all the time and experimented with different styles and
sizes and it was amazing how lucky we were with the vandal squad at that time.
Lots of funny stuff happened on these lay ups.

Once, when me and Cult made a top to bottom whole car, a guy spotted us as he
passed us by on his bicycle. It was light outside on this very early summer morning.
He shouted "Write COCK for me guys!" and just kept on cycling.

I stayed with OSV as long as I was painting trains basically. In -94 I did my "last" train and
I was off the whole graff scene between 95-97 for school. The reason I left the scene was
actually more complex than that. In -94 we had so many train pieces ruined as we were
interrupted by cops, rail workers etc that we got tired of it all. At the same time the OSV
members chose different ways in life. Some went abroad, some just quit and some went to
prison due to several reasons. I myself went to the university. We all had the feeling that we
had been so lucky not getting caught for such a long time that we didn't want to push it further.
The thrill was gone and other things looked more interesting than spending nights in the bushes
with the risk of getting caught.

Later in 97 I was asked by UP (Underground Productions) to make an appearance at a jam.
I accepted and made my first Erse piece in two years. It felt good but it wasn't until a month
later when a dude came up to me on the street and asked me "Aren't you Erse?"

This was Bruce (painter from red line) who had been to the jam and recognised me in the street.
This was the start of a great friendship and my second era of graff. Me and Bruce founded The Pricks
in 99 and I've been piecing with The Pricks ever since.
(The Pricks are Bruce, Erse, Ocho, Metal, Crack, Viruz, Weston, Raps and Ance).

Since some time I'm also a member of old school crew DOA - Demons of Art.
I was asked by Ance to join the crew and I felt this was a great honor as I had admired lots of DOA productions during 86-87. DOA is one of the definite first real graff crews that ever´s been founded in Sweden. Today DOA consists of Dhemn, Ance, Zack, Erse and D.A.Z.E.

Tell us about the most crazy story happened to you while you were out there?
Many crazy things has happened throughout the years but one event that we always return to when we get together again from time to time (me and Cult) is when me, Kaos, Metal, Bogie and Cult painted
S:t Eriksplan subway station back in 91.

We entered the stations smoothely via the tunnels from the Fridhemsplan side. Everybody choosed to paint in the beginning of the station near the tunnel exits (against Fridhemsplan). Everybody but me.

I was looking for the perfect wall to piece with great exposure. I went to the middle of the station to
make my piece "SMACK" right in the centre of the station far away from the others. Everything was working very smooth and I felt I had a burner coming. Me and Metal had hit the same station six months earlier and I was not very pleased with my piece from then. This time I wasn't gonna leave until this one was 100% completed.

After approximately one hour there was a big BANG! Seconds later the station was stormed by four guards at the end where everybody was painting but me. They came running down the short stairs
and jumped down on the tracks in no time. It was a hell of a noice with shouting and everybody ran into the tunnels including all the four guards running after the writers. I had not even dropped my can when everything seemed almost over. I just stood there and stared at the empty station and the black tunnel holes where they all ran in. It was completely silent.

After like ten seconds (that felt like minutes) I slowly started walking the tracks towards the other end
of the station (against Odenplan). I had to walk as if I ran it made a lot of noise from stones that touched my feet and as the station was so quiet it felt as if this noise was laud. I had not decided if I was gonna run the tunnels to Odenplan to escape or take a chance and exit S:t Eriksplan's station in the other end
of the station - but I had to do something.
After like thirty meters of silent, controlled and stressed walking towards the tunnel suddenly four other guards stormed the other end of the station, towards which I was running, and came running down the short stairs right at me.

They were shouting like wild hogs. For some reason the guards had failed in a simultaneous attack
of the station and these four guards came in 30 seconds after the first attack in the other end of the station. I jumped up on the station platform and directly started to run back again to the other ending
of the station aiming for the tunnels - realising that those tunnels already were filled with four guards -
but with no other choice it seemed I ran the whole station against the tunnels with the guards like twenty meters after me shouting things like
"Now you regret doing this shit you litte fucker" and "You are caught you little shit".

At that moment my brain started to send signals of regret to my body and I could really feel how close
I was to the moment I never had experienced - To get caught. All this in a matter of a few seconds.

Coming to the end of the station I jumped the tracks on the right side and immediately I turned my feet to the left after landing and ran through the little tunnel that runs between the two tracks
(for everybody that have been there - you know what tunnel I talk about) and came out on the tracks
on the other side.
I kept running the tracks on that side in the direction against Fridhemsplan - now very short of breath
as I had pushed the throttle to the bottom for 100-150 meters and had them all very close behind my back. I clearly heard that the guards after me had troubles finding out that I now was running on the other side of the tracks.
That gave me at least 10 valuable extra seconds from the guards I had behind my back.
In front of me now I had an interesting problem on the rise.

There were four guards in front of me somewhere in the tunnels and I had another four running after me!
After a couple of more seconds I saw some guards in front of me in the tunnel.
This is saw with my mag light that I had barely managed to bring out of my pocket
during the chaos and the running.

It was clear that it was some guards standing and blocking the tracks in front of me a bit ahead.
It looked like a complete tunnel block. As I never left my house without my mag light with new batteries
I could, thanks to the bright light, see after a few more seconds that there were three guards and they had caught one of my friends in the tunnel chase.

It was Bogie who had made the fundamental mistake to piece a station with no flashlight. He was caught big time. One of them held him down and I noticed that the other guards could not identify me as a guard or a writer as my mag light was strong in the black tunnel and as I pointed it right in their faces as
I came running in high speed.

When I came like ten meters in front of them I shouted out "Catch the bastards!" and the guards, believing I was a guard, just stepped aside and let me pass by.
II kept on running with a feeling of a miracle in my body. While all the emotions was running around in my body I was at the same time looking for the short cut to the fire escape ladder that that me and Metal had found six months earlier. I knew it was only a small hole that was easy to pass by.

Behind me now the guards that were running after me from the station came up to the other guards
that just had let me pass by and there was a laud yell.
I clearly remember hearing "You fucking idiots!!!" and then some other laud yelling.
Right after that I found the hole in the wall - the short cut! There it was!

It was on the right side as a little hole narrow in the wall. When trying to crawl through i got stuck!

The hole was very small but the hardest thing was that you had to jump and kind of like fly through the hole. It jumped and landed half way through with my feet in the air and nothing to use to push on to the other side! It was a short moment of terror just hanging there in the hole with my feet in the air and with no way to back down and not able to get through. With half my body hanging out on the other side
I saw Kaos, Cult and Metal come running down the fire escape towards me as they had taken the long way around and not used the short cut.

They didn't even notice me! I remember Cult turning his head a quarter hearing my cry for help but
in the stress we all were in no one had the time to stop. A short moment later I managed to drag my body through and get to the ladder. After climbing down the ladder in high speed I made a very high jump to finally reach the ground. I was so stressed I skipped to climb the last part of the ladder and miscalculated the height heavily.

I landed hard - but OK.
I ran up behind the other guys who had stopped for a short moment under S:t Eriksbron.
Then we all climbed over the fence into the commuter train tracks and ran the tracks over
to Kungsbron and jumped a cab. Everybody was just totally quiet in the cab. Out of breath of course.

I remember seeing Kaos face and his surprised expression when he saw that I was in the car.
This as Kaos knew I stood in the center of the station and he was certain that I'd been caught.

This night I will never forget. A memory for life.

Another more horrible memory was when me, Kaos, Yes, and Rustle was in the Rissne subway yard painting in 91-92. We had planned to do Swedens first doubble whole train and were really up in flames with energy as we wanted to make history this night. I was inside the yard the night before this one hiding at least 40 Auto-K cans in the yard and brought another 30 cans this night just for my own four subway cars (a total of 16 top to bottom cars).

After filling two cars myself spelling "ER" and "SE" and just about to put some lines
on I suddenly heard Rustle's whole can supply fall off from the bridge we all were standing on to be able to work fast and to reach to the top of the cars. It was a terrible sound that echoed through the yard and we all just stared at each other standing still for a while.
Thirty seconds later a rail-worker stood staring at us from behind the bridge, like fifty meters away from us. You could only see his head and we were really lucky that we even saw him as he was only there for like 2-3 seconds and then dissapeared.
We understood immedeately that we were fucked and had to leave.

The Rissne yard is inside a big mountain you can very easily get surrounded with the very few exits if you do not act quickly. We dashed against the tunnel exit which is quite a long run as the yard was a couple of hundred meters inside the mountain.
In the haste I tried to carry all my cans - but as you understand that was not possible. After some running my bags just collapsed and the cans fell out on the tracks. There was no idea to even try to save the cans. We had to get out of the tunnels.

I clearly remember Kaos shouting out "Get the fuck out of here!". When finally getting out of the yard we ran into the woods and up on the mountain to get to the other side. After the climb we decided to split up. I went with Kaos and Rustle, Yes went the other way.

Nobody got caught that night - but what a loss!
I have never lost that much paint and we did not even get a single photo at the train. Totally ten cars were painted top to bottom but only like two cars with outlines. A terrible night and an almost impossible mission as we were there to make 16 colour whole cars. Everything with sketches.

Ever got caught?
One member of the vandal squad lived near the Tumba lay-up where we went so many times -
but we only ran into them once (!!) and we had no problem to loose them.
For some reason we had a lot of luck - we heard about guys getting caught and of course we had some close encounters - but they never caught us and I know that this was eating them. We were very tactical and always scooped very thorough before painting.

After the vandal squad got known I always took the time to search through the
nearest four cars inside on the train as they were known to jump out of the cars to surprise/chock you and catch you. Also I must have spent every 5th minute looking under the trains while painting. NOT getting caught was prestigeous for us. Some people never seemed to care about getting caught but for
us that was the ultimate defeat. Never been caught!

Got any advice for the new upcoming writers?
Always focus on getting better. Always try to stick to your original plan for your piece. It is very easy to get tired in the end and finish off before the piece is 100% completed. Invest time in sketching. It will pay off if you are talanted. Try to develop your own styles and take it as far as possible. It is all about style. Do not fill your blackbooks with shit that no one will ever remember. Better to do 10 burners than 1000 shit pieces. It only takes one mega burner to make history.

What are you doing nowadays?
Today I'm married and have two children and I work in finance/banking.

Any final words?
Big ups to all the Pricks. We'll never stop!

//Erse.TP

Thanx for your time.
/MindGem