Crazy Apes - Graffiti Crew Interview

November 2008

Interview with Montreal based graffiti artists Lith, Beta, Havok, Fezat, Narc and Mistix who are all collectively known as the "Crazy Apes" graffiti crew.

How old are you?

We are all between 20 to 24 years old.

Where are you based?

Montreal, Canada.

How many artists does the Crazy Apes Crew consist of and what are the artists names?

Lith: The original members were:

• Lith
• Beta
• Havok
• Fezat

With time Narc and Mistix joined the crew.

How did you all meet up and begin painting together?

Havok: I think that Lith was the one who brought us together for the first time, he and Beta had been friends for a long time. Myself and Fezat added ourselves to one of their murals one day and immediatly it clicked. At that moment we were pretty much all at the same skill level and shared the same aspiration towards painting.

How long have you been painting / writing as artists and together as a crew?

Lith: We've only been writing as a crew since last summer, but we started paining in late 1990 / early 2000. When I started paining with Beta the CA Crew stood for Crazy Art but after a while we dropped the name. Last year we started it up again with Fezat and Havok and we chose the Crazy Apes name.

How did you get into graffiti and what made you start painting?

Narc: I don't really remember, I think I was drunk with some friends and we just grabbed some cheap paint and then we realized what we had done the next day! It was really cool! Some toy shit, but we all start there.

Where did you paint your first piece?

Lith: At the infamous TA wall under a montreal highways.

Narc: In the basement of one of my friends places around 1999 or 2000 I think.

Havok: It was with a friend on my basement wall, I was about 13 or 14 years old at the time.

Fezat: In my parent's garage… ugly it was.

Mistix: Under a bridge in my parents home town. The scene is so quiet there I wouldn't be surprised if the piece was still there, even after all these years!

Beta: TA Wall.

How would you describe your style?

Lith: Bold and simple.

Narc: Sometimes wild, sometimes toy and sometimes more arty.

Mistix: Symetric and readable with not too much add-ons.

Beta: I don't think have a style. I always like to try to do different things… from bold letters to wildstyle 3D pieces to chracters.

How did you choose the name "Crazy Apes" for the crew?

Fezat: The name came up at a party over at Lith's house. We had talked about forming a crew for a while and since we were all there that day it was time to get ourselves a name. 'Crazy Art' came up but at the end of the night, after a couple of drinks, the word 'Art' ended up changing to 'Apes'.

Do any members of the team write with other crews and if so which ones?

Lith: Since this summer we write for one of oldest crews in Montreal, TA Crew (Team Autobot), they put us down at their jam that they organize every year called Under Pressure. It was a big deal for us to write in the same crew of some old school graffiti artists like Flow and Seaz, they represent and important part of the graffiti history in Montreal.

Narc: I've been in RUN for ages now and I'm also in a art collective called LAPARIA (www.laparia.ca)

Havok: Myself and my good old friend Quest have a painting duo which we call "HaveaQuest" (www.haveaquest.com). There is also the TA Crew, one of the major old school crews on the Montreal scene, they proposed us to add a bit of young blood to their ranks. More recently I have been involved with the LUV Crew.

Fezat: We often paint with other local writers, it's always nice to meet others doing the same thing.

Beta: Crazy Apes and Team Autobot.

Have you done many collaborations with artists overseas or travelled abroad for your art and if so then where is the most exciting or interesting place you have painted?

Narc: I'm now living in Belgium and I'm trying to paint with as many people as possible in Europe right now. I did a nice wall in Montreal with Zosen from Barcelona, it's really cool to exchange with people who don't have the same spirit and reference. I wish I could travel all around the world!

Have you done much commercial work and if so what would you say was your most well known piece?

Mistix: I have done a few little one day contracts for friends and other people I've met while painting but none of them are really famous. One piece that I'll always remember is a huge matt black school bus that picked me up while I was hitchicking back to Montreal, it was a motocross racing team coming back from an event. The guys were so happy when they learned I was a graffiti artist that they stopped the bus in the first parking lot they found, brought me some beer and some paint and gave 300$ to paint their crew name on both sides… that was my best hitchhicking experience so far! It's probably the most famous bus in the motocross racing world of ste-hyacinte that's for sure!

Is there any one point in your careers you would class as 'your big break'?

Lith: I think for all of us starting the crew was our major big break. We get more attention as a crew and we do better walls too so it has been our best move. We all complete each other - some of us are better with characters and backgrounds, some are more about letters…

What do you see as your greatest achievement to date?

Beta: I don't really think I have achieved anything yet, I guess the biggest one for me could be going back to school.

What are your thoughts on graffiti being just a likely to be found in a gallery as on the streets these days?

Havok: The winters are long here in Quebec and we have to keep busy he-he! I think it is important though to have learned on the streets and to keep painting in them as often as possible. I love canvases, but the soul of graffiti undeniably comes from the streets.

Have you had your work displayed in many galleries and if so is there any one exhibition that stands out from all the rest?

Lith: For the whole of the summer we had our art show on display at The S.Shop in Montreal, it's the best graff store in town so that was really good for us and everyone who went there to pick up a can or caps had to see our canvases and pictures.

There seems to have been a sudden surge of interest in graffiti and street art recently, why do you think this is?

Fezat: I think it's because street art is the most expressive form of art there is, you see it everywhere in the streets now and it's very accessible. Kids relate to it and media uses it to reach to them.

To me graffiti is an art form, but as long that there's vandalism through graffiti most of the people will always see graffiti as a form of vandalism and I don't think that that will ever change.

Beta - Crazy Apes Crew

Even though graffiti seems to have been more widely accepted there still appears to be a very fine line between those who see graffiti as art and those who see it as vandalism, what are your views on this?

Beta: To me graffiti is an art form, but as long that there's vandalism through graffiti most of the people will always see graffiti as a form of vandalism and I don't think that that will ever change. At the same time though graffiti isn't graffiti without both the art and the vandalism side.

The idea behind graffiti artists "getting up" and putting their mark everywhere is an interesting one - I wanted to ask you if infamy within the scene was a frustrating thing sometimes because often there is a need to keep your identity secret due to the illegal aspect? At what point did you feel you were able to stand up and say "I did that"?

Narc: I don't think graffiti needs rules. Graffiti is all about the love of painting, if you enjoy bombing then just bomb, if you love doing legal stuff then just do some legal stuff! I appreciate people who dedicate there life to graffiti but I'm too busy and lazy too do all I want in this game. I think my name is not so hard to know, I'm working in design and advertising so for me it's a good thing that people know I have a different flavor than the classic AD. I know that graffiti is illegal and someone could arrest me… that's the game.

Do you try to keep your identities anonymous where possible?

Mistix: When I do legal stuff I dont mind if people know who I am but otherwise it's another story!

Do you see yourself as an artists or as graffiti writers?

Lith: I'm a graffiti writer, I don't draw much, I just paint pieces and I leave the backgroud to Fezat and Beta.

Narc: Both, I love canvas, walls, freights… anything I can paint.

Fezat: Artist, my goal isn't to have my name up everywhere. I want to push my style while creating some nice thought out murals.

Mistix: I don't really like being called or claiming to be an artist, I think the word sounds pretentious… as if only people that live from their art could create stuff. I think everyone that has had a passion for years (whatever it might be) and has worked hard to develop their own technique or style IS an artist. So yeah, I guess I'm an artist according to my definition of the term but I rather be called a graffiti writer since I mostly concentrate on letters.

I don't really like being called or claiming to be an artist, I think the word sounds pretentious… as if only people that live from their art could create stuff.

Mistix - Crazy Apes Crew

Beta: I see myself as an artist, I don't paint for fame.

Which other artists work do you admire?

Lith:

• MSK
• 3A
• Giant
• Ewok
• Rebel
• TurfOne
• Scien

Narc:

• MSK
• HSP
• HSA
• 156
• Animals Farms
• and my crews

Havok: Overall, John Pitre is probably the artist whose work admire the most.

Fezat: There's many… Monk-e is one of them, he really has a style to call his own and I find his work very inspiring.

Mistix: I love the work of Can2… I've been looking at his stuff since I started and he's never stoped impressing me. There are so many other amazing writers I admire but Can2 is always the first one that comes to my mind… everything he does is so sharp; the letters, the fills, backgounds, caracters and color schemes. The guy is so polyvalent! On top of that I wouldn't be surprised if you tell me he's ambidextrous!

Beta: I have a couple, they're mostly artist that inspired me when I started:

• Daim
• Totem
• Can2
• Brusk
• Brock
• Alex
• Atom
• All the people from CD Crew and NME

But at the moment, I really appreciate to look at what Sweo does.

Which other graffiti artists would you most like to work with if given the chance?

Lith: Spone and Revok.

Narc: Everyone who got some talent and spirit!

Havok: There's a ton of them… definitly those who most influenced me in my youth; the whole CD Crew, other guys like Monk-e, Hest, Stare and Astro because these painters will always remain giants in my mind.

Mistix: Dare is another artist that blows my mind and everything I see from him I wish I had painted instead! He seems like a cool guy and Basel looks like a nice place to visit.

What are your preferred mediums for making marks with?

Lith: Paint on concrete wall/Marker on flat Metal.

Narc: I don't know.

Fezat: MTN or Belton paint.

Mistix: Good old Montana hard core with a german outline… perfect mix!

Do you have a favourite piece of all time?

Lith: I think my favorite piece is a wall I did with Beta in an old factory, it was simple letters on a orange backgroud but the colors were perfect.

Narc: Graffiti's always in evolution and I haven't see all the pieces in the world, but the most impressive wall I've seen is in Leaken in Brussels… it's the biggest wall of europe. Big and clean, so fresh!

Havok: No, and that's what keeps pushing me to paint every week.

Fezat: I don't really have a favorite but I can say that I'm very proud of our recent production at the UpTown aerosol event in Quebec City, it was my first time doing something that big and it was chalenging but fun.

Mistix: I have too many of them!

Beta: The next piece I do will probably be my favorite, I always end up liking what I do at the moment because I always change my style.

Anything else you would like to add?

Lith: Shout out to my crews - CA Crew and TA Crew: Swel, Flow, Seaz, Real, Res, Kas, Fluke. Big up to Joek and the KP10, Ntox, Meor, Egor, Killa-Ef, Spyro, Skilz, Probe, K6A, RUN, HTS, DUC and SINO!

Narc: Never stop evolving, art and graffiti's never gonna die if we keep working.

Havok: A big thanks to my mate Quest, who is like a brother for me. His help and advice have always guided me well, as much in painting as in my personal life. A big props to all my boys from the CA Crew, with whom I have always been encouraged to surpass myself and of course to Stela and Thes who always continue to inspire me to paint every week. Let's paint a better place to live!! Peace :)

For further information about Crazy Apes please visit:

Crazy Apes Profile

Crazy Apes Website

Crazy Apes Blog

Crazy Apes MySpace Page

Crazy Apes Flickr Photostream

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