av THOMAS STØNJUM © 16.08.00

When and why did you start with graffiti?
Up to 1987 I was your average anonymous, shy and football-hating kid, which didn't go down well in Begby, Fredrikstad. Everything revolved around football and mopeds. I was into drawing and bicycles and books, and I used to stand and stare the pieces of Spade and Craze (old-school Fredrikstad writers) with awe. I kept feeling out of touch with reality until I met some other kids equally out of touch. And, my luck, they were into drawing, and graffiti, too. This was '87. All of a sudden, I was part of something big, special, unique; and I was respected for what I did, not despised for what I didn't. I was somebody. No big wonder I loved it.

How did you come up with the name Coderock, and does it have any special meaning?
Around '88, the biggest thing was Public Enemy, and we dressed up in full urban combat gear, with boots and shaved heads and bad attitudes. I guess the only way to tell the difference between us and neo-nazi skinheads was the way we shook hands. We were into a militant aggressive style, and I thought I needed a big loud pompous-sounding name. Everyone else had 3-5 letter names, so I figured eight letters would make the difference. I had the biggest belt-buckle, and damn proud I was, too. I suppose the name had some special meaning once, but that's lost on me now. It just got stuck, like any other stupid name. It could have been Cryptic Stone or Magic Flower if I was into DeLaSoul. Luckily, I wasn't. Anyway, I'm not into rap music anymore, I listen to rock'n roll, so I guess it still fits in a way.

I remember a long time ago that you were down with the Savage Army and X-Ray Posse. When and how did you come in contact with them and do you still keep in touch? Are any of the other people from these crews still painting?
Just down my street in Fredrikstad lived two of the three people in Fredrikstad down with Hip Hop (PeeJay and Sick, Spade lived 15 minutes away). PeeJay was down with Jayski from Oslo, and they formed what was to become B.O.L.T. Warhead (Norway's first and best rap group ever, in my humble opinion). I just went along for the ride, and joined The Savage Army and X-Ray Posse. They were the "back-up posses" of B.O.L.T. Warhead and weren't writer's crews as such, but consisted of rappers, breakers, writers and people we thought were cool enough to join. I still keep in touch with some of them, but most of us have evolved in completely different directions. The other really good writers of the crews, Spade and Sick, still paint from time to time, and Sick has become an amazingly good artist, doing large graf-inspired canvases. Anyway, they're the only crews I've been part of, and I left around '92, "to pursue a solo career", as they say. I prefer managing on my own. Group mentality is evil. If everybody minded their own business and let everybody else mind theirs, we'd have world peace.

How do you look upon the graffiti scene in Fredrikstad compared to other norwegian cities?
I don't know anymore, I haven't lived there for five years, but it used to be a good, wholesome, healthy and united little scene. Few, but talented writers such as Spade, Exem, Sick, Naiv, and myself. Anyway, I don't know too much about the graffiti scenes in other norwegian cities. They're probably allright, although I never hear about writers from, say Tromsø.

The graffiti culture has changed a bit the last 10 - 15 years. What do you think of the way things have changed?
The way it looks from my view (which is sort of detatched) is that the whole graffiti scene has split in two parts with almost nothing to do with each other, and the difference between the new school and the old is only growing bigger. And I can't say I like the new media made violent breed of bombers. Violence and destruction for the sake of destruction has got little to do with the basics of graffiti. The bottom line is about creativity, and ripping up seats and smashing windows in subway cars isn't creative. But the media gets what the media wants. If the newspapers keep on crying about violent graffiti thugs, eventually that's what they get. The Dark Side of Graffiti gets too much press. If the newspapers hadn't moaned about bombing every other day, there wouldn't be half as many tags around. I mean, taggers want attention, and that's what they get, in truckloads. And I'm sure bombing brings a little fun and exitement to a boring life. I can understand why kids are pissed off and angry at the world, and want to fuck up things, but that's no reason to go screwing up the graffiti culture. The way it looks now (in Oslo) is that everything related to graffiti is going to be illegalized, from "thrashing" (whatever that is) to legal walls. That kind of pisses me off. If your're into graffiti for destruction only, please: find something else to do. Mug old people, steal from children or chop wood, do anything else than being a vandal hiding behind the word "hip hop". (On a personal note, and a little besides the point: Who's the shithead who fucked up the "Blue Master Cigarettes" mural at Majorstuen subway station? That mural had been there for fifty years, and it was cool. Idiot. Leave something in peace, willya?) Besides, 10 years ago you had the choice between twenty different Quick colours. Now you can get almost any colour you want. That's nice.