Staylo

Yo! I write STAYLO, I get down with the SOT and PTC crews and I come from the best town in Ireland.

I can’t recall when I met graffiti for the first time – I grew up writing my name on things as soon as I developed the skill of holding a pen. That hasn’t really stopped. As a kid, I would sign my name on road signs, bus stops, and anything that took my fancy on my way to and from school. “XXXXXX WOZ ERE” is always on the end of the chisel tip. I had to adjust my methods slightly when my mother came home one evening and announced “I see you were on Patrick Street!!” with a scowl….my index finger was still tingling from the concrete dissolving the skin under my cuticles after catching a fat double-finger signature in some wet cement on my voyage home from school that afternoon. I decided it was time for an alias. That was 1997 or so. Around the same time I had befriended someone who is still a very close compadre to this day – SPIN ONE. Myself and SPIN had an array of similar interests and at the top of the pile – writing stuff on stuff! We paraded the streets in our Lee Pipes jeans and Osiris skate shoes for years, hitting abandoned buildings and the train line out of town that headed towards Dublin. Speaking of Dublin – as I reached my late teenage years I would travel more to the capital city on the train, this was always an exciting adventure – as I passed by the track sides I had done leaving my own town and got closer to Dublin I would start to see more and more different styles and personas on the tracks and trains – shouts to FED, IDOJ AND JOR for fuelling the fire! No trip to Dublin would be complete without a trip to Tower Records to pinch the latest copy of Graphotism magazine and of course, a visit to ‘All City’ (the old AC, when you had to walk up rickety stairs to get to the tiny shop in a cramped loft!). I moved to Dublin at 17 years old and fell into the company of style-monger SNARE. Myself, SPIN and SNARE formed the first rendition of the SOT crew and even though SNARE randomly asked me to write “SO DAMN FRESH” in his blackbook and then bit the letters from it to use in his own handstyle, I think he’s a good dude. Imitation…flattery…..something something….

In terms of my own style, well, it’s constantly developing (like it should) but to be honest I think it’s still just a “traditional” graff style…..I’m trying to find a letter style that is original or unique to me…see, I had a bit of a strange relationship with graff – as I moved into my 20’s other priorities and a lack of confidence in my abilities resulted in me staying away from writing for over a decade. Although I kept sketching all those years, I struggled with confidence and couldn’t bring myself to paint in public. Fast-forward through the years and shortly after I turned 30 years old, my younger brother died suddenly, giving me a swift kick into the jaw and a reality check. He dabbled in writing too, but all throughout my 20’s he would get really animated and angry at me for not painting – saying he wished he could do like I do…so when he died, I made a promise that I would get back at it and push myself to be the painter that he seen in me. In my teens I took a lot of inspiration from writers in Dublin city – guys like GRIFT, CISTO, FEIC and the UEK / RCS / TDA crews. I have to give the biggest big up to man like OMIN. An absolute gent. a friend and a man who is constantly pushing the boundaries of letter styles and originality, he was a big inspiration to younger me and still is to this day – the man is fresh one every surface! When I returned to painting there was way more heads in the scene in Dublin and this got me giddy for painting again. Boys like ACHES, VENTS, ESKO, MYNE, EVOKE and crews like EDS / IOU / HUK / DPK but also, the scene in Belfast came to my attention with heads like KAYOS, TOAR, RIOT of the FA crew and also heads like NOTA and BORE of TMN crew smashing the place. My focus has shifted more toward painting characters now and I found myself enjoying the work of GENT48, HOMBRE, PACO SANCHEZ/ANUSONE, BRETT PARSON, DANNY RUMBL, DANLEO and not forgetting boss bitches FRIZ, CHULA and G.RIOT. I managed to become a member of the Dublin-based PTC crew with NIALL OL, SHANE HA and INKFUN. I enjoy letters by a lot of people, there is too many to mention really, but the first ones that come to mind would be YESB, OMIN, SKARE and DRUID.

Plans for the future – bring SOT and PTC everywhere, develop my letters to have way more funk, and push my characters to have more action/emotion in them. Also, now that I live in mainland Europe I’m hoping to get some paint on trains and more ups in all the big cities!

Horse ‘r on!