THE FOLLOWING INTERVIEW APPEARED IN THE SPRING 1995 ISSUE OF "UNDERCOVER".

ZEPHYR. "Broader Than Broadway" Interview with Zephyr by Edward Morris

Zephyr was one of the pioneers of the New York subway graffiti movement from the late 70's to the early 80's. Today he has made a comeback to the scene, and proves himself, once again, a true graffiti legend. The following is an interview with Zephyr, given on his 34th birthday.

Q: When did you start writing?

Z: I started writing the name Zephyr in 1977. Before Zephyr I was writing "Kane," but the name most people knew me as was "Sky." I was playing around with graffiti for a few years before I ventured out to the playground to practice my tag on the metal part of the slides.

Q: How did you get the name "Zephyr?"

Z: From a brand of skateboards.

Q: What first got you interested in graffiti?

Z: Seeing it. Stitch and Snake, the kings of Broadway. The other Snake, Snake 131. All the original writers. Barbara 62, Eva 62, Michelle 62. When I was growing up I rode the trains and saw the graffiti. I have doodles as far back as '72-I was eleven-you can see I'm starting to play around with it. When I started I was doing "motion tags",hitting insides while the train's moving. "Bil-Rock," the writer who started RTW, was really into hitting trains. He was one of the guys who got me into going to the tunnels. Then "Mackie" got me into painting outsides. He really had to drag me, 'cause I wasn't interested in doing pieces. I was a tagger. When I first started piecing I really sucked, so it wasn't much fun. Besides, I figured in the time it took me to do a piece, I could do a lot more insides. Eventually I learned that to consider yourself a real writer you have to do outsides, you have to do insides, you have to do everything.

Q: Which train lines did you paint?

Z: I started on the Broadway #1 line. Once I exhausted that, I hit the RR's, the 6's, the 4's. When I hooked up with Dondi in 1980 I started hitting the 2's and 5's.

Q: Where have you done graffiti outside New York?

Z: In the '80's I exhibited my graffiti canvases in Holland, France, England, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland. I also went with Dondi and Futura to Hong Kong in '82 and Japan in '83.

Q: Was there graffiti in any of those cities when you first went there?

Z: Hell no. The only place to see "New York style" graffiti back then was in New York.

Q: What role did your going there influence the development of their "scenes?"

Z: Everywhere we went the local kids heard about it and showed up. Then they created their own graffiti movements.

Q: What do you see for the future?

Z: Personally, I'm going to stay active until it's not fun for me anymore. As for the movement, the answer to that lies in the individuals involved. I just hope writers can rise above all the bullshit. In general, we're going to see more and more of the merger between graffiti and the internet.

Q: Any parting comments?

Z: I'd like to tell people to stay political, and never underestimate the importance of what you do. Graffiti is a critically important movement in modern history. Have an open mind to what other artists are doing...If you have respect for yourself, you should respect them too.