Most people know of me as stel, but stelr (sometimes stelar), as in fantastic, is the real name. some people think it's pronounced steeler and it pisses me off because i hate the steelers, go bolts! anyhow, as a train guy who usually has a few folks to paint with, if you can lose a letter to help the crunch, then it makes for a much more comfortable half panel, assuming there's 4 people or so painting the boxcar or whatever train car we're painting. taking one for the team, i guess.
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What crews do you rep??
TSL (the slum lords) and losers. tsl came about in 1995. somewhere around the same time in southern cali another tsl was doing their thing but we didnt know about each other until too much work had been put in to make a stink about it. anyone who knows anything about trains knows the difference between the two. As far as losers goes, it's a more national crew. Folks spread out all over the country have made it up and some still do. As a lot of crews go a lot of bullshit has gone down over the years so the numbers are down, but it's still out there.
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How did you come up with your name??
My sophmore year i decided to change my name for the last time, and i was going to commit to this by drawing it on my backpack. i decided upon setl because i liked that it was true i was going to settle on a final name. but in the midst of my hurry to finish, i spelled it wrong. thus the creation of stel. and in the mid 90's it was hip to put an R after your name, so, stelr it was.
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How long have you been writing??
I got going in 1995. when i first started the scene i was introduced to was heavy into trains, so those were always the goal. but things were different then. you didnt just go straight to trains, you had to put in work, paint the streets and get good enough to not make a panel embarrass the city. At the time, the local yards were controlled by a few guys who had a lot of respect and made the call of who painted trains in the big boy yard. my main teachers feenk and closet, had the in, but i obviously had to pay my dues. i remember feenk taking my out to different layups that held mostly hoppers and tankers and just gettin loose on those things for who knows how many crappy pieces. i think though, i caught my stride when the major raids hit, cleaning house on a lot of guys who had been crushing. about that time a wave of folks rushed in and began the newest cycle. i'm sure there have been a few cycles since then. i will say, freights have always remained top priority for all of us.
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How did you get into graff??
Feenk and my best friend went to school together and he'd come over to my pops with his blackbook and he had all these cool rock characters he'd been drawing at the time. i guess the idea of doing art in a new way was inspiring. all artists eventually end up as a genre artist, graffiti just became mine.
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Tell us a bit about your style. How do you describe it? Any influences?
I like to think of my style as sharp and fluid. not too readable because i love the wildstyle, but readable enough so if its flying by at 70 miles an hour then someone who cares can read it. as far as influences, the first piece i ever bit was a pre piece in some magazine. i copied it exactly as it was, but it didnt influence me, just gave me the confidence to keep trying. feenk and closet influenced me the most. but of course, the root falls back to their influence and his influence. supposedly the influence for the entire city was from a guy in chicago that wrote orco. so i guess in the end, he was my influence as well. back when i was learning the interent wasnt hip. all we had was very biased magazines that we didnt realize were biased, to learn new tricks from. you could watch trains all day and the number of pieces you saw were laughable to what a single line of mixed freight holds today. i'll say in my impressionable style days kero made a big impact on what was possible for trains.
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Would you consider your self a freight guy???
Absolutely. walls are fun, but freights are all i know.
What do you think about freights these days compared to ten years ago??
haha, kind of mixed really. with all the shortlines being introduced into the pool of freights, the possibilities of what may be in the yard are nearly limitless. since up and other rail pooling companies have been refurbishing fallen flagged boxcars, the freight scene for fans of railcars has blown up. when i first started you knew there would be golden west boxes of all kinds, up sp and wp standard rolling stock, and maybe an unknown or two. there was of course a bnsf spur that was always a treat to hit. the thing is, freights are graffiti. theres way too many people who have no business of trains. be it they suck, or just dont know what the hell they're doing. trains and walls cant be painted the same way. you can usually tell when a wall guy trys to paint a freight. his first will be a floater and either too wild for a freight, or too simple for his style. i noticed that when wall guys would try to paint a freight, especially a ridged boxcar, their flow gets messed up and they have to dumbie down their style and it never looks right. my favorite is when a guy is afraid to paint the bar! haha. they cry for five minutes and then have to fight the wood box and the ladder on the other panel so they end up scrunching their shit to avoid the door. my vote is to make walls cool again so i can have my frieghts back.
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Who are your Favorite writers??
I'm a sucker for Kwest, but who isn't. i dont like naming my favorite writers because there's a lot of quality guys who deserve to have their name spoken. but i'll leave it up to personal opinion.
Who do you see up most up on freights these days?
this is another tough one because so many guys that paint the area have trains all over where i bench. plus, guys fall off and by the time you catch their stuff, they gone.
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Any other hobbies besides graff??
Trains are a hobby. my wife and soon to be son. remodeling the house. enjoying my quasi-retirement from the game. most of all, traveling the world.
Any advice for younger writers coming up or just starting out on freights??
get good before you waste a panel. nobody enjoys going over garbage, just people you don't like. to be honest, i'd say find another hobby. this one is expensive and exhausing and highly addicting. you don't realize how important a little bit of fame and recognition can change your life. take up knitting.
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Any shout outs??
Just to my firends and family who have had to put up with or help contribute to the building of stel...oh, and george strait for being the king of country.
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