The TOX tell-all

This story is originally published in Huck 84: It Starts With Us – The 20^th Anniversary Issue. Order your copy now or join Club Huck+ to make sure you never miss an issue.

Not many artists are synonymous with a city, but London would feel bare if it didn’t have TOX written all over it. The TOX tag has been scrawled, scratched and sprayed on walls above and below the capital for the past 25 years and the man behind the name shows no sign of stopping. Serving time behind bars for following his pure graffiti calling, TOX has eschewed the influence of social media (or anything digital, really) and his name has become beloved by Londoners travelling around the city (maybe not by the British Transport Police though). TOX paints because he cannot stop, and he doesn’t do it for likes or to advertise his merch side line.

A constantly updated Instagram channel would get your work seen by millions. But you’ve never given a shit about the internet, have you?

No, no, I have never given a shit about the internet. I just never done it for that attention or whatever. And like, yeah, it’s too much – I don’t know.

What about now? Now you’ve got an Instagram, it’s barely used but what’s changed?

Still not sure. I might delete it. I’m still thinking about it. I haven’t posted one thing in like, what, three months? I haven’t gone down the rabbit hole.

What about other graffiti artists who use it, who’ve embraced it and post all the illegal activity on there and the police are building a case against them online?

It’s mental. Where back in the day you couldn’t even do a tag without getting hunted down by the police, now you can put it online for anyone to see and nothing seems to happen, does it? Maybe that’s good, I don’t know. But graffiti for likes… I don’t like that, that’s not good.

Who was the head of the old graffiti squad?

Oh, Detective Constable Colin Saysell back in the day. He’s gonna be retired now, but maybe he’ll come back out of retirement now Instagram’s thriving with all the evidence. Doing his job for him. Literally, he’s like the boogeyman of graffiti. The Graffiti Terminator.

Are you going to invite him to your next show?

You know what? It could be funny, him and DC Timothy Murray, you know. Colin would blow a gasket because he’d be like, ​“Oh my God, what’s he doing here? He’s a criminal. He’s not an artist.” Timothy Murray will be (I’m pretty sure) a bit more sympathetic.

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Would you ever actually meet up and become friends with BTP detectives and laugh about the chase when they retire, like in the movies?

I think we could laugh about it, but not become friends. We could laugh about it all and tell each other the secrets from back in the day. How did you know that happened? How did you get me there? How did you chase me there? How did I know the police were there waiting for me? You know, laugh at the stories. Which is funny, that does happen when you get older, I guess.

What’s the highest you’ve ever painted…?

What do you mean the highest? In my busy days, I didn’t even take drugs or drink alcohol, so I was never very high, to be honest. That’s probably why I’ve done so much graff. I wasn’t a pot head, or pill head, or spice head. I was pretty sober 90% of the time. We used to nick Moët and mix it with Red Bull ​’cus we hated the taste. The actual highest is probably when I drove to the top of Norway in the middle of January once, and tagged the Arctic Train. It was ‑25C in the mountains. I also got a tag on top of the second highest mountain in Europe, Mount Glockner. I can’t pronounce it. What’s it called? Glockner. 

Yeah, that’s the highest tag in Europe, I guess.

What about in London?

Don’t know. In a tower block somewhere. That’s not very impressive, is it?

You’ve been painting with the same intensity for 25 years… Does the rage still burn as bright as it ever has?

Well, obviously over 20, 25 years there’s ups and downs, but I love it. I can definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, say I’m one of the only taggers in London, maybe the world, that’s tagged every year for the last 25 years. Maybe me and Zomby. The only public tag I haven’t done is in 2011, when I spent the whole of it incarcerated for doing ​“spray art”. I got sent down for basically changing the colour of surfaces haha. My heart is still in it. I’m still ready to risk it for the biscuit. Dodge cameras, learn new tricks, run about, new security, alarms…locks, keeps it exciting.

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What will you do when the knees start to creak?

I might be in a wheelchair but I’ll still be about for TOX50 [TOX usually adds the years after his name]. I don’t know, it doesn’t stop [legendary London graffiti artist] Drax! He’s got his metal fucking hip now, hasn’t he? So that’ll be me for sure. Me and Drax, still shuffling around London.

Why have you never been tempted by cashing in and doing a fuck load of TOX merch and churned out a load of digital prints?

Because it’s naff as fuck. Like, nah, it’s just pixels. No, it’s got to be proper prints. I like to use my hands. I did graff for the heart, for the love of it, you know? That’s why I didn’t have an Instagram for years. I’m not an attention seeker.

Have you ever had any nicknames given to you by your mates?

Yeah, they used to call me The Owl because I’d see everything that’s going on, and I’d always be up late at 3am looking over the train depots, or over the sidings.

Because you could never afford internet in your house growing up, do you think it just passed you by? You don’t want what you have no idea about?

I think that was a good thing because it kept me pure to the actual graffiti scene. I haven’t really been influenced by other graffiti, other than the graff I saw on the streets by Fume, Zomby and Teach, and all those people from back in the day. That’s my influence, innit? Poverty saved me from trying to copy subway styles I guess.

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Do you think you’d still love graff in the same way if you grew up in New York in the ​’80s and ​’90s with Seen and Taki, and people like that?

I think I would, because I am the definition of a true tagger. I’d be right at home in that scene. There was a lot of tagging going on there back in the day. The more graffiti has evolved in cities and on trains, it’s definitely evolved into being more artistic and aesthetically pleasing to the eye – and less tagging. That’s what I feel anyway. But that’s not the true roots of it. Before, it was just dysfunctional teenagers in the projects or something, you know?

Keith Haring, Basquiat and Seen were some of the first to make the transition from the graffiti world to the mainstream art world. Do you think you’re more comparable to Seen? He is a massive artist selling canvases, selling tags and artworks in his original more traditional graff style, whereas Basquiat and Haring ended up being recognised more as commercial artists. 

This is the mad funny thing, which a lot of people think is mental. I’d actually never heard of Keith Haring until about three years ago when I did Saatchi Gallery. Or Basquiat – I didn’t have a clue who they were. Obviously I’d heard of Seen, but I didn’t even know who those two were. That’s how dislocated I was from the art world and anything to do with it. I just didn’t care. I never looked at it. I literally didn’t know who they were. Or fucking, what’s that fairy guy’s name? Shepard Fairey – I didn’t even know who he was. So that’s how disconnected I was from that world. But now I guess I am kind of joining their world a little bit, like, which is a bit… I question myself sometimes, am I doing it for the right reasons? I think I am, yeah.

This is your 25^th year. Did you ever think you’d make it this far?

No, obviously not. This kid Cho who I was out doing graffiti with, he was down Feltham way, on the trains. I think it was Walton something? South West Trains anyway. It was definitely 2003, we were just on the lines, fucking around. He was going to the graffiti shop in Feltham. Well – it was just a car paint shop where you could buy cans and they’d serve you as a young lad. Yeah, he wrote TOX07 just joking around, winding me up. That was in 2003. I remember thinking, ​“There’s no way I’m gonna be doing it then. That’s so far away.” And here we are, almost TOX27. It’s mental.

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What’s the best thing you’ve ever overheard anyone say about your work when you’ve been on the tube or train?

I’ve heard people talk about it several times. ​“I’ve seen that everywhere.” Or, ​“That guy’s persistent, isn’t he?” And you’ll see kids pointing at it sometimes, talking about it, and you’ll just be randomly sat riding the lines, hoping they fucking get off the carriage and leave it empty so I can do a set of insides.

What’s the worst paint you ever used?

Definitely PlastiKote, Daffodil yellow. From the ​’00s era, stolen from places like B&Q Homebase or Wickes. Definitely the worst paint. Yellow is always bad, but fucking PlastiKote Daffodil yellow is the one. If you want to spray your name on something, it just won’t appear. It’s like clear paint. Back in the early days, there was no paint left in the hardware stores because it was just all stolen. This was before graffiti shops existed. So you’d be lucky to get proper good paint, and you would be stuck with the shittest colours in the world and have to make it work. 

Have you changed or grown as an artist in any way over 25 years?

I got old and grey. No, wiser, maybe? I don’t know. I mix my own paints and inks now. All them years of watching paint dry has actually been useful for something.

Do you see the tracks and trains as a living organism, which you can read and predict its movements?

Yes, I’d say I know the Tube more than anyone. Not even joking. Friends ask me where the trains are, where they’ll be at night or where they end up randomly because they got delayed, or signal or power failure. I know if a tree falls on the track, and know where the power is turned off and everything. I rode the lines for ten years doing insides. Learned it from being there, seeing everything happen. Some missions were planned six months in advance, because I’d go and look at the train engineering works to see when the lines were shut. Waiting six months and pulling a mission off in two hours is the best feeling in the world. You know, beating the machine, the security and everything, yeah. 

Your last exhibition got shut down rapidly. Would you ever do another one?

Yeah. I’m actually doing one right now. If I’m unlucky, it will get shut down before it even fucking starts because it’s in a very cheeky location… I actually better shut up about all this. Haha.

What makes you optimistic about today?

I’m not sure. I’m optimistic about this show. But to be honest, I just take each day as it comes. You never know what is around the corner. I could literally get called back to bail tomorrow. I could be put in jail tomorrow or next week. So, you know, take each day as it comes, innit?

Josh Jones is Huck’s editor. Follow him on Instagram.

Huck 84: It Starts With Us is out now. Sign up to Club Huck+ to make sure you never miss another issue.

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