The Metropolis

Time for Toast: Graffiti crew prepares for their close-up

Will Coldwell | Friday 7 October, 2011 13:51

The Toasters are waiting for me outside of an ivy coated Irish pub on a side street behind Finsbury Park Station. The three of them, known as Toaster A, Toaster B and Toaster D (the joke being where’s Toaster C? There is no Toaster C…) are shuffling about outside, looking as suspicious as anyone would hanging around outside a closed pub on a Wednesday morning. We make our way inside, and sit down at a round table, overlooked by a piece of their work hanging on the pub wall.

The Toasters, as the name implies, have only one thing on their mind. They are responsible for manufacturing an iconic picture of the utensil, which is dotted all over the world, in the form of stencils, posters, stickers and t-shirts. Now, 10 years since they first conjured up the image, they have finally began to catalogue their work with a self-made documentary entitled Everywhere, for which they have been leaking trailers on their website and blog. With the film being keenly awaited by followers of the UK street-art scene, it seemed fitting to find out how three lads from Wolverhampton could end up spending a decade and counting travelling the globe, making this image famous.

It all seems to have started, quite appropriately, in a kitchen. That’s where the three of them reunited, fresh from University and decided, “lets take it a bit leftfield…why have a crew name when you can have an image that would stand out?” As Toaster A explains, “if you’re gonna put summat out on the street why not have something a bit domesticated?”

However it was years before any of them had even imagined painting a toaster that their love affair with graffiti actually began; at school together in Wolverhampton. “No one did it for any reason back then…people even started tagging house numbers or local bus numbers – just so they could really pin point you!” Toaster D tells me a story about Danny Blake, who would tag the backs of buses and ‘surf’ them to school and back, until one day a “a geography teacher followed him on his motorbike shouting ‘Danny what the fuck are you doing!’, and he jumped off, slipped and broke both his arms…”

The Toasters, it transpires, have had a little more luck than Danny Blake over the years. Despite technically committing hundreds of acts of street vandalism, beautiful though they may be, they have incredibly avoided ever being arrested. That doesn’t mean they haven’t come close – their first shave with the law was at just 12 years old. “I remember the police came into a chemistry lesson, and it was like an armistice, they went round and were like “if you stop now, no one will get prosecuted, we won’t tell your mum and dads”, reminisces Toaster D before A chips in, “and James Tilton shouted my tag name just as the copper left! The cop just turned around and goes ‘by the way if you think about changing your tags to numbers don’t bother cos we know about those as well’”.

Unfortunately for Wolverhampton’s police department, this warning was a little too late.
So, ten years on, and countless stencils, stickers and paste-ups later, the Toasters are looking to mark their anniversary in some way. They realised they had enough bits and pieces documented to make a mini-film about their work, “rather than just making a coffee table book…” and so set to work on it. However, they are surprisingly cautious about giving too much away about this work in progress, especially when I asked them what their plan was for a premiere. “Can I just call our press office…?” Jokes Toaster D, but they give their best hint of what’s to come when I suggest a guerrilla screening. “I’d say yes to that”, says A with trepidation, “But the thing about doing something guerrilla is – if we say yes we mean no!” Toaster D however seems more sure of himself, “You know the Odeon off Leicester Square…?”

The toaster campaign runs deep into their subconscious, as Toaster D describes a dream in which he carved the words ‘Everywhere’ out of cheese. A nods in agreement, “with a project like this sometimes it’s the first thing you think of in the morning and the last thing at night”. They assure me there’s no political message (not even regarding the price of bread…), they simply want to get the image famous – to the extent that they wouldn’t even consider changing it. I ask if they like toast; “Love it”, their reply. Would they consider adding a slice of toast to it? “No.” is their stiff response.

Toaster A is happy to deconstruct the concept; “It’s not there to be a toaster. Obviously you can’t get over the fact that it is a toaster, but it’s not a practical toaster, it’s not there to make toast or because we like toast. Its there as an image that’s recognisable all over the world and that’s why we chose it.” Before quickly clarifying again, “There’s no obsession with toast!” There is, however, an obsession with toasters, and if the last ten years are anything to go by, it shouldn’t be long before one comes to a wall near you.
Keep your eyes peeled for updates on the release of the Toasters film Everywhere on their blog www.thetoaster.co.uk

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