On my many trips down to Atlanta, there is one recurring event that transpires with each visit: nail biting, stress provoking, near gridlock traffic anywhere and everywhere at rush hour. It seems unavoidable and is something I have come to anticipate. Thankfully, along with gasp-inducing car exhaust and brake dust clouding the windshield while waiting for the car in front to inch a few feet forward, I expect to spot Sever’s crispy bold lettering somewhere, on the ledge of a bridge, the back of a billboard, or some random wall where it has claimed the landscape ten years strong.

The following is an excerpt from the October issue of Juxtapoz. The issue is available in our webstore.

Locally, Sever is an Atlanta staple and arguably one of its most prolific writers ever. Globally, he’s widely known and revered as a craftsman of letter precision and member of the esteemed MSK crew. He’s had a lengthy career laying down countless unforgettable pieces, and in the graffiti world, longevity is no easy feat. However, it wasn’t until he started incorporating characters and concepts that a wider audience began to take notice. Witty, provocative, sarcastic and occasionally ridiculous, Sever’s sly, visual attack on American history and the absurdity of our current cultural climate is difficult to ignore. —Austin McManus

Austin McManus: You’ve lived in many places over the years, but Atlanta seems to have become home. What keeps you here?
Sever: What happened was I lived in and grew up in Nashville but would go down to Atlanta pretty regularly as a kid. I left Nashville right before Freaknik ’96 and fell in love with it. I've since spent time in Los Angeles for a number of years, as well as San Francisco and New York, but always felt most at home in Atlanta. Like everywhere, it's changed a ton over the years, but when you spend so much time in one place, it becomes familiar.

When I was last in Atlanta, I stumbled upon your I’m Not a Player I Just Read a Lot mural. That block is obviously very active and I wonder why you chose those words for that particular location? Also, I assume it was challenging to paint an awning that is on a slant with large letters?
Yes, it's on Broad Street in Atlanta. It used to be a thriving thoroughfare until it was disconnected from the rest of downtown when the city put in the Five Points Marta station in the late ’60s, early ’70s. I guess it never really recovered, and for the last couple of decades has been basically an open-air drug market. Think of it as Atlanta's milder version of San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, a sort of live-action version of The Wire in real-time. I did that piece on a lift, and after the neighborhood folks realized we weren’t any threat, they went right back about their business. Pretty standard stuff. One thing that stuck with me was seeing the same empty discarded coke baggies on the ground getting gummed out by multiple people throughout the week. Super depressing. That quote I chose to paint is obviously a reworking of the Big Pun song with "read" substituted for "fuck." Did my best to add a little needed positivity down there.

Your Death of Street Art mural for the Detroit Beautification Project attracted widespread media attention, becoming highly controversial, and the surrounding community had a lot to say about it. What are some of your thoughts now, looking back at that project and experience?
I don't really know what to say. Yeah, for some reason that piece really stuck with a lot of people. I mean, I like a nice refreshing street art Perrier while I watch Street Art Throwdown as much as the next guy, but sometimes it all becomes a little much, don't you think? I think at one time illegal art in the streets was this genuinely disruptive, shocking thing, or whatever, but it's been absorbed so deeply into the mainstream for so long now that it’s just been left defanged, declawed. Its cool, youthful, rebellious spirit now sells condos and Hot Pockets. It's hard to watch and I think the piece was born out of that. On a side note: I think people were confused that I was taking a shot at the artists in the piece and I wanted to clear that up here. I have nothing but respect for the artists carrying the coffin. Undeniably, they are the Mount Rushmore of the culture, along with so many others, and are the founders and innovators of the movement. Not the killers.

Social and economic issues often accompany your letters, with topics ranging and pertaining, but not limited to, inequality, corporations, consumerism and environmental concerns. Do you feel a certain obligation as an artist to address these issues and to bring attention to them? Also, do you believe you have an advantage because you can reach a wider audience through public work?
There's definitely an advantage to putting up work outdoors. I think it's one of the best large (and last) stages that exists where art can protest and challenge, annoy and inspire. As far as issue-based work goes, I think most graffiti writers are pretty opinionated on those topics even if they don't always articulate it on the walls. For me, I came to the realization a while back that, over the course of my career with Sever, this name that I created, outside of quantity and quality, I never really gave much thought to its purpose—not that everything has to have a purpose. So, as I've gotten older and had time to reflect, I like to think my focus has sharpened. While painting letter-based stuff is the best, I feel like I'm wired to do more than just that. I love outsider art, skateboard graphics, Adbusters, comics cartoons and just Lowbrow art, in general, and I think that's reflected in the work I produce now. More so than a lot of the stuff I've created, I think the works I'm making now, however trivial, have a voice. Now, most of the time that voice is lame, but it is still a voice. I find it a challenging and difficult thing to make politically-motivated, socially-conscious work that doesn't come off as corny or preachy and can stand alone as a great piece of art. More often than not I fall flat, but seeing others get it right keeps me motivated.

Tell me about the trip where you painted the West Bank Barrier in Israel a few years ago. What was your motivation for going to that particular region to paint?
The trip to God's birthplace was something Risk got me involved with, but a few days before we were scheduled to leave, he backed out, so I ended up going with my pal Ewok. It was pretty surreal. Really uplifting and depressing at the same time kinda thing. The constant state of fear and uncertainty that so many people in that region deal with is hard to process. I met a ton of really great, thoughtful people. I also met a lot of weirdos. One constant was people blanket-labeling one side or the other as pure evil. It was all about as confusing as the Pringles yamaka I took home.
 

Read the full interview in our October, 2015 issue, available here.