Secret Walls Founder Terry Guy on Global Art Battles & The Art of Competition Tour

Welcome to the Truth in Us Heart, your source for conversations at the intersection of arts, culture, and community. I am your host, Rob Lee, and I'm excited for today's guest. He is the visionary founder and CEO of a global movement, Secret Walls, that has transformed live art into thrilling competitions, merging creativity and community. We'll be discussing the Art of Competition tour kicking off later this month, which will be taking secret walls to new heights. Please welcome Terry Guy.

Welcome to the podcast.

Cool. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you having me on coming in from the UK.

Appreciate you you coming on as well, and, it's it's been a running theme. Right? You know, there there are some visual elements for this pod, but mostly audio. Whenever a guest comes on in their bespectacled when they're wearing their glasses, I have to thank them for wearing their glasses. As a 4 eyed gentleman myself, thank you for wearing

their glasses. Yeah. I, yeah. And these ones are big as well. I've got a few pairs, but this is like my biggest, heaviest frame.

So I'm I'm constantly just pushing them back up, but I do like my glasses, which is why I've got 4 pairs.

That's that's great. That's great. I I like that you wore your biggest and heaviest ones. Yeah. That's it's almost like it makes you I have a certain pair.

I have 3 pair. I have, one that I wear specifically when I go to, like, openings. They're kinda round or they're circular of tortoise. And I was like, I need to wear a scarf with this. I need to look as pretentious as possible just so I could feel like I fit in.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These ones, these these are the meta glasses as well, so they got the cameras on them. I'm not, obviously, I'm not recording because it has a little light on.

But, yeah, I use these, as prescription, and then I we actually record a lot of social content at the studio. So we've all got a pair of these, like, crazy spiked glasses, which is, good fun for the events.

I love that. I love that. That's really cool. Now you you're almost selling a ticket that I may have to look into getting a pair for myself. But, you know, glasses aside, let's let's dive into some of the, my usual request.

I I like to start off the podcast asking my guests to introduce themselves. I think often, you know, we have these really glossy bios, and I can read the bio. I did read the bio. But, you know, I wanna hear it directly from the guest. So if you will, in your own words, introduce yourself.

Yeah. Yeah. My name is Terry Guy, a Brit that lives in LA. Been out in the US for 15 years now. I'm the founder of Secret Walls, which is a a live arts entertainment company, famously known, I suppose, for the, the live paint battles that we do across the world.

Started those in London 20 years nearly 20 years ago. And and these days, I suppose 90% of our kind of events and activations are set in the US. The kinda you know, obviously, that's the big market, LA LA, Hollywood, you know, center of entertainment, and, obviously, an amazing kind of playground of of street art and graffiti and illustration and everything else that I love. So

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the for the for the intro, and it definitely, like, pokes at a few of the things we'll be talking about a bit more in-depth later as we go along. But, you know, I'm curious about this, and this is this is gonna keep you on your toes early. When I I see visionary.

Right? So I think of big ideas. I think of something that is is unique, something that's grand, something that, you know, it's just like, oh, this is this is the next thing. This is the next wave. But I think a lot of times these big ideas come at us at the most unexpected and, like, sort of everyday moments, you know, with Yeah.

Of experience, you know, I I read that in your bio, years of experience in the art world, around the art world. Where do your ideas typically come from?

Yeah. I'm always I was actually talking about this the other day with a friend, trying to rewind 20 years. I'm 42 now. Came out of uni. You know, I'm a country boy.

I'm from a little island in England, like a super sleepy little Jurassic Victorian island. You know, no graffiti. There's no kinda street culture. You know, it's just me and my buddies kinda hanging out on the beach or running around the forest. Got to London fast forward, you know, 16, 17, and that's when I got exposed to the first stickers on lampposts and the tags and kind of the stuff I was seeing in movies.

And then coming out of uni, I did animation. I struggled. I was just talking about it. I struggled for the 1st year with a degree to just find myself and find my place in the, you know, this creative world. I was doing all kinds of internships and working for free and all kinds of crazy little jobs.

And I think the pressure, and the environment, obviously, of London, as as super c, and the pressure of not having any money and trying to figure out how you pay the rent, while I'm eating, like, beans on toast every day. And just trying to think about the biggest, best idea, you know, and the craziest idea possible with $0, is kinda what created Secret Wars. Because I was sat in my bedroom just really like, I'd just come back from a a a b boy battle event. I'd seen the energy of the hip hop battle, you know, the the the rappers battling on stage, and then there was the b boy standoff. I saw the energy of the room.

It was my first time I'd seen anything like that. Saw the graffiti on the walls, met a few artists. They were in the shadows, and the dancing and the and the music was on in the kind of foreground.

Sure.

So something in my head triggered, and it was like, let's try that same thing, but spin it around and put the art on stage. But it wasn't just that. I had to walk, like, kinda go away and think about it for a few weeks and try and figure out a format. But it was it was under a lot of pressure, to be honest. It was kinda you know, maybe I in my head, I've got a few months, you know, of money left before I had to move back in with the parents.

So I had to try something a little bit crazy. So we put that first event on, and, I suppose, yeah, the rest is history. It kinda just packed out, did another one, Got busier, and we started traveling, you know, you the UK and Europe. So I don't know if that answers the question, but definitely pressure. You know, movies, comics, the art that I was kind of consuming, the people around me.

I was just lucky enough to be in the right place, right time, I'm sure. But you've obviously got to put yourself in those spaces. Right? So I I was just jumping around London to to try to take it all in as quickly as possible.

And thank you. So so in in taking in taking it all in, I, you know, I find, like, for me, even even now, like, when you're, let's say, generating new ideas, new approaches with sort of what you're what you're doing with secret walls now that it's it's established. It's it's been around. It's doing its thing. But keeping it sort of fresh and keeping those newer and unique perspectives, how does that hit you now maybe compared to sort of where you you set that foundation of this is when this idea hit me?

How do ideas hit you now?

Yeah. Well, I was actually trying to think, how do I go back into that pressure cooker? Obviously, I had different circumstances. I was trying to, like, time travel in my head a little bit. And I was trying to figure out, like, how I put myself back in that pressure cooker to think about the next big idea.

Because, you know, that's the kind of person I am. I'm I'm entrepreneurial. I'm always trying to figure out, well, what's the next thing that can kinda support seawalls, but might be a little bit different, but is in the kind of art space and is helping the same community. But it's a lot harder to to to recreate that is what I'm finding. And, also, I'm running an established business with employees, and we've got a ton of stuff on.

There's, all good stuff, you know, but there's just live projects and traveling. And, you know, I have a family now, so there's all the personal stuff as well. So the, I suppose the distractions and the kind of environment is a lot different from back in the day when it was just me, 20 year old, you know, broke me, kinda just trying to figure out the one thing that needed to go well. So, yeah, I'm trying to get back into that room. Even even just the world of social media didn't really exist when when we started.

So there was, I suppose, more time, you know? The when you think about the amount of time we all spend on our devices and just procrastinating sometimes, thinking that we're being inspired by scrolling the, you know, the never ending timeline. But back then, it was I think Myspace had just kinda kicked off. So it was very limited on the social media. So all the promotion for the events was was kind of paper flyers and, you know, street posters and word-of-mouth.

So I suppose I had a lot more time on my hands with the Internet being a little bit, I suppose, in its infant stages back then.

Yeah.

Probably helps, in different ways.

When when I'm out there, like, gathering, you know, stuff for I I I call it just noticing. Right? When I'm gathering, like, alright. Who do I wanna talk to? Whose work is interesting?

I I just did a interview with, a muralist that's based in Chicago. I'm based in in Baltimore in the east part of, you know, US and, in Baltimore, Maryland. And I was in Chicago, and I'm just walking. I walk everywhere. Right?

And Yeah. Happened to see, like, an image for this mural, and the mural was way in one of, like, the tallest buildings in Chicago. And I just, you know, did the QR code, grabbed the person's information, pinged them right there in the middle, and it's just, like, in the middle of the day, and it's just noticing, and it's just certain things that kinda grab my eye, and I just trust my taste now when I'm out there, but also I have to be out there. So I I can't help but think about what you were describing, sort of being around it. You know, as you were saying, you know, 20 plus years ago, being around it, you're able to see, like, if you're not around it, you're not in the scene, then you you don't you're not aware of it.

So you're not aware to have, like, a perspective on it and seeing sort of what that shift could look like, that innovation.

Yeah. Again, right time, right place in that. As I was formulating the the sequels plan Yeah. Banksy. It was early Banksy as well.

Right? So you've got this Banksy explosion that no one obviously could forecast. He was out there. I remember seeing some of his work for a couple of 100 quid that I wish I would have bought. You know, I just walked past it.

But I was going to those shows. I was going to the early d face shows. He's now a beast, you know, a big UK artist. Kind of, I suppose, the cause of the UK. I remember some of the legendary US artists were coming into the into the UK for the first time.

And these shows were kinda hard to find. You know, it was all a little bit underground. East London wasn't what it is today. Shoreditch wasn't kind of the same. It was very different.

Now it's very gentrified and, you know, kinda part of the city. But I was just lucky enough to be in those spaces, I suppose. And I was kinda sucking it all in. And I suppose, as I was building my thing, it you know, we all kind of, I suppose, rode the same wave. And it just, over that 1st few years, just really benefited as Banksy exploded.

That door, I suppose, opened, you know, even wider for everyone else to kinda find an opportunity to to, you know, make a few dollars. But, yeah, keeping your eyes open, that's always been you know, now I'm I'm I'm the same, for sure. Like, I'm always looking for new talent. Same as you, walk with cities, always done that. Take a lot of photos, take a lot of notes.

Back then, obviously, DM ing someone was a lot harder. Yeah. Tracking that person down was a lot harder, but maybe more fun because it was, you know, was more difficult. These days, you can kinda find an email or a DM pretty quickly. I get quick responses these days because of the brand that we've built, which is, you know, you know, I'm kinda appreciative of of that.

The fact that I can reach out to big artists that I don't know, and they might not all wanna do the show, but they're all pretty, positive. And, I love Secret Wars. Yeah. Less battle, you know, without asking questions or I love it. Bit nervous, maybe not my cup of tea, but, you know, let's let's, connect and figure out a project together.

So it's a different world for me now in connecting those dots. But back then, it was, yeah, it was really fun, kind of just slowly building your contacts literally in a, you know, a paper book rather than your actual iPhone. So I'm making myself sound like a dinosaur, but it definitely felt like a different world back then.

We're we're we're almost the same age, so I'm on the same page. I keep that that that paper thing. I keep the notepad with me. It's something about writing it down versus Yeah. I can easily just find the person.

It's just like, I think writing it down, I commit it to memory a little bit more, and it's a bit more of an intention versus let me look at who I've recently searched for, and it feels like less disposable if I have it on paper for some reason. I don't know. And I usually have, know, like, my my backpack. I have my laptop in it earlier, and I'm always, like, moving around. I got a recorder, a laptop, I got my Go Bag, and I have a day job.

That, you know, this is unrelated, you know. And I had, I think, 4 different notepads that I've been working out of. 1 has, like, Chicago, 1 has Philadelphia, and one that just has local. And I go back to that either for for questions or just ideas. And, yeah, and I'll even put down, like, what's the person's Instagram handle just to see if I'm, you know, really interested in taking sort of that that next step.

And before I move into this next question, one thing that you you you touched on there is sort of that that notoriety. Right? When folks are aware of what you're doing, aware of the brand. I've encountered that as well. Like, in in part, that's kinda how we're having this conversation.

I was like, oh, really? I was like, Secret Walls is kind of like huge. What's happening? How how did this happen? And even when I reach out to people, in 5 years, I've done almost 800 interviews.

And 1st year, I barely had 20. So it was one of those things where people are aware of what I do and seeing sort of what what the brand is ultimately. So Yeah. For for you you know, for folks that don't get it, you know, let's talk about what makes Secret Walls stand out amongst the sort of art world, amongst the sort of competition in sort of the art businesses. Talk a bit about that that using business term, the competitive advantage.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I never really built the brand. It was never meant to be built as a business, which is kind of maybe a like, maybe that helped me in the long run. Because I was building it with just a a passionate kind of, how can I do something different?

At first, even though I was struggling to make a few dollars, I wasn't really in my head, I wasn't really thinking, how am I gonna make a $1,000,000? You know. What what's the the business model? I wasn't thinking about any structure, you know, any of that structure. It was how can I put on something really cool, make a few new friends in this space, and just see what comes out of it?

And that's kinda what we did. And it just kept building 1 by 1. But I suppose organically, building it back to front in a way helped me kinda create that, like, moat around the brand or that competitive advantage to other collectives or companies or people coming into this space. You know, it's hard for someone to well, it's a very niche business as well, which I think helps me in many ways. You know, it's not it's not a mainstream kind of creative service.

What we do is very different, so that puts us in a little box. But I think that in the old days, it was very hard to kinda make that like, fly that flag and make some money and, like, hit a brand up and say, you know, collab with us. We're, you know, we're Secret Wars, the art the the the, you know, the paintball guys. They would everybody would be like, what? But these days, with street art and, graffiti, and the culture's kind of in a different level now.

You know, it's like a serious kind of $1,000,000,000 industry with cores, banks, you know, that leading the way. And collectors being of all shapes and sizes, you know, from $20, you can get a nice print and be become a collector to spending 25,000,000 on a painting.

Yeah.

It's changed the game a lot. You know? And, obviously, street art is in advertising, and on TV, on billboards. It's everywhere. Back then, it was it was definitely, maybe a frowned upon kind of, you know, vandals sport, if you like.

You know, the artists were all struggling to to make ends meet. So that that yeah. It's a different world. But, going back to the brand, I think the moat was built in the early days from doing the back to front thing and creating those relationships with the artists. And, obviously, it's all around the artist.

Without the artist, Secret Wars doesn't exist. You know? So even with my idea, it it takes the thousands of artists that have participated to to to have created the story and and kinda help me create something really special. And that's what I remind myself of pretty much every day. You know, artist relationships are key.

You're only as powerful as as, you know, the art world and the artist kind of, speaking good words about you. And the moment, you know, the art world kinda what the artists did, you know, dislike what we do or decide that we're irrelevant is the day that Secret Wars kinda just falls off, you know, off the track. So I'm always trying to evolve. I'm always listening to artists, always trying to figure out how we get better, how we get bigger with them in mind, and, you know, how we will make money, together and kinda win together. So, yeah, I think that's that's that's key.

It's relationships. You know? It's, the IP, obviously, is pretty simple. Anybody could copy it. We can't I can't trademark all the stuff that we've done around the event.

Some of it, we can't protect. I mean, I've trademarked certain things, but, anyone can go and create a paint battle event, and many has. But what what kinda keeps me calm is most of the art world and most fans and anybody with half a clue in this world kinda knows we did it first, in the way that we've done it. We're not definitely we're definitely not the first paint battle ever. Obviously, graffiti coming out of Philly and New York and, I'm sure, Baltimore, you know, back in the eighties seventies.

Like, there there was graffiti battles long before my time. Yeah. So that that existed. But in the format that we created, really, all I did was fuse soccer, one of my other passions, with street art. And I created a bunch of made up rules that I thought would be fun to you know, there's, like, 90 minutes on the clock, black paint only.

I just kinda made that stuff up because it sounded cool, and it felt right. Some people have tried to copy that, but it always falls flat because people know that we you know, we were the originals in that space. So, Yeah. It's it's a weird one. It's kinda again, not by design, but we've kinda created a a a bit of a moat because of that.

Thank you. And I I heard so many things that I relate to that I was trying not I wanted to let you cook there because I was like, look, man. Like, Terry's saying that real stuff right now. But Yeah.

Yeah. I I

would say, like, you know, thank you because the relationship piece, right, is so important. And, you know, as I said, the number I said of how many of these I've done, I was already a podcaster for 10 years before I even dove into doing these interviews. You know? And so that's, I guess, my mode of, like, having that background of experience. And then over this last 5 years, building trust, building a brand, and and sort of having these relationships, and just saying, hey.

You know, a lot of times, this is the first time someone has come on to talk about their work. So Mhmm. There's a certain degree of, I don't want them I don't want them to look bad in their first interview talking about their work. So those are inspirations and maintaining those relationships. And the the other thing that I heard there that really I started I wanted the snap, you know, where it's it's this thing where there's a lot of imitators.

You know, I I I joke about it. I've been in the last year. I've been able to teach podcasting to, you know, high school students and college students. So I've been able to do that. And one of the things I've mentioned in my classes, I was like, do something that feels unique for you.

Do something that you wanna do. There's gonna be so many people that are gonna copy what's trending and and what's popping, but it's not an original idea. There are so many people that I've seen who try to do a version of what I do. I'm sure they can do it and have conversations with interesting people, but I'm still me, and what I bring to it is still that. That's what makes it unique, my sort of approach to any amount of work that I'm doing.

And that's the same thing I was hearing in your your bit on, secret walls and its advantages.

Yeah. Yeah. No. I think it's hard. I mean, I I always think about this like, is is secret walls an original idea?

Yeah. Yeah. In a way, because I came up with a rule set and created a thing that became global and kinda has has done very well. But I feel like in this day and age, everything's kind of a remix of a remix of a remix. Right?

It's like, you know, and again, Graffiti Brows existed before. So I'm sort of I'm sure, subconsciously, that was in my head as I was cooking Secret Wars. I definitely had Warriors, the movie, in my head. I definitely had Fight Club in my head. I was definitely thinking about Secret Wars, the comic, the Marvel eighties comic, where all the characters got sucked into a planet and had to battle it out.

That was a big inspo for me. I was thinking about foot soccer, football. So all that was in my head, so I'm really just taking bits from different things. Yeah. And I'm praying a bit of Frankenstein that is definitely an original idea in one way, but was also inspired by many things.

And I suppose, is there a pure idea these days that that that you you could prove has not been inspired by anything? Maybe that's impossible. I'm not sure. I can't think of, anything that comes to mind. I think it's it's pretty hard, but I don't know if you need to go that that extreme anyway.

I think as long as, yeah, you've put the effort into kind of take your references, respect those references, turn it into your thing, add your mark to it and your personality, like you said, then that's that's enough. You know? People will kind of appreciate that and see that your thing's different from, you know, the a 100 other things that are out there. And that's, you know, in your world of podcasts, in my world of live arts, it's it's it's a busy world now. Right?

There's a there's a new one every day. So I think that's fun. I kind of embrace that competition as well. I think 20 years in, as long as people I've always said I've had people come up to me and say, hey. Can I do my own paint battle?

I can't, you know, I can't, different reasons. It'd be like, oh, I'm in so and so country. I know you guys can't get here, And we don't have a sponsor to get you here. Or, you know, there's no budget to play with. Can I do secret walls?

And I'm like, well, you know, I don't re we don't really just let people do secret walls and kinda run with it. But I always encourage them, just do your own paint battle. You know? Pick a color. Choose a different time on the clock.

Find your own artist, and just remix it in a way where it's respectful and different from secret walls. And, you know, I fully support that. But just don't, yeah, copy and paste, and just try and, you know, rip rip someone off. I think that's that's obviously just lazy. But we've had a couple of those before, and again, they fail pretty quickly.

But for those that have actually figured out and created their own concept, some of them are doing really well. And I I support that because our our world is niche. And I think we need more competition in our little space of kind of live art to create, hopefully, a bigger, you know, ecosystem for for the artists that we serve. So I think it's actually beneficial. It keeps us all on our toes.

So I'm I'm all for that.

So so what you're what you're saying to me, what I'm hearing is I should do a live paint battle in Baltimore that it has 9 minutes on the clock, and we use Blue

paint. Yeah. Same as the background.

Absolutely. Uh-huh. It's mine.

The way the way the fun thing is Baltimore is one of the last cities in in the US, one of the, well, one of the last big cities that I can think of that we've not battled in. For for whatever reason, I don't have any contacts in Baltimore. So you're contact number 1. So we should talk after the show I always wanted to do Baltimore, obviously. I you know, I've seen TV shows, and I I watched, you know, a lot of movies.

So I know that there's a there's obviously an art scene there from just looking from afar for Instagram and stuff. But we've just never never been able to figure out. We've been to Philly. We've done New York a bunch of times. Boston, you know, Atlanta, Miami, all up and down the East Coast, but never made it to to Baltimore for some reason.

We we gotta get you here. We'll we'll definitely chat after this. But I I wanna move into this next question because I got a few more I wanna I wanna hit you with. So very fascinating. You you were touching on it, but, I I wanna hear, like, sort of why, you know, the paint battles the live paint battles resonate so well, because I I see it.

You know, like, creativity and competition, it goes hand in hand. It's they're fueled by each other in many respects. Sometimes there's that subtle push, you know, by your peers. Like, I I know I encounter it as a podcaster. Damn, they put out a really good episode.

I need to put out one that's better. That's just competition right there or something more direct. I think of rap battles immediately. So, you know, why, you know, the live paintball, why does that resonate in that context?

Yeah. It's yeah. Again, I always kind of have that conversation with artists. It's like, why doesn't it, why doesn't it get boring? It's the same show concept, different artists, sometimes the same artist.

But it still wouldn't be the same because the outcome is always different because it's a freestyle battle, and those artists are in maybe a different venue or a different city. So the lineup changes. The venues change. The the rules stay the same, have stayed the same for 20 years. But, yeah, it's just it's a never ending kind of story for me, in that I just I just yeah, there's so many new artists today.

Back in the day, I struggled to find 20 artists to to create a tournament in London, especially female artists. It was nearly impossible to find female street artists these days. There's 100, if not 1000, of them around the world. You know, there's artists coming in, becoming muralists from the digital world, and there's muralists coming in from the fine art world. So, again, these days, we don't even see ourselves as a a street art battle anymore.

It it's kind of evolved into something even bigger. We're we're trying to collaborate with all forms of artists, which is why we started doing digital artists, like, kind of digital art battles as well. But, yeah, it's it just there's a there's a there's a really magical energy in the room that is hard to explain until you've been to 1. But it's just very raw. It's very welcoming.

It's not a really over the top cool kind of kid crowd. You know, you get a bit of every everything. You know, you got your art heads there, the skaters. You've got people coming from the city, sometimes maybe even in a suit, that just wanna, you know, just decompress from a stressful day and just come to the Seagulls and drink a few beers and have a good time. So, you know, it's, it's a very welcoming space.

I feel like ins ins we're we're trying to inspire the crowd. You know, entertainment is what we do. You know, we're trying to put on a a theatrical show, and that's what I always tell the artists. Like, let's let's bring your best, like, craziest version of yourself to the stage. Like, we wanna entertain.

That's what we're here for. It's kind of the WWE of the art world, in my in my opinion. Good. So, yeah, all that sporting, kind of context and all the things that I stare at, I'm always trying to kind of level it up level the show up. So it never gets boring.

And, I said 20 years ago that I I told a magazine that I wanna put art back in the Olympics, because it it was actually in the Olympics from 1912 to, I think, 1946. And then it got dropped for various kind of political reasons. And I've been saying that for 20 years, and everybody was laughing. But what's funny is Pharrell just said it, like, 4 weeks ago in Paris. And, obviously, Pharrell's the god.

Right? So he says it, and the world goes crazy. And there's there's that, like, oh, and the Olympics headline is everywhere. So it's amazing because now I've got that, like, whole new wave and people are hitting me up saying, yo, you know when you told me that thing? But we actually need to do that now.

You know, let let's get art into the LA 28 calendar somehow. And let's, you know, put the art on on the kind of pedestal with sports. So I've been saying that semi seriously for a long time. And I actually think Pharrell was half serious as well when he said it. So, yeah, I'm I'm excited to kinda keep leveling out, as we kinda blend arts and sports together.

That's that's great. And I I I have a follow-up question about that, but I don't wanna leave this piece because you you mentioned, WWE there. So I'm definitely curious in that regard. Like, in live paint battles right there, you know, does the audience play a role in it? So as far as the the entertainment, like, I think of, you know, when I'm watching wrestling, I watch a lot of wrestling actually, and you'll you'll hear, like, hit him again or, you know, get get the table or whatever.

There's this audience participation thing. And even I think of improv. This this podcast actually was born in the improv space. I think of ballroom. You know, it's it gets real intense in ballroom and and breakdancing as well.

So has it been an instance where you you have, like, that audience response where it gets really intense where it's like, alright. Why why are they leg dropping each other? Someone power slammed on on one of his, co competitors.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. We definitely have had some, you know, the the I suppose the first answer to the first question, audience has a massive role to play.

Like, the audience, again, the show doesn't exist without the audience, as well as, you know, obviously, the artists are a key on stage. But the audience is just as important. Being in a room and we've done a few rooms in the past where, you know, we've done some probably more like private shows, where we've been hired to to go put on a show for some event where it's not really our event. And the room's not really there for us. And it's it's the hardest crowd in the world.

Right? Like, you've got people drinking champagne. I I can think of a time in the UK when we were performing in front of the zeitgeist, Google, Forbes, 500 kind of audience. And we had royal family there. And, like, I think Musk might have been in the room.

And, you know, it was just this tent full of millionaires and billionaires. But no one was really there for us. We were there to we we were paid, I think, by Google to be there to entertain and just have a good time. That was really tough because you're getting zero engagement from from the crowd. So the artists have nothing to feed off.

But, obviously, our usual show, where we have 500, kind of, fans that have bought a ticket to come cheer us on and because they love x y z artists, and or they love the show, or it might be their first time. It's it's really easy to get them pumped and get them into that kind of WWE, zone. And again, I brief the artist pretty well these days. I'm always trying to encourage them. And, you know, I'm curating that kind of artist lineup, making sure I've got the right characters on the stage that are a mix of styles.

So there's a lot of stuff in the background that we do before the show even starts, knowing that those ingredients are probably gonna result in an explosion of great energy and and visuals. So we're always thinking about that, encouraging the artist to get up on those ladders and, you know, swing the, like, t shirts or some of them throw the single dollars out and make it rain. And, you know, they whatever they wanna do, like fire the spray can and kind of light it up with a which I don't endorse. They're very dangerous. But it's all happened.

You know, booze has been thrown out and people have got injured. Actually, you know, it's it's it's pretty rock and roll. There's been some bar fights in the crowd, kind of debates over crowd members saying left side's better than the right side, and people are a little bit too drunk and get a bit rowdy.

You

know, there was a bar fight in Kansas that was insane. Graffiti kind of beef sometimes comes into the room. I've seen fights with artists on stage. This was a probably a lot of the earlier day stuff. But sometimes I kind of miss that, you know.

I wanna go back to some of those, like, rawer, days of less curation, more kinda just go crazy. Yeah. Yeah. But that's all really important, you know. Again, getting that crowd pumped is is key.

Especially in the first 20 minutes, you wanna get them into it, just like any sports game. You you you and you wanna finish really strong as well. So I'm always telling the artist to think about it as a freestyle rap battle. Like, what would, you know, what would they do? They would obviously drop the punch and the killer line in that last 10 seconds.

So think about it visually. Don't speed off too fast, and and finish a piece in 70 minutes and do nothing for the last 20, because I've seen many artists that are absolute legends, lose battles because they've got nothing else to do, and it it just falls flat. But if you can save a space and drop the punch line, you know, visually or put some words up that just really slays the other side, then that can just kill it and get you all the votes in in that split second. So

Yeah. I love that. This this this this posturing thing is this bravado thing. You know, as you're describing it, it's it's it's just it's just caramel, so what have you. I'm like, this is this is amazing.

And I almost wanna see someone just doing push ups between, you know, like, doing their doing their painting on there because it's just like, I love that energy. It's it it takes it back. And, you know, as you you touched on sort of, you know, what that competition may have looked like back in the day and sort of, you know, where it's at now. All of it is good because it's all competition, but, you know, when you think about things going viral, I I look at versus, you know, the rap battles, like your catalog versus my catalog, that Dipset versus, Locke's one, it was just it was a lot of a lot of s talking, you know. It was it was there.

It's just like they all got hits, they all they all talented, but it's just something about the way that one was playing to the crowd that elevates to a way that it's just like, okay. I'm in this now. I'm on stage with you. I'm part of your your performance now.

Yeah. Yeah. The verses is a massive reference for us as well, and we luckily got Rolling Stone Magazine, actually dropped us. It's on our Instagram, but they dropped us the headline that it said we were the verses of the art world, which is like a $1,000,000 headline. You know, we couldn't ask for a back, quote.

And, Swizz actually reached out, DMed us a few times, saying he loved the show. So, you know, watch this space. Maybe there'll be something down the down the line. But, yeah, that that that is it. It's it's kinda there's the egos, the personalities in the art world and the music world, that's all really important for us too.

Like, we wanna bring all that to the stage in in the fun funnest way. You know, we don't wanna create a Yeah. An intense, like, serious situation. It is all fun and games at the end of the day. Bragging rights, win or lose.

There is money on the line sometimes, so, you know, it does get serious. But, competition for me also means collaboration. It always did from the start. Like, 2 artists going head to head, is an it's an it's a battle. But, ultimately, you stand back and look at the piece afterwards, and it's one wall where 2 artists have come together and there's that, like, invisible middle line where they've kind of met there and kind of blended and had to, like, find, like, a way to work together.

Normally, the best walls are those that where they kind of communicate in that last few minutes to make, this, like, beautiful one, like, one canvas. So collaboration, you know, bringing artists together for the first time, making new friends on stage, all of that stuff happens. And I think that's part of the magic to the show. So many artists that are big, big names now have reminded me that they met, a lot of their, I suppose, artist network at Sequels either in the crowd or on stage. And, you know, we kind of maybe we get credited sometimes by artists for putting them in a in a vulnerable space.

You know, kinda creating that pressure cooker most artists wouldn't normally imagine being in, but getting on stage and, like, finding that confidence and that newfound skill to actually do an improv freestyle piece. It's it's different from what you're gonna see on Instagram for a curated, you know, social timeline or stories. You're not gonna see the same, like Ron English, for example. Right? He's like this amazing fine artist, absolute legend, has battled before.

But Ron in secret walls, maybe with 2 beers in him, is very different from Ron in a gallery where he's had 3 months to paint an oil canvas, like, piece that's photo realistic. You're not gonna get the same stuff, but I think that's kind of what makes it even more, like, inspiring. You you get to see some of your heroes that that most people only ever see through the Internet actually live on stage, sweating, carving out something that, again, isn't really their signature piece, but they're having a lot of fun doing it.

I love that. And I got one last question I wanna hit you with, and I I definitely wanna comment on that piece just lastly. You when you said that, that last part there, kind of seeing, like, you know, artists that comes from maybe this realm was known in in this way, maybe changing the environment they're at, and you're seeing them. I I I think of when you see, like, an NBA player in basketball, and then they're going to, like, Rucker Park and they're doing a street ball thing. It's like, you you can slam dunk.

Like, you you shoot threes now. You're, oh, you're really aggressive defensively, which looks very different to them playing in the in the under the big lights. So that's a really and it gives a more well rounded, understanding of sort of this, this this artist or this basketball plan is the the example I was providing. So, yeah, that's that's really cool. I think it gives a well roundedness there.

So this is the last question I got for you. That's a real question because I got some rapid fire questions for you. But, the so the art of competition tour, let's sets and I know that's what's coming up. It's, coming up this fall very soon. So Yeah.

Let's talk about it. You know, what's in store for this year's competition? Were you excited about? Give us the rundown. Yeah.

Yeah. So we went on tour after COVID, in 22. It's called support your local artist tour. That's what we always shout for 20, 20 years. You know?

That's that's our thing. So we got out on an RV bus, did 30 cities in 65, 70 days, 15000 miles. Nearly killed ourselves, like, driving this bus, city to city. Had, like, 24 hours in each city. Bowled.

Got back on the bus, drove to the next one. So this time, learning what was crazy and what we'd never want to do again, is we want to go back on tour again. But this time, we fly and fly out. And also, what we realized is we need more time in the city to actually engage with the local community outside of the actual party. Because, obviously, at the party, you're working, and you get a few minutes with people to to have a conversation while you're kind of stressfully trying to produce the show.

So we're actually committing, 3 days to each market. We'll be there for 5, basically. But 3 days where we're activating. We're gonna do an academy session that essentially is everyone's welcome, whether you're an artist or not. Come, kind of, drink and draw, you know.

Again, kids as well. So, you know, I don't wanna say booze. This will be a, an all ages event where kids and we we get a lot of kids coming to our LA Academy shows. We'll show up, 10 year olds with their parents, and just doodle with us for 2 hours, and, like, learn a few tricks. And we'll have that hosted by an artist.

And then we're also gonna do an artist dinner with, kind of key people in each city that we are working with and also just wanna get to know. So there'd be this moment where we just break bread and and, know, spend an evening with those guys. And then we'll be doing, you know, obviously, the big main battle in each each city. So, in different rooms. So it could be warehouses, clubs, bars, trying to think, photo studios.

We're kinda just popping up in random spaces, trying to keep people on their toes. This time, it's 12 cities starting in Los Angeles, as you said. So, yeah, it starts soon. It's It's gonna be the 27th September. It's Surgeon Studios, which is a beautiful space.

Obviously, that guy has, created an absolute empire over there. But, we're taking over his, basketball court, which is full size, and we'll be creating a battle kind of set up on that basketball court, which would be the first for us. So really excited about that to to start there in our hometown. And then we jump to Denver for the Mural Festival, and then we go to Phoenix, and then we just keep moving all the way, into, you know, the East Coast. I wish Baltimore was on the list, but maybe we can add it, you know, as a last minute bonus book.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That sounds amazing. And even if you're, you know, you don't make it over here or what have you, if you're in this zone, I in this this coast, I'm totally pulling up. Like, this sounds, like, amazing.

And, congratulations, like and, you know, putting together a lot of lot of time, a lot of effort in making it happen. So shout out to you and shout out to Secret Walls.

Yeah. No. I appreciate that. Yeah. The art competition, again, perfect title for us.

We actually we've been sitting on that one for a while. We just trademarked it because it felt great. So we just got that one, like, sorted. And it felt like a good banner to go back out again and just party with the people and, meet some new folks. Again, try to bring in new artists, as we always do, to the stages.

So there'd be a mixture of kind of team battles, 1 on ones, 3 on threes, 6 on sixes. Sometimes, we've got 10 on tens. So, yeah, you'll you'll see a bit of a mix on our Instagram as we kinda travel the country. But, yeah, we'd love to get you to one of the shows. I'm thinking, you know, you should probably look at the Atlanta one, which I think is like the last show on tour.

That's gonna be a huge event that we haven't really announced the details of yet. But it's gonna be involving Greg Mike, who's an absolute legend down there, in his new, let's let's convert a church space, that's, I think opens next week. So, yeah, we'll be taking that thing over, which should be dope.

Sounds really cool. It's really cool. And, you know, so I wanna I wanna move into the rapid fire questions, and, and then, we'll we'll plug one more time at the the end because I think it's always important to just remind folks yet again. But so I got 4 rapid fire questions for you and Okay. Quick answers.

You know, you don't wanna overthink these. So I read that you used art as your first language. I read that somewhere. Do you speak other languages?

Yeah. I don't, actually. I my my wife's Cuban, so she speaks Spanish. She's, you know, first language. But she grew up in the States.

But my I have a 4 year old, and, her mom lives with us. So she only speaks Spanish. So there's a lot of Spanish in my house, and I embarrassingly don't speak Spanish. And my little kid that's 4 probably knows more than me. Like, he he's, you know, sucking it all up.

So I'm gonna apologize to the family. But, yeah, I'm trying I'm trying to learn. I need to get back on that Duolingo and, catch up.

I I just hit a year on Duolingo, doing Japanese. So, it's it's something.

I know that wasn't a rapid question answer, but, yeah, I also just adding to that length of an answer, I actually did learn Japanese at college because I went to Japan about 10 times in my early twenties and, was doing really well, and then stopped going and just forgot everything. So not the best at languages, but I'm gonna keep trying.

Here's the here's the next one I got for you. Earlier you mentioned beans on toast. What do you what do you currently eat now? What is your go to meal nowadays?

Beans on toast. Yeah. I love beans on toast. I definitely I mean, I miss English foods, and I'm back in the UK right now for a week. So I've been deaf I've been pigging out in the pubs, you know, just like a good steak pie, you know, or fish on chips fish and chips.

Pretty standard stuff. I know the UK gets a bad rep for our cuisine, but if you go to a good good pub and get a good, well cooked homemade pie with a lot of gravy, which, again, the wife laughs at because that she's like, why do British people pour all this sauce on it? But, yeah, the more sauce, the better. That's great.

In your view, what is the most important ingredient in building and and thriving in an art community?

I think it's the, friendship circle, really. I think it's networking. Right? So it's you can be the most talented artist in the world, but if you're not out there banging the drum and making friends, then you're probably gonna limit yourself on on how high you fly, basically. So I know that social media is there now, and you can DM everyone.

But, I think maybe I'm, again, old school, but I still think, like, you have to literally tread the streets. Like what you were saying, like, walk the streets and walk into all those galleries, go to every party and space that inspires you, and just meet the people. So, yeah, I think it's that it's it's that kind of contact book of of people you can call on for advice and mentorship and, yeah, just an opportunity.

Great. This is the last one I gotta ask. You know, sports, we we we touched on a little bit. So I gotta ask, what's your team? What do you support?

We're in the football soccer world. I'm a Manchester United fan, and they are doing terribly, for the last, like, 10 years. But historically, I don't know. I'm not like I don't follow American sports too much, but is it what's a what's a kind of a team in the same space that historically won everything, but these days just suck? What's that in the basketball world?

Is that

It it one could say, maybe the Bulls? Maybe the Lakers? Yeah.

Yeah. There you go. It's probably the Bulls. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. So Manchester United won the title 10 years in a row, and we won the European Cup and everything. But these days, we we still got all the money. We just can't figure out how to win. It's it's embarrassing.

But I still love Manchester United. And if they're if anyone's listening from the club, you know, I still support them. And I sit painfully watching each game, hoping for a better day.

That's great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you for, indulging me, and, thank you for for being a part of this podcast. It was, truly a treat to, to chat with you.

So there's one more thing I wanna do in these these final moments. I wanna invite and encourage you to share with the listeners, social media, the secret walls website, all of the information they need to know to be dipped and know about the art of competition tour, everything. The floor is yours.

Yeah. Yeah. No. I suppose I'll keep it simple. Tour starts end of September.

We will be out there every weekend kind of in a new city, so just tune in. Follow Secret Wars. Probably Instagram is our best, most active channel. So just jump in there at Secret Wars. And, feel free to DM us if you're an artist, if you want a battle.

The slots are pretty much filled for this tour. But, again, we were always looking for new talent for the next opportunity. So, for any creative out there, especially in Baltimore, you know, we need to find some artists there. So hit us up. There's a sign up page on our website.

Drop your details in there. And, yeah, we'd love to to meet anyone that that appreciates what we do.

And there you have it, folks. I wanna again thank Terry Guy from Secret Walls for coming on and spending some time with me. And for Terry Guy, I'm Rob Lee saying that there's art, culture, and community in and around your neck of the woods. You've just gotta look for it.