Interviewing the Eshayz Behind Cult Game 'Big City Earnerz'

There’s a moment during the fifth VB stubby when you dip into glossy-eyed nostalgia. This happened to me late last night, when I heard the opening line (“dogs in the city trynna stop a lad from shining ay!” ) from Big City Earnerz, a game made by Kharniclassix especially for eshayz. Eshay is, among other things, a synonym for members of the Australian graffiti subculture, often otherwise referred to as “lads”.

When I was 14, we travelled on the train for a school excursion that required us to navigate the city on our own. When we stopped at Richmond station, four teenage lads hopped on, all dressed in brands hijacked by graffers: Air Max TN’s, striped Nautica polos, Lacoste t-shirts and Sergio Tacchini parachutes. Their caps were raised high and their rattys were plaited low.

One of the boys cupped his hand around the speaker of his Nokia brick, while the others rapped along: “Drink that long neck and watch the world turn, sink into the middle bitch can you feel Hells burn.” When we approached Flinders Street, all four boys walked to opposite ends of the carriage, and with sprawling urban calligraphy frantically tagged their place in the Melbourne underbelly. A man in a suit scoffed at them, and two girls rushing to university covered their mouths in disbelief.

These railway bandits represent a subculture that flourished within the graffiti community. With a strong emphasis on expression—in their street art, Aussie hip hop, “fresh” fashion and pig latin vernacular—these crews of social deviants found solace through a shared appreciation of signs, language and art. But this is not how the rest of Australia judges them.

The general community think of lads as a drug-riddled nuisance with a thirst for violence. Big City Earnerz uses satire to highlight aspects of eshay culture that people either laugh at or appropriate.

VICE sat down with Kharniclassix to talk about Big City Earnerz and the re-emergence of lad culture in 2018.

VICE: What do you think is the sickest thing about "lad" culture?

Kharniclassix: How it was so hated, then became so incorporated and fashionable. Man, people really hated TNs, and now every Tom, Dick and Harry runs in them. First they hate, then they imitate. Haha.

I wouldn't say I was ever full blown eshay. That's a full on lifestyle. I always looked up to the earners, not the sketchy op shop polo lads. That's where things get mixed up, people think “lad” and they think 13-year-old dero kids on the trains. I think of the older G'z . An old writer once said; "You gotta be fresh to paint fresh," and that was legit the case, the illest writers were always the freshest dressed too. In my book you’ve got to have it all: fresh handstyles, fresh throwies, fresh pieces and fresh garms. You can't just have one.

Mind you this is in the days before "kick" shops. Back then, if someone was wearing 90s or TNs or Tailwinds, they 100 percent graffed or listened to hip-hop. Now everyone's mums are rockin’ that shit and they’ve become the normal attire.

Sum up “Big City Earnerz” in a sentence.

The diatribe of an Aussie battler trying to survive and get on, against all odds.

What inspired the story-line?

The life cycle, the endless earn. The game is just that, a never-ending cycle of drugs, cops and booze. I'm glad to say that I was able to get out of [that world], but it's real. I think the best satire is real.

What motivated you to create the best video game ever?

My friend and I were talking about games on phones, and me being my cocky self said I could make the best game ever, the eshest game ever. He said I couldn't do it. I’d never made a game before but I knew how to make music and draw, so I thought the rest couldn't be that hard to learn.

I ended up paying some dude in India $14 to code a basic game, and I just did all the art, music and tweaked the guy’s code a little bit. And that was it really, all Microsoft Paint and Fruity Loops studio. And the code in Notepad! Haha.

I come from a graff and hip hop background. I've always wanted to make something that resonates with a community that I thought was largely overlooked. I always thought Australia runs on satire; whether it’s Dame Edna or Full Frontal, I grew up taking the piss. I wanted to bring those two elements together.

Tell us about your involvement in the scene.

Well I came into the scene through skating, which turned to graff and from there I just met people along the way. This was before Instagram and all that shit, so I got known around the area with my homie Muscles who took me in and showed me the ropes. I started making beats for people in 2010 and since then it just grew. I always thought of myself as a producer but I think I became more known for just hanging around and graffing.

Who did you make the game for, lads or eshays?

Lads bro! Eshays don't care about that shit, it's the lads that are avidly seeking eshay shit. But at the same time I put all real graff in the last game because I wanted to educate the kids about real fresh graff culture. Eshays are the shotcallers and lads are the young kids trying to come up. Eshays are the poets, lads are the rappers. Banjo Patterson is on the 10 dollar bill bro. Anjobay attersonpay.

But in the end, I have to say it's mostly Sydney’s influence. Melbourne didn't have this stuff. It was the homogenisation of Melbourne and Sydney graff crews throughout the 2000s that made it happen in Melbourne.

How does it make you feel now that rich kids have been appropriating lad culture, whilst simultaneously mocking it?

The thing that annoys me is people appropriating the style and not giving any homage. A lot of rich kids kinda know what they’re jacking because they’ve done some homework on writers but the worst is the Brunswick hipster jacking the TNs. You can't listen to fucking John Butler Trio or whatever they’re listening too and rock TNs, that's horrendous.

It is what it is. All things change. I think it's just that everyone wishes they were against the grain, but they’re not. These days, dudes are getting their dick sucked for rocking some lava TNs. But in saying that I was about John Deere and polo and no one’s rocking John Deere yet so I'm still in the clear.

Some people might think the game is a piss take of the culture.

Nah, fuck ‘em. Because straight up, if they can't see the reality then they don't know what they’re talking about. I haven't had one person say it was wack or not a good look for the scene. Everyone loves seeing themselves represented in a larger media context. A fuckin’ video game can do lots man. I thought I was never gonna get pussy until Tony Hawk 2 dropped.

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