Maverick ZINE — Tattoo Culture, Art & Artist Stories

There's AA off shotgun under my station if anything pops off just shoot first and ask questions later he's like you're in the wild west now oh my God that was my first day in Vegas and I was like I don't know what I just walked into it was running with the devil and it was like 101° at the start of it so it was at 6:00 a.m. I started running and I did 50 mil in the desert yeah it's funny cuz if I see other people do it I'm like oh that's really fun but when I go to do it I'm like but I I feel dumb doing it like even though I love watching it welcome to sporty local tattoo this is Austin Spencer and today I'm super excited about a longtime buddy of mine fantastic local tattoo an accomplished marathon runner yeah health nut rock climber traveler uh an allaround fantastic kind dude did I say fantastic twice you never say yeah I know I think so so welcome Nick bones he's my dude so basically what we do we just kind of get into the nitty-gritty I like learning about people's past I love how all of us have these unique weird funky stories about how the hell we got into this weird ass industry and how we survived what makes us unique and you have so many fun things to offer and I've always admired like your ability to stay in one place focus on your Niche you're never afraid to grow and go so I don't know I just kind of want to hear a little bit about like where you came from you started at Tattooing in Las Vegas right or no uh I started I did my apprenticeship in Ohio so I

learned in Ohio and then I moved to Vegas as soon as I was done with my basically were you wen at truth and Triumph right or no no no it was it was pre- truth and Triumph at the time truth and Triumph was called smart bomb but I learned in Oxford Ohio okay um so I grew up in a small town in Ohio in Middletown Ohio yeah uh which was kind of just the middle of Cincinnati and Dayton so it's like yeah like a suburb um and then drive I went to school in a farm suburb of that small town okay so like yeah so I was definitely like the weird kid in high school who just I did good in school but I just didn't click with anybody and so I would just kind of stick to myself and like maybe three or four people and I would just like hang out and draw and we were all like the punk rock kids in the small area yeah um and then as I got older I always I was drawing my whole life as soon as I was like holding a pencil I was trying to draw things and always upset obessed with cartoons and comic books and I thought I wanted to do something in that field growing up and then I remember watching a documentary about like how Disney cartoons are made and I was like this looks terrible like unless you're the man who's designing it like you're just the Middler like a fact and you just like they give you the key frames and you draw all the middle frames and I was like oh I don't want to do that at all yeah and so I was like well maybe I'll be maybe comics and I was like looked into that and I was like

well that's really hard to get into and so I kind of was just like the Arts in small towns aren't super supported yeah so the whole time I was thinking about wanting to be an artist like you know like everybody around me is like well what factor are you going to work at while you draw you know like that's basically your only option in that small town and so I was just like well I'm not going to do that but I don't know what to do with art and then as I got later in high school I started you know found myself in the punk rock community and people would come to me be like hey can you design this tattoo for me like I have an idea for a tattoo and so I would draw their tattoos and then go with them while they got it tattooed and I was like wait

why are you paying this dude for yart that's my story dude that's right I didn't know that and so I was like okay I really want to get an apprenticeship and I had a friend who was a piercer at a shop and so I reached out to him we played music together and I was like hey I really want to get an apprenticeship I want to do this right like I don't want to just get stuff in tattoo a home and and at the time this is 2003 2004 like it was hard to get stuff like you had to get it send to a tattoo shop like cam or you know like they wouldn't just send to a house at the time yeah yeah and so I was like well I really want to get an apprenticeship like I don't know what to do and so I went and talked to the owner of that shop and he was going to Apprentice me and I didn't know anybody in tattooing at the time and there were two tattoo shops in my town no tattoos are sell or anything like yeah I had yeah I'd not gotten any tattoos at this point like and so was he intimidating it was so intimidate yeah he was just big biker dude you know like it was trying to paint the picture there just standard the cliche B West's like biker tattoo shop yeah and uh I walk in and he's like you know I have like the little portfolio of Like Comics that I've drawn and stuff and he looked through and he was like yeah I can teach you and he was like tell you what actually trying to open my own tattoo shop so let me give you a list of supplies you have to buy for me and then I'll teach you to tattoo and I

was like okay and so he just like basically had me like buy everything to open a tattoo shop for him that was my way in like from Walmart or whatever from well it was like from cam oh yeah so it was just like yeah like here's here's the stuff you have to buy and I was like okay and so just like ordered a bunch of stuff and then I paid him I think it was at the time it was like $2,000 or something oh D which was a lot of money when you I was working yeah I was working at at like a gas station and stuff and so I was was like desperate so I was like okay well here took me so long and I finally saved out the money and gave it to him and then I just never heard from him again and so it was like three weeks later and I was like reached out to my friend I was like hey have you heard from this guy like I don't know what's going on and he goes like oh yeah he died of hairin Overdose holy like he took all your money and bought drugs and then and then passed away and I was like oh that's can I get my money back like I don't know what to do so I was just like oh okay and so that was my first attempt at apprenticeship and I was like I don't know what to do like I'm totally lost right now and so you ever told me that story before yeah and then I finally while I was doing that I ended up getting this leopard print tattooed on me by a friend of a friend who we ended up becoming like you know closer friends yeah and I was like well I guess I could Apprentice under this guy but like really he

wasn't very good yeah but I was like but I just need a way in yeah yeah yeah damn and so I talked to his shop and it was the same thing like okay it was $2,000 and I was like oh my God I have to do this all over again and so I was saving up the money and I had like I think 1,500 bucks or something and then one of my friends came to one of our punk rock shows and he had this like new tattoo like right on top of his arm and it was incredible it was like the best tto it I'd seen in this small town ever in my life and I was like where did you get that and he was like oh it's Oxford it was like an hour away from where we lived okay and I was like I'm going there tomorrow yeah and I literally went there the next day and I was like I saw this tattoo you did on my friend Brandon it was the best tattoo I've ever seen I need you to teach me the tattoo and he was super kind about it and it was same thing you know like you have to pay but you can just pay me an installments just come in and I'll teach you and it was a little twom man shop super tiny in this town Oxford called vertigo tattoo and they were both like exactly my Pace like they were like the owner used to own a comic book store and started tattooing and then the guy who taught me to tattoo who actually ended up like teaching me to tattoo was like super into comics and new school stuff and like that's reading books yeah so it was like meant to be like so then I ended up apprenticing there was where I finally like went

through with it yeah how long did you guys go along with that for it was my apprenticeship was like two and a half three years damn okay yeah it was like I mean it was I I started working there like the last year is but I don't I I still count as part of my yeah yeah did you do the whole like learn how to make needles of bar yeah yeah everything so that was the first year of my apprenticeship was just like you come in you count the needles if there's less than I think it was if there's less than 10 of them you make 20 of that needle okay and so you just like inventory system yeah so like you count and you're like okay there's nine I have to make 20 of those in the account and you're like there's nine of those too yeah were they reusing the needles at the time no the bars they were reusing the bars so you had to like unsolder the needle off the bar and then scrub it and then make that but yeah that was some weird yeah yeah looking back at it like it's so like oh just throw everything away it's eight cense it's fine yeah I mean I guess all of our dental tools and doctor tools back in the day were all reused too but it was yeah some people don't know about that yeah yeah so yeah it was all steel tubes all you know like I did the whole old school thing where you know you're in this little tiny closet with no ventilation like just yeah and solder like uh I did that way too much actually and I you know was in like the hardcore scene so it was like basketball shorts every day and

you'd be soldering and then you'd like Drop solder and go straight through your basketball shorts like okay well those are ruined D that's fun so like okay so you did all that for a while and your relationships are pretty good and healthy with those guys yeah was two guys were there yeah it was two guys there and so actually uh Kelly sson yeah he apprenticed there too so he came on while I was doing my Apprentice sh became the piercer at that shop oh wow and so he was piercing while I was tattooing and like we were both like apprenticing together basically yeah and then when I moved away he decided he wanted to start tattooing dude that's a second it's so weird sometimes the piercer you get it they got their foot in the door through piercing but sometimes they become some of the most phenomenal tattooers it's so crazy like so I was tattooing there was right it was probably a few months before I moved to Vegas and I didn't even know he drew he was going to it was an old college town and he was going to that college for uh metal smithing and so he was getting his master's degree and like being a metal Smith okay yeah and so I didn't even know he drew but I mean he's going to art school so like I but I just didn't put two and two together and I was tattooing and somebody walked in and wanted some random tattoo I don't remember what it was and he was like he came up and he was like can I draw it for you while you're tattooing for the next tattoo and I was like yeah I guess

like go ahead and then he shows it to me and it's the best dra and I was like what are you doing why are you piercing this doesn't make any s and so yeah once I moved away he ended up a fracing and okay and then now he is what he is fantastic tattooer um dude you have some you have some like Ohio ties to some really great tattooers too and were you you were my like link to Ohio right yeah and I've still to this day always I'm like why is everybody so nice from Ohio like everybody at least the ones we're meeting all the ones that I would be friends with like I mean Robbie Big M like Kelly Kelly's in Chicago now but he was yeah yeah like all those dudes like stall Nick Sall like yeah like all those dudes like it's really funny cuz they were all like Robbie I grew up with him like I knew him in Middle School Robbie Bower right yeah yeah Rob Wild on Instagram yeah uh but yeah we were good friends growing up and so we both he started tattooing right around the same time I did yeah now him and Josh have Rebel Rebel and in they're in Dayton yeah they're in proper Dayton downtown Dayton yeah and they in big me shops in Dayton out too okay so it he had one in Columbus and then he sold like that was like a partnership so that then you bought like a building and yeah beautiful yeah so cool go M we love you yeah dang dude that's sght so then how did you okay get the wild hair up your ass I remember your some of your stories are pretty goddamn funny about you moving to Vegas and like

yeah getting your your your initial like intro to a shop was on Las Vegas Boulevard on the North side which is even it's still kind of rough but back rough dud so while I was doing my apprenticeship I was dating a hair stylist who was in school and we both finished like right around the same time hair sty taters I know I yeah yeah it's trouble and so we just knew we wanted to leave Ohio like I was my whole life I was just like this isn't I love my friends yeah but I don't want to live here like everybody outside of my group I don't want to deal with yeah and I just knew that growing up like I just like I would ask I was raised by my aunt and I would ask her all time like we'd go on vacation like why are we going back yeah I don't understand

this like this is cool here let's stay here um and so I was just like I just want to live somewhere outside of Ohio and so my girlfriend at the time finished cosmetology school and I was like where do you want to go and so we literally just Googled like where does an Ohio cosmetology license transfer to oh okay and so that's where we pick it was New York or Nevada was like just straight no more continuing education like you can just transfer it and so we she was like well my mom is from Las Vegas I don't know anybody there but I know I technically have family there so let's go out there and so we literally like flew out it was the first year hell city was in Phoenix I don't know what year this7 okay yeah it was 2007 and so we flew to LA and

then drove to Phoenix just to go to Hell City cuz I was like I just want to like talk to some people from Vegas before I go there and get some advice and I want to go to pel City yeah and uh so we went there and just like that was the biggest convention like if you talk to people who went to it like that was like the convention you know I just went up and I talked to Jimmy litwalk cuz he was tattoo in here at the time and I was like hey what advice do you have like I'm I want to move to Las Vegas like where do I go and he had a few shops that he recommended he was like you just need to get experience like cuz I had my portfolio with me and and he was like you're your work's fine you just need experience like you just need to tattoo go somewhere busy don't worry about the name or like you know the reputation just get work and so he gave me a few places to go to and that was really cool like getting to talk to your Idols yeah no for sure he I've actually have little moments with him too where he's offered like GameChanger advice where like woke me up I was like oh yeah you're right I'm dumb I should be doing that yeah and so then we came up to Vegas and I went to like every shop I could think of I this was back in the days when there was I didn't have a smartphone so I just opened the phone book and just went through and called every tattoo shop like hey are you looking for an artist like I'm looking the move here and then I ended up calling one shop uh called absolute Inc

and I in there anymore Joey hefs was the artist there was Joey Vegas at the time okay he owns reverence that too now oh okay okay yeah yeah yeah yeah uh so he was the artist there no and so he was like hey come on down and I was like okay so I brought my portfolio and he was like yeah your work's okay like it's you're just out of your apprenticeship that's that's what your work looks like and he was like but we I mean we talked for like an hour just about how much I loved tattooing and I was like I just really want to get in a place where I can like continue to learn and like row and he was like okay when can you start and I was like I got to go to Ohio and pack all my stuff up and move back and I was like a month and he was like okay cool you got it like you're in and it was like Las Vegas Boulevard and Charleston I'm so excited like I got a job in Vegas on the Strip you know like I didn't know any better and so I fly back to Ohio and we're like starting to plan for like hey we have a month to pack everything up and figure everything out and find a place and the owner of that shop calls and he was like hey I heard Joey offered you a job and I was like yeah and he goes yeah he didn't have the right to do that he was like he's not the owner like he's just an artist here and I was like oh and he was like but he you know he explained who you are and how excited you were I'm going to give you a shot and I was like okay like I'll I'll take it and he was like but I need you here in

a week oh and so I was like I'm there like whatever I have to do and so we literally just sold we we had a PT Cruiser at the time and we packed up everything that fit in the PT Cruiser and sold everything that didn't fit yeah for like nothing and then just drove out and I get to to the shop he's like okay Joey's in jail that's why I needed you here so it's like he was wild back then yeah he was and it it was yeah it was like a whole thing but he so the hell was why he hired me was because he needed me to cover him while he was going to jail for 30 days oh okay and so that's literally how I got my job in in Las Vegas is because Joey was going to jail and you jumped right in there as the main artist yeah like it the owner dude a tattooer at the time he was a tatto but he was never there oh okay and so literally my first day tattoing outside of my apprenticeship at this like nerdy comic book owned you know like where everybody was on the same page like I show up and I there's one artist who it was like 10 to six one artist and then 6 to 2: a.m. and I was the 6 to 2 a.m. guy oh yeah and I show up at 5: to get set up and everything and the dude was like oh you're here I'm going to take off and literally just left me at the shop alone by myself my very first day my God in the in a rough ass neighborhood in a rough neighborhood like it was it's still real wild there and when that door opens you're almost excited but terrified at the same time yeah yeah I'm like which one's it going

to be how's this going to go like I don't really know I don't want to buy meth or stolen shopping cart TV and at the time I had dreadlocks like down to here oh yeah so everybody who walked by cuz it was before weed was legal and they would walk in and be like hey man where can get some weed I'm like I'm straight Ed like I don't know like this is deceiving I know and they would just be like no you can I'm cool man you can tell me and I'm like I don't know man like I genuinely don't know I've been here for a day yeah yeah yeah yeah and so I'm I walk in the door the guy leaves and then we just start getting walk-ins and I just tattoo all night and it's like literally like 2 2:30 and I'm finally finishing my last tattoo and the owner calls and he was like how was your first day and I was like scary terrified and he was like oh man do you own a gun I was like no I've never even touched one why are you asking damn and he's like well there's a s shotgun under my station if anything pops off just shoot first and ask questions later and he's like you're in the wild west now oh my God that was my first day in Vegas and I was like I don't know what I just walked into oh my God so that was my first day Tattooing in pegas yeah and then it got progressively weirder I'm sure there's some good walk-ins there yeah there were good walk-ins and then by the time I was there for like a year year and a half and Joey had left at this point so it was like oh okay just me and like one other artist

and like it ended up getting super weird with that owner like I'd never dealt with somebody who was on drugs before oh oh he himself was yeah yeah and so like I never experienced like what meth does to a person's mind speaker that's not good that's sound good and so he comes in one day and he's just like he had fired everybody except for me like I was literally the only artist and so I would just at that time I started working like new into midnight like I was just there all day like every day and I was just like I don't is this normal like I don't know this doesn't seem normal but I don't know what else to do so he had fired everybody and then he fired The Apprentice like the day before I don't know why there was no imprest there anyway and he comes in he's like I figured it out I was like what' you figure out and he had fully convinced himself that I was a spy from another tattoo shop down the street because he found a business card after we closed like that shop had just walked by and like stuck a business card on our like gate yeah and he that convinced him that I was a spy from another tattoo shop sent here to steal his identity and take over his tattoo shop and he knows that the owner of that shop just recently bought the house that he's renting and he's going to kick him out of his house and his shop and take over everything all at once and meanwhile I'm just like taking my pictures off the wall and just putting them on my toolbox like cool man I'm glad figured it

out you want to help me load this up in my car cuz I'm never going to talk to you again Fu ow bro yeah so that was the last your last day there that was my last day nothing lined up you were just like no it was that was on a Friday and I was just like I'm taking the weekend off and then I'll figure it out on Monday like I don't know what's going to happen how would yeah so he he was just doing the old school like pay you out every day like cash day yeah it was cash only and then I just would do a drop every day and just keep the cash like that I made did you guys even write like a anything on slips or anything or it was just literally like it was on the envelope it was like here's how much is in here like yeah it wasn't even like or anything so yeah I think it was just literally like here's $600 and he just get high and come in and try to open that box like try to get whatever out of it God damn people are wild it's so crazy how people can run businesses like that like it's hard enough to run it sober and so I showed up and it was a the shop had been there for 10 years and so I was like oh this is well established you know and it was probably you know the first five six years he was probably like on it yeah and then by the time I was there like by the time I left there like he tattooed once a month you know damn so but I had really cool experiences with that guy up till that point yeah yeah yeah like that was who he had the mobile tattoo truck so we would go to bike

rallies and I would tattoo with him like one the one summer I was there like we went and tattooed in Hollister we went and tattooed up in like Northern California we went and did Sturgis together like we did Reno like we did we would travel around in this like Snap-on truck that he turned into a tattoo shop and I was like this is the coolest experience ever yeah that's wild and so we got super close like over that and then just one day it just went downhill did you tour with bands back in the day or you were in music and okay so you kind of were accustomed to that type of Lifestyle just kind of adapted it to like a new thing where you can make cash yeah I always had a hard time like imagining you with these bikers cuz you're oh it was the worst yeah I did not fit in at all just clean C yeah I I'm I'm good at I'm kind of a chameleon where I can kind of just mesh with anything but like that was definitely like I know how to talk to them the way they want to be talked to but it's so like out of my comfort zone for and you you're good at taking it as it comes at you like all the weird you know I think is a skill set in its own just being around all those people and not letting it kind of phase you and just run off yeah just roll right back with it you know just get through whatever bro like yeah but I think that's why I do so good at Tattooing in like Street shop situations is because I can when somebody walks in I can be like this is how this person wants me to talk to them

yeah and then I can just sell myself the way they want to be talked to and and just show genuine interest in whatever you know just like you like learning so yeah I know a little bit about everything so when somebody walks in I'm like I know what that's from and I know this and we can like relate really quick which is dude it's so it's so hard for some people and some people don't even attempt you know like the headphone generation or whatever you want to call people are just like I'm the best and then they take their headphones off and just it's this much yeah go over there okay but there yeah there I feel like there's something lost there but that's just my Approach and my opinion genuinely the world we grew up in wasn't like that no you weren even allowed to be dude Heen for if I if I was in a shop I had headphones on yeah and I I wasn't listening to this also we would have to have a cord mixed up in other cords yeah and the Slayer album that's been on repeat for 14 hours straight and my boss is a tweaker not a tweaker but definely some traits I'm like okay man whatever you want to call yourself like the Slayer for 14 hours is exhausting tattooing under like neon light and like you're like is this blue or is this green I don't know what's going on to read the bottle you're like okay I guess teal and and tattooing around bikers was pretty wild yeah but so it's like so much more pleasant tattooing around your tribe nowadays yeah yeah it's definitely it's one of those things

where it was like I'm so glad I have the experience because now I know what I don't want to ever do again I had the opportunity to open up small shops inside of tattoo or Harley dealerships and I was like I'm good yeah just I don't really care about the money I don't want to that doesn't sound appealing try to find tattooers that want to sit there and do Harley shields on tourist all day long cuz that's the hardest tattoo ever made you've ever tattooed it's like 700 perfectly parallel lines and I've it up more than one time for you're like you know be cool is if we shaded half these letters and then also the background can we make this out of stones so that was my goto for every make it out of stone be so unique you would be so different from everybody yeah except for the other tin that I did exactly like this that was always after I blew out the line the line just didn't be bold away WIP they or they reach for something and you're like and you're like yeah you know what actually it's so now you don't even have a choice you're good dude this is really cool man nobody has this didn't you end up going into the onto the strip after that like so you you were like on the strip and not in a casino back in the day uh so I went to like the diversity family of shops for a little bit so I worked at tattoo heaven for okay like which was just a little closer to the yeah yeah and so I did that wild it that was even crazier that was like Sahara that's where they filmed all bum fight

stuff like all those walk by all the time yeah and so bu lock themselves in there in your shop and yeah it's and that was that was the first time I really experienced like Cutthroat tattooers where they were just like the rule is the first artist that shows up gets the first Walkin and so they would show up like two hours early because they had a key and I didn't and I'm like what how am I supposed to get that leg up and so they would take the first walk in and then the next person who walked in they' be like oh this is my appointment I'm like you had an appointment and you still took the first Walkin and then you'd find out that wasn't actually an appointment that was just another Walkin they just walked up like they knew them and then it was like yeah that so that was the first time I really experienced that I was like yeah I thought you're supposed to like work with your friends like so know yeah yeah yeah those are why I never actually got to work in those shops but I was aware of I worked in a shop that was similar but it wasn't as aggressive like on the Strip it was all go like you grab that money dude it was like one of the more motivating uh motivated tattooer cultures though yeah was there early yeah yeah they don't even want to get up and go walk in go walk to talk to the walkin just like yeah so yeah so I was there for a little while not I didn't last long cuz I didn't didn't have the right mentality for it like like I just want to be friendly with my co-workers

and like hang out and like this isn't for me and so then I left there and went inside the Riviera back when the Riviera was there there was a Three Lions tattoo shop in there yeah yeah and that's where that's where I met like most of the people who I'm still friends with in Vegas today yeah cuz a lot of they were cranking out a lot of apprentices it was Apprentice Factory for sure but all the apprentices they picked just happened to Inc yeah so it was like Tyson Kelsey Holly uh Jessie uh Dracula oh yeah yeah yeah um Leah Ryan gray like all the people in Vegas like they were all the apprentices at that shop like it was crazy it was like so much talent like in the apprentices yeah and that was a little tiny tattoo shop on the casino floor which was was it more one one of the first ones that were in the casinos it was early it was yeah yeah so I mean there was the Starlight okay and then what was the one of the Palms yeah hard hting HT so it was Harden Huntington hard Huntington was the first yeah yeah yeah and then that was like one of the first ones and it was just it was a weird culture but it was like it was cool and then that's where I started working with Mike okay M Mr Bigs yeah and the owner of that shop was like an entrepreneur himself too right did he like have that and a bar and a yeah he had a PB and something else like he had he the one that created the after care yeah yeah yeah so he did yeah he had an Aftercare he before that he had like a suntan lotion and

then he like just pivoted into Aftercare once he got into tattooing and I don't know what he's doing now but he's always has like three or four no a character yeah and he kind of let you guys do whatever the you want in that shop yeah he didn't know what it was supposed to be like okay you know like he didn't he didn't understand like what a tattoo shop was supposed to be run like he's like oh it's probably just chaos go ahead and do whatever you want yeah and so that was I had met Mike through first Friday Mike bigs yeah through first Friday I'd done one of his group art shows like the month that I moved here oh cool and I was just like this dude's art is incredible I just want to be friends with him yeah and so I did an art like just the the most terrible acrylic painting ever yeah like but it was sci-fi themed and whatever and then it's funny at he came to my 40th birthday last month and gave me that painting back that was his present he had kept it all this time that's funny but I had met him through that and then I bought another painting off of him while I was working at that shop and he was like yeah I just started tattooing a little bit with my cousin and I was like you should come work with me yeah I had no right there were like qualifications to be able to hire him but I was just like you should come work with me and so then him and I just like worked the same schedule and just like became best friends like over like the year that he worked there with me yeah you

got any like funny or weird stories that pop off about just the interactions with clients there cuz I I remember you guys telling me just like a lot of weird different cultures that came through there because of like a trade show would be in town be like a bunch of pool players over yeah so yeah we would do just flash sheets based on whatever the convention was yeah that's a great idea and just like so Defcon the hacker convention would come through and like we'd have a bunch of nerdy art up and like there would be a teachers convention and we would just do a bunch of like apples and you know teacher typ Flash and it was just like you would know what convention was coming and you would just like draw to cater to them yeah and that was nobody's ideas but y'all like that just kind of like a culture that created inside within the artist y That's great yeah it was really cool yeah it was it was it wasn't a bad time it was just it was fine were you hours hours crazy there too or did you get on more of a regular schedule uh so I there it was long like it was open late you know like they actually because it was a casino they had to be open like X tox you know like whatever like time and so but me and Mike just worked the morning shift so we would do 10 to six oh yeah soad yeah all right cool and then from there did you come over to Studio 2 straight straight to Studio 21 yeah cuz you hired Mike oh yeah okay and then like cuz I knew Mike by growing up here in Las Vegas so yeah

and so he he came to me and he was like I'm so sorry but they're hiring me and like and at that time like I knew you guys were like you know like just from being in a Tattooing in Las Vegas like that was one of the shops you know and then uh he was like yeah they they asked me to come work they they asked me to come work with him and he was like super like afraid to tell me thinking that he's like betraying me like leaving me and I was like no dude that's awesome like that's the coolest thing ever like that's one of the big chops in Vegas like that's that's a big name you know and uh so he got there and then he would like call me like every week and be like hey we're doing an art show at this them you should come do cuz that was when we were doing the first Friday every month had the gallery yeah yeah yeah yeah and so he was like this is the theme for the art show just do a couple paintings and so I'd like do a couple paintings and come bring him like hey here's my art work good you know and then like I think it was like two or three months later I ended up working working there with you too jumped to him and we did 10 years together right 11 11 yeah 11 years damn that's impressive that's fun and that like Studio 21 is really where I honed everything yeah you know like that's where I was working with artists that were so much better than me so I was just like okay I can I one I got to step it up and two I can learn a lot from just like watching everybody and asking

questions and it was like real communal you know art shows together and stuff T yeah monthly art shows and we we we had a good habit of every single time there was like we if we weren't tattooing we it was just we would go to the back room and paint like yeah yeah the second you started painting of course and someone would walk in which is a good thing yeah or there would be like a rainy day type where we all would just paint like all afternoon yeah but that's what I mean all my best friends now I met you know there like swarm you know like he was there the whole time I was there basically and then Jason Paxman like so close to yeah yeah I could to get him on too yeah and then you know bigs obviously still really close with them that's fun we did a lot of fun things together when then we traveled at that time we were doing so you you took me back to Ohio the hell City there for tattoo that's we did we tattoo Fight Club yeah yeah and then we did like Boston and I sure we did did we do quite a bit together we did a couple yeah so I think we did like Austin or something remember yeah I was doing a lot at that time yeah and and we all kind of rotated out cuz not everybody but yeah I did I did a handful of conventions with you and do you do much conventions anymore or I do like one or two a year yeah yeah it's it's a lot the culture's changed down it is I I want to start doing more cuz I have like a two-year plan of as of this month our lease is up in two years so like we're

building out that camper van and I just want to like travel for like two years and just tattoo on the road yeah that's I super excited about that for you tell me yeah tell me about a little bit about that Vision cuz like you never lived like full-fledged like a vagabond yet right like no I mean in the bands you know when I was touring and stuff that was kind of like that but I've never like never in a way where it was affordable like where you can actually you know support yourself and stuff so so how you going to line up your I I'm still kind of I want to start doing more conventions now so that I can meet more people and make more connections yeah and that I can kind of plan for you know 2 years from now if I'm doing a bunch of conventions hopefully I meet enough people to do guest spots across like I just want to travel yeah like I love traveling and so I'm building out a massive Sprinter band right now I'm excited to see it yeah I I youve had it for a while project and now I have like now I made myself set a deadline like okay it has to be done by this day so I can finally like but yeah the so it's going to be fully livable like and I just want to do it's scary I mean change is always scary yeah but like it's scary to think like okay well I've spent my entire my real career in Vegas yeah so now to just be like okay well I have super steady clientele here but like now I have to leave so like I still I want to like you could work it into where you have like you

know you two and back down my plan is just like fill my book for like two weeks yeah and then as much as you absolutely love like rock climbing and stuff I'm assuming you want to go to some like epic spots so then maybe start dming all the shops in those areas and that way that kind of puts you there yeah and then you can get in there work go do your thing with the rock climbing and um jump back in the van and then maybe go to the next spot and the next spot yeah so I think with the technology that we have now where you can just like like advertise on Instagram in one GE location you know like I feel like that's going to help a lot it's always scary like change is always scary but I feel like now we can I can be like okay well here's our tour that we're going to do you know we'll be gone for two months and then we'll be back in Vegas for a couple weeks to tattoo everybody we're going to be here then here and then here and then here and then I'll just do you know advertised Instagram ads for those spots yeah and then just kind of show up at the shops yeah build your own I don't know if you have your own website but you should definely do yeah build your own website and then you know work on that mailer list and start just trying to like convince everybody to consistently check up on you through the stuff so yeah I'm I I love traveling is like my favorite thing in the world so I'm going to do a guest spot in Hawaii next okay the end of next month yeah yeah what what part uh

Wahoo okay yeah so I went and got tattooed out there like a month ago and then our friends that lived there wanted us to like house it for him and I was so I just reached out to the shop and I was like hey I got tattooed there I was hanging out with the owner like can I come tattoo and so I'm going to tattoo there for a week and then just chill for a week yeah that's tighted so that'll be a little tester you know what's weird I've never done a guest spot 20 I don't know how long I've been tattooing since what 2000 and I've never like I've just done conventions and then we I we opened up and I just our shop and I just was so busy so long and I never took advantage of that part of the culture which kind of was not a regret but like you know it just didn't work out for me in that way doesn't mean I can't do it in the future so I'm kind of hoping like I'm going to you know reput myself out there uncomfortable situations where um you know you're intimidated and you get to go in and work in these shops and work around good people and try to like revamp my tattooing and I think that's where a lot of growth in art and tattooing comes from is from putting yourself in places where you're scared or where you're nervous anything and everything right like every every anytime you do anything new it's you're not going to be the greatest at it but you could like study and practice and try like I don't know it's you got to do it though if you're not doing it then you're just stagnant and

that's no fun you're a learner you love to learn I love to learn yeah and I love to be scared and I love to like push myself and get outside of my comfort zone and yeah kind of what I want to talk to you too about you you talked about self-discipline and getting out of your comfort zone all that is like tell us like a little bit more about the you've always been an avid Runner and you were you into the like the multi-terrain courses or what do they call those like um yeah like the obstacle course races and stuff I did that's what actually got me into running was starting with those yeah so I started working at student 21 and I wasn't s i when I was younger I was always outside like being active and playing sports and stuff and then when I got to Vegas like I just like kind of that just took a backseat CU I was like okay I need to focus on learning how to tattoo and then I got to Studio 21 got comfortable started just eating a bunch of junk food like I've always I've been vegetarian since I was 8 years old but I was I was a Junk Food Vegetarian for a lot of it and so I was just getting lazy and eating kind of garbage food like fast food just whatever yeah and then I don't even know if he knows this but Jesse the tattooer that I tattooed with at Three Lions came in one time just to drop off some art for one of our art shows yeah and he just walks in and me and him were always like just always messed with each other and he just walks in he just looks me up and down he goes you

got fat and I didn't even like didn't even register you know yeah I was just like well I'm you know I'm stagnant and I'm not doing much and he literally just like looks me up and down he goes you got fat and like we always just messed with each other and I was like H and just laughed it off and he left and I was like oh my God I got fat like I've never like my whole life nobody's ever said that to me cuz I've always been skinny and so I was just like literally that next day I just had a pair of tennis shoes and I was like I'm going to see how far I can run and literally like the that he's the one who motivated me to start getting healthy and uh the truth hurts but most likely helps us um and I had gone vegan at that point and know how to do

it no I was just like okay well I just don't eat cheese yeah I don't like I don't know what else to do Fanny Pack full of Twizzlers you like a mullet and a fanny pack Twizzlers yeah you know junk food and so one of my friends I met through being vegan was like Hey we're doing the Spartan Race do you want to do it with like me and my daughter and I was like yeah absolutely I had no idea what it was I was just like yeah let's do it sign me up and so he did and then like it was like 4 weeks out he like sent me a link to it and I thought it was like a 5k Fun Run thing okay it was not no they're likeing you in the mud and yeah like it was crazy you're like climbing over these walls and like jumping into like ice baths and swimming underneath things and like I was like Oh I thought we were like running through some bubbles or something like I didn't know and so marshmallow yeah so from the from the time he sent me that link of what it was to the race was like 4 weeks and I was like okay it's an 8 mile race I didn't know this damn so I was like I need to add two miles every week to be able to run8 Miles and so literally like I couldn't run a mile at that point oh and so I just I realized my neighborhood was half a mile around and so I was like if I can run one of these I'll let myself walk the next one and so I just did that until by the time the race came around I was like up to eight miles like I ran eight miles like the week before that yeah that's great dude and then I did

that race and I was like that was the coolest thing I've ever done like that was like I feel accomplished right now yeah and so then I signed up for a 13 Mile one and then I signed then I like I did two years of like the obstacle course SL running and then I realized that running was like the thing that I was really in love with and so I just started just seeing how far I could go and so I started running a little bit more each time and then I signed up for a half Marathon which was 13 miles and so I was like okay let me see if I can do that and so I just I did it and I was like okay well I accomplished it and then I wanted to see how far I could go I was like wonder if I can do a full Marathon let's just see and so I started training for that and then I did a full Marathon uh in Scotland while I was there I wanted my first one to be like epic yeah and so we had this trip to Europe coming up and I was like I'm just going to see we have one weekend free I'm going to see if there are any marathons in Europe that time and so I was like okay well we can either go to Nottingham cuz there's a Robin Hood Marathon or we can go to Scotland for the Loch Ness Marathon whoa and so I just let my girlfriend at the time pick and so she was like let's go to Scotland so I ran the loch nest Marathon dang that's cool and it's still to this day my fastest marathon really my watch strap broke and I didn't know how fast I was going oh so you just so I just like pushing yourself picked some guy

who I was talking to at the start line and I was like all right well I'm just going to run with this guy and so I'm running and the M markers are just melting away and I'm like oh they must be kilometers like we're in Europe like they're probably kilometer markers yeah and so then we get to the 13.1 which is halfway and it has a clock and I was like oh I just did my fastest half marathon while running a marathon I need to slow down like I'm not going to be able to finish yeah and so it's still like my fast it was like 340 for my for my full Marathon dang and you've gone on to push even further right yeah so then did a couple 50ks which is like 33 miles and then I did a 50 mile out here in Vegas uh was the Running With the Devil yeah the one

in uh Death Valley uh no well this is in it's like level Canyon Okay um that one that's like my goal is death I think I learned about it three years it's like but yeah so the the one that I did was running with the devil and it was like 101° at the start of it so was at 6:00 a.m. I started running and I did 50 miles in the desert yeah which is how long did that take you cuz that's like all day right it ended up taking me like 12 hours cuz it was just so hot straight straight straight yeah just just running the whole time and then I was like okay well I did that and so I was like now I want to see if I can do a 100 mile and so I did uh last or the October before last I did 100 mile race 100 mile I yeah I did 100 miles yeah how does your body

how does your body take that it's mad yeah so it's it's honestly it's it's very physical but it's very mental yeah like I went into that race just I was like I just know I'm going to finish like you just have to know before you even start like I'm going to keep going until I finish even my training like I didn't train that far my longest training run was like 18 miles leading just did a lot of but I did a lot yeah so I would do like two a week I would do two long runs a week and then my short runs would be like 10 miles so like those would be short runs damn but yeah going into it I'm just like it's going to hurt it's going to suck it's going to be the worst pain you've ever that you've ever felt you just have to finish like I want to they don't they give you a belt buckle and so I was like I'm not leaving without that Bel yeah like I I don't even wear belts and so I just it was uh 20 mile Loops in the middle of the desert in Phoenix oh so you're seeing the same scenery too is that good or bad it was good for me I liked it so normally it's like washer style so you go forward then backwards then forward then backwards but it was just postco and so they didn't want people crossing pth that way and so they just did five flaps yeah five loops and so for me I like that because I'm like I know exactly by the second loop I have it memorized okay so I know exactly what to expect like okay there's a hill at the in around this curve like I can walk up that I can do this like I just

memorized it so but it was it was really neat because the first Loop was at Sunrise and the second Loop was like the heat of the day third Loop was like Sunset fourth Loop was middle of the night and then the fifth Loop was the sun coming up again oh my God so it was like it was a different Loop each time even though like it's the same path so it was really cool that's impressive dude it's really badass like I I I heard you did a big run but I didn't know it was like that and that was how long ago that was 21 okay October 21 okay yeah that's crazy when you're describing like what it was like it's almost it's so much like starting a big tattoo yeah yeah your first like back piece yeah going from just like baseball siiz tattoos to like a back

piece and you're just like oh my gosh I don't even know how to Teri getting one and drawing one too similar experiences it's not easier just to lay there that's you know as soon as that needle hits you and your ass clinches up or something you're like I have so much more to go yeah or starting a painting and feeling like it's horrible I mean it only thing I can think of like I obviously never ran more than a block but the idea of just knowing this is and I have to get through this like yeah you just have to be mentally tough like you've done it enough times to know you can get through it and it's just longer version which like sounds easier than things suck and you just have to push through like that's just how life is like one of one of our friends that ran the race with me was from there trained on that course like had her nutrition dialed in like oh I have to do this I have to do this I have to keep this pace I want to do this and blah blah blah and she was asking me and I was like I'm just going to run like I don't know like I grab some snacks I have a cooler and she was like laughing she was like what do you mean like what was your longest training run I was like 18 miles and she was like I did like 50 mil on this course like so that I would know everything and I was like I know up here I can finish like I'm now worried about not finishing I know I can do it because I've been through hard things and I know that on the other side I'll be happy yeah and so I can just

push through and then at like mile 55 she she dropped and she had like everything planned to the minute and like yeah and she just like was like crying like on the last Loop and she was like I just I'm in so much pain and I was like what you you signed up for 100 mile like there's going to be pain like you just have to like it's going to suck and then you have to push through and so it's it was one of those things where I was like I don't care how much pain I'm in on the other side of it I'm going to be happy and I know that's where my mind's going to be and I just have to do it and so yeah so I just like pushed through and finished and I love it and I did the whole thing dressed up like Luigi oh what yeah it was on Halloween weekend so that's awesome too you go into it like not taking it so serious and that maybe helps you get through things in life you know where I'm like I just you can't overthink This I Gotta I can't even act like I have anything to say that I'm like you I mean other than like running a business is exhausting and there's so many days where you come home and you may have feel like you held it together there but you're crying on the way home yeah you're devastated by everything going on and you're like thinking of every thing you can do to get out of it but you can't so yeah I guess I do have like you know like everything in my head when I start a project these days is like no it's it's like I'm not stopping until like I know I can do it like I'm I'm not

dumb I just know I have to work hard and through all the and even when you your pants yeah yeah I don't know why you told me one time you had to like run off into the bushes and poop oh dude that's a normal occurrence yeah yeah oh yeah your body is just like wants everything yeah it's like between M 7 and N just like I have to wrap like plan my route around a bathroom being between 7 and 9 like I just have to be able to get to a bathroom and sometimes you're out in the middle of the woods and you're like there's no bathroom but there's a bush over there and I'm just going to go over there and I'm going to finish this loop with no sock yeah oh damn yeah I just so those are yeah that's funny that's awesome dang so I don't know that's pretty impressive though and it's like that's one thing I've always like absolutely like loved about you is like your your self-discipline and like focus and getting that done is is always something you've been spectacular at it's really cool so thanks it's like really impressive not too many people can say that they've done that right how many people have really accomplished those 100 MERS not a lot so I read a statistic one time where it's like 1% of the population of the world will run a marathon okay SS right like maybe 1% of that percent will do 100 mile like it's such a niche small thing like it's not it's getting more popular now yeah I don't know like what the correlation between like suffering and putting herself through things that make

you suffer like being yeah but like but also like when things kind of suck like you want to be in charge of how much it sucks yeah and so I think that pushes people to do things like to the extreme a little bit more so it's like yeah things are kind of weird like you can't afford to buy a house right now gas is crazy expensive food is everything there Wars everywhere like everything's like stressful and everything sucks so I want to be in charge of what sucks and I'm going to run 100 miles then it'll suck for me but I'm doing it I'm in control of that I think that's like important for a lot of people certainly hell of a lot healthier than drinking smoking weed not smoking weed but smoking meth and trying to run a tattoo shop yeah and that's

I mean that just comes from like i' also I've never I've been straighted my whole life like I've never done any of that and that was from growing up with crazy chaos all over me too so I was was like well I've been through that so I can I can make it through this too yeah no yeah no I think that's wild yeah that kind of bring yeah I'm like still tripping I'm trying to imagine running off the side and uh taking a and then running another 75 miles yeah one thing too I've always like uh admired about you too is like you you are really good at a you're likable but you're good about jumping into whatever it is that you're doing and taking part in the communities that are a part of it you know so like with the dog culture you've you were always real good about being a part of like the Pug Rescue or the vegan culture you always had like built up a good community of people that practice the same kind of eating habits and as you and you guys all with and what comes with that is you're exposing yourself as a tattooer to all these different communities and you're able to build relationships and build clientele and always stay busy yeah which you know I think is really incredibly important like I don't I don't want to speak for you but I'm you know I'm I'm not like a world renowned tattoo or anything you know so I get out there and I talk to people and I meet them at the bar or I meet them at whatever like networks I was in car shows or you know just restaurants of like that I would go

to and I'm always willing to like just tell what I do for a living and say hi and talk about it and listen to them when they're giving me the whole long spiel and they're taking their shirt off in the middle of Target and show up their tits you know you're like what okay and just being like okay cool man here's my card come get me you know and not being that closed off like don't DM me ever you know kind of person and and which has kept you busy it's kept you successful yeah now you've been doing some real fun stuff with your social media which is a lot like newer free right like you really trying to dive in there like figure out that art form of like expressing yourself on social media I've always I've always loved just I mean comedy and just stuff like that and I've always just been too shy to like do it on social media and like at when Instagram started it was just pictures yeah you know we started we were early adopters and so there was like it was just okay well this is for tattoo pictures and that was all it was and I love that now what kind of branching out a little bit more where you can't express yourself and it doesn't you're not selling just your tattoos anymore you're selling yourself a little bit more and it's it's embarrassing and it's hard to reconcile that with being like a 40e old man and all of a sudden like okay well now I have these like and I still have like secondhand embarrassment of like looking at a phone and like talking about a thing yeah like it's

just it feels cringy it's funny cuz if I see other people do it I'm like oh that's really fun but when I go to do it I'm like but I I feel dumb doing it like even though I love watching it like so it's I'm really like struggling with that of like I still don't have hardly any videos where I talk to the camera it's just like captions that I point at yeah you know like I haven't got quite over the the like okay I'm going to speak to it now but like I'm I was almost there yeah you'll get there if you want to you know like it's there's also like ways to just express yourself through like you said the the nonverbal kind of video formats or whatever but yeah you've had some like success with some didn't you do some fun reels that like got some like real big yeah of I did uh like one where it was just like doing like a clear stencil like making a stencil on a bottle bag and like doing it for coverup so you can see exactly where it is oh yeah yeah and so I just posted that and I was just I was like oh this is a throwaway thing like in between posting tattoos and then it it was like three or four million views I was like what just happened why is that the one that took off but no one knows the how the Alor works yeah I don't know but and then I have kind of like delved into a little bit of like some educational ones and some funny ones and then some about my tattoos and I'm really trying to like hone tattoos that I want to do like communities that I want to speak to and that's what

I've really been trying to focus on like I love Disney stuff I love rock climbing I love you know doing running tattoos vegan tattoos like cartoons comic books stuff like that so I really and like I do a ton of Star Wars tattoos because that's like my favorite thing in the world yeah and so like I've been trying to make fun reels that involve those things that I like doing time to get some exposure yeah exactly Sher yeah that's dude you you got it it's fun it's it's fun and scary and like intimidating all at the same time like I used to love like skating when I was a kid and I loved editing skate videos yeah and I feel like the Instagram reels the editing is like similar enough fast moving yeah where just like okay like I kind of I like this idea so I'm like trying to like yeah take all of my interests and all of my education that I've learned over you know years and years of playing with stuff and like put it all together and yeah yeah that's fun was so what do you got for like other than your traveling I mean how do you feel about your tattooing and where you want to take it do you have any kind of you know what's your vision for like the next do you kind of keep your vision short to your Visions or yeah typically I I mean I just love I love tattooing people who share interest with me so I I I don't like doing huge tattoos so even like when I do a sleeve it's like you know a bunch of tattoos this size all over so like yeah I don't I don't really have ambition to like do

big stressful and like Palm size is like my limit dude I'm like my attention span is three to exactly that's really short so like a three hours is a lot you know to sit down and tattoo it is I don't know so and so yeah so I I like to do smallish tattoo um but yeah I just love doing stuff that I just love doing things that either I'm or the client is really passionate about yeah like I don't have to be super passionate about it but if you want to talk to me about it for two hours and teach me about it I'm I'm all I'm all about it totally yeah are you doing a lot of more pre-drawn stuff or no no most of it yeah most of it is like uh like I don't do a lot of like flash that I draw it's just they give me a description and I draw my version of it yeah as kind of kind of where is like my sweet spot where my clientele is where they're like here's my idea I know what you do do your version of it yeah and so that's that's kind of like where I just want to keep pushing that and I think when I'm traveling I'll probably push a little bit more of my art because people outside of Vegas don't know me yeah and so I think I'll probably do a lot of flash days for that yeah maybe yeah like any downtime you have in between just kind of hang out draw like anything and share and then I am doing this summer I'm doing the literary art convention and oh yeah tell me about that so that's in Chattanooga Tennessee and it's like the fourth year um they took a little time off of Co but it's all book

themed and like nerdy pop culture themed tattoo convention whoa and it's like a Comic-Con mashup yeah yeah exactly like tattooers show up in Cosplay and they have like a best decorated Booth contest and like it's creative and fun and I've been following it for a few years but it's they it's almost like invite only type thing so I was like never applied cuz I like I'm not cool like I'm not like a cool person what's the name of it again uh literary art literary art okay cool have to look that up yeah yeah okay and so like it's like I'm not I've never considered myself like a cool Tater you know like I'm just kind of like in My Own Zone like do my own thing and I do tattoos that I think are cool yeah but like I don't think I'm like popular like you know and so I just never applied cuz like I don't know like the people who go there are like the people who I think are cool yeah and so I'm like oh I don't want to like think I'm on their level or anything that's not true and so I just never applied and then this year I applied they AC me and so that's tight that's fun so we're road trip over there in the van and hopefully do some guas spots over there too or I think so yeah I think I'll probably do some like on the way and on the way back a little tour set up tour dates and stuff that's fun yeah that's R that's cool man yeah well so I don't know you have anything else you want to talk about or um I think that's it uh you're enjoying Tattooing in Vegas you're a hive tattoo yeah so

swarm built that out like me him and I built it out together like a few years back are you do you own it no just just help yet yeah exactly so everything's it's swarm shop and then I just like help run it I'm like manager yeah so cool that's awesome it's it's awesome honestly it's like the best case scenario for me like yeah I honestly I kept the same schedule that I had at st21 like I still come in the same days the same time but yeah it's I just ran a booth there and then it swarm me there's a guy Donnie uh young dude Chris who's like super talented young dude uh we have a dude named Cooper right now who's just gas spotting until he moves to Hawaii oh okay and he he he's awesome but he was working at downtown and Buddy runs a shop like real strict like you show up at this time you're here for these hours like you know like oh okay and he was just always late so he just called like buddy called St and he's like hey man I got this do you have a booth for like a month he's an awesome tattooer but he's just not here on time sw's like yeah man do whatever he wants and he's so he's super super nice and then we had this new dude Dan who does mostly like portrait stuff uh super nice dude and then we have a dude Alejandro on the other the other side of the shop okay so you Full House now so there's seven of us right now and then I'm teaching my son to tattoo okay yeah that's awesome how long how deep are you into that he's just about to start tattooing his friends dang so he's

he's just about there how are you going about that apprenticeship with like uh I did it pretty structured like I literally wrote out cuz I was I actually went to college to be a teacher and so I was like okay you know what I'm going to write out like a proper curriculum and like give it to him like here's the things you need to do to move to the next level and so we just kind of like worked our way through that and so he's uh and then he knows like what's expected of him you know like okay well I have to get this Benchmark before we can move to the next Benchmark so like he just has little check marks to go through and so he's been just like tattooing on fake skin and doing a bunch of line work he he's using coil machines right now I'm teaching him on coil just so he doesn't go to another shop and get made fun of basically that's like the main reason I'm like you can use whatever machine you want but you have to know how to use this yeah no no I think that's great and so he's already like taken it apart put it back together and uh Donnie only uses coil machines and he's really into machine building and and tuning and stuff and I was like okay well you can learn from him because I haven't touched one of those in a decade or so my arm hurts from the last time I used one yeah and so he's he's learning a bunch from Donnie about how to tune his machines and all of that stuff and um and then he's just about I told him his next Benchmark is like make a flash sheet of like just

little you know quarter siiz designs that he's excited to do yeah and then he's going to do a couple on his leg and then start invite some friends over dang yeah so so you got kind of like a couple years though to get them like tuned up before you take off for a while yeah yeah exactly your goal is to keep coming back right yeah yeah yeah sounds like it probably like quarterly or at least like kind of come back for sure and so yeah and I think I'm going to once he's tattooing like the last part of his apprenticeship like I'll sign them off and then I'm like okay well now you need to go work in a street shop for like a year and like just grind out as many tattoos as you can yeah meet all the weirdos yeah exactly like because the way Hive is run it's very Niche you know like everything's nerdy everything's like everybody who walks in the door is cool like they all want our tattoos and I'm like that's not what you're going to get you need to understand like that's not how tattooing is like we've put in 20 years into this industry you need to go like yeah go where it sucks for a little while and then you know when you build some clientele you can come back and have a booth but yeah that's fun yeah that's crazy I had to think about like teaching your kid how to tattoo it's wild yeah when he like reached out and said he wanted to learn I was like are you sure like it's it's cool but it's going to be it's gonna be hard you know like we have to put you through it a little bit yeah

yeah yeah it's fulfilling too it's really cool that's F I talked to clean Rock one not too long ago and he taught his son how a tattoo and his son was like slaying it dude I was like he's showing me tattoos I was like God damn bro that's really beautiful work yeah it's really cool yeah my dad and I learned how a tattoo at the same time so a whole different like Dynamic and I mean I was already kind of like into it before and then got into it like shortly after so it's so funny cuz everybody thinks it's always everybody's like oh it's so cool you grew up it's your dad is a tattoo no he's actually construction he was in construction yeah exactly you're like no we we came together yeah yeah that's fun that's crazy stories but well I don't know

man I really appreciate you taking the time to do this and it's like it's super fun we know each other want some traveling and have some more stories a th% and I got some other ideas for you too cool I love you bud and thanks so much for coming down dude I appreciate it thank you check up on Nick bones what's your website you uh nickon tattoos.com okay cool is that the best place I mean I always push people to yeah I mean Instagram Instagram's the easiest Buton tones tattoos work also R yeah get out there check out his work catch up on his uh latest running Adventures yeah and everything else so all right guys thank you so much have a good one thanks bye