Maverick ZINE — Tattoo Culture, Art & Artist Stories

I always was of the mind that like, man, I wish I could be an artist for a living. I wish I could like be paid to do my art. And I had been tattooing for 5 years and I was still having that thought. I've seen people who they color it like they would any other tattoo. They outline it, they fill it, then they throw highlight lines in on top of it and, you know, for a photograph it looks great, but for long-term healing, it it doesn't hold up. They're teaching a a drawing class and they use an AI image of a drawing class and they a bunch of kids sitting around easels. Oh. With their [ __ ] up fingers.

Yeah. All AI generated. Like if you're going to advertise a drawing class, maybe put up a sample of your artwork. Something [Music] What's happening? This is Austin Spencer here with Support Your Local Tattoer. We're here in fabulous [ __ ] Las Vegas as usual. A gorgeous day today. Uh we are with Dos Frank, the one and only me.

Does me. He is an incredibly talented illustrator, tattooer. I've known this man for a very long time. So, I'm excited to sit down and [ __ ] talk. We talk a lot, but we don't really get to do this. I just did the math real quick. That's 22 years I've known you. I met you the day Studio 21 opened at the original location.

Damn. Because I moved 2003. Yeah. I moved to town in May of 2003. Come out here for graduate school. When you guys opened, I had come out to search out an apartment and uh start getting all that prepared before I actually moved out here. Yeah. " cuz this is I was going moving into an apartment on Tro and Decater and you guys were really trop.

" You guys had a piercer at the time. He pierced my other ear. Like I met everybody there. It was it was the day you guys opened and it was just it was like the most random thing. Oh [ __ ] Damn. " You were a strong like an heavy illustrator back in the day. I mean, you went to school for lighting design. I I moved out here for graduate school.

Well, I was a lighting designer for musical theater for the better part of a decade and I was doing a graduate school program at UNLB. I won a competition back on the East Coast for lighting design when I was in my undergrad and it got the attention of the entertainment engineering track at UNLB, which was brand new at the time. And so, they offered me uh a graduate degree if I came out here and designed lights for Nevada Conservatory Theater. And so, I was doing it was a three-year graduate school program. So, I designed lights, took classes, taught classes, and by the time I was in my the end of my first semester, I met a guy named Dan Stevens. Everybody called him Dano. Oh. And we were we were bar friends, you know, like we weren't hanging out every day.

We didn't weren't going over to each other's houses, but we drank at the same place, which was a bar called the House of Bruise in the same parking lot as Pussycats Tattoo. Oh, okay. Yeah. And that was back in the day when they had the Jimmy was there and uh Ryan Downey was there. Yeah. Stellar lineup. Yeah. Yeah.

So I hung out at the bar with him and one night we got to talking and I said, "Man, I wish I'd learned how to tattoo. " And that was it. That's the easiest. Like I' i've listened to I've listened to this podcast and I've heard everybody's horror story about finding somebody to teach them and having to go through a bunch of different people and like man it's it I hate saying it but it was super I I literally fell face first into tattooing. You guys just clicked and I showed up on on that Saturday and I I apprenticed for like the next year year and a half. Yeah. What was your apprentichip like with him? I mean he was he was kind of a wild dude, right?

Like some wild stories about him. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's in the wind. I am the foggiest. I haven't heard from him in years. I tried reaching out to him a couple times. He drank the Kool-Aid, moved to Texas and like I haven't heard from him.

I don't even know if he's still tattooing. Oh well. He was, you know, single, Foot Loose, fancy free when I was doing my apprenticeship, and we had a lot of fun running around doing stupid [ __ ] But yeah, by the time I had been tattooing for eight or nine years before he he bounced. But by that time, he married, had a family, and he was and he was all about his family. Yeah. He's in the breeze. I haven't heard from him in a long time. Where was that at?

Was that on the That was on the strip. Yeah. So, yeah. The the family that owns Diversity, all the diversities also, which is like a chain of smoke shop, tattoo shops back in the day, they were real famous, but they were really clever about it because they owned all the diversities. And then they owned what looked like a small independent shop nearby. So, if you go in there and you're like, "Oh, I'm not going to the chain store. I'm going to this little mom and pop place around the corner which they also owned which were pretty wild locations. Like I remember going in there like in high school and being like what the the one that I did my apprenticeship at mostly was place called Tattoo Heaven which was directly next door to the diversity that was on the strip Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard.

Yeah. And this is at the peak of like runchiest areas in our whole entire city. Nice. That was the base of the stratosphere tower was where like Bum Fights was filmed and that was the era of Bum Fights. Yeah. Yeah. So, the characters were just insane. Like crackheads and all sorts of wild ass humans of all walks of life living in the streets and walking in and out of those tattoo shops.

Yeah, it was it was still wild west out there. Still cops didn't care. Street justice. Don't [ __ ] with the wrong guy. Look at somebody sideways. You're going to get cut. I remember sitting in front of that tattoo shop and watching a guy just walking through traffic just hitting cars with baseball bats. Just mess like [ __ ] everything up like Oh yeah.

And those are the type of people that were coming in. Like I remember buddies that had worked at those shops and they were like there would be homeless people that would like lock themselves in the bathrooms and smear [ __ ] all over the walls and just make the like the weirdest [ __ ] up. That happened during my apprentip at at Tattoo Heaven. I had to clean that up. Oh my god. It was Yeah, it was it was the wild west. Yeah. All walks of life.

Like everybody's walking in hammered and you know, you're on the Las Vegas Boulevard, too. And like if you're in that neighborhood, you got a real cheap hotel room. So you Yeah. Well, I mean that's it was right out the back door. Like there there was diversity. There was Tattoo Heaven. And on the back side of it was, you know, a rent by the hour motel. The Circle K was in the parking lot right next door.

And that place, the sun goes down, you don't make eye contact. Zombie land. Oh. Goes out of control. But the tattooers were making crazy amounts of money back then at those locations. Like stupid amounts of money, like thousands of dollars a day and not giving a [ __ ] not treating anybody with any respect. Absolutely not. Like there was some pretty wild tattoo like they still they you know the kind of tattooers have a code of like we're going to do the best job that we can but we were going to get paid along the way and that was definitely how it was.

But they were still doing solid work. There was No, you're right. There was like some seriously talented people down there like well Joey Hamilton was was working in Tattoo Heaven when I started my apprentichip. He was there just for a little while. He had a solid portfolio even way back then. I loved his stuff. Like his his some stuff I saw in the magazine. " Yeah.

Downey was in and out of those like shops in that area too around Downey. And they had uh Twig Twig came through. Super good. Actually, uh, Blanco was there. He worked at Tattoo Heaven when I was doing my apprentichip. No way. I didn't That's That's when I first met him. Really?

Okay. Yeah. So, [ __ ] Yeah. You were down there. You were learning how to tattoo. Well, I mean, you were still you were you got out of your apprentichip pretty quick. You're like a Did it last like a year or year, year and a half? Yeah.

And you kind of jumped right in. And I had to. It was well my apprentichip was going for about uh a year and then we were sitting in the front room of Tattoo Heaven and this lady comes in and like do y'all have any apprentices? Yeah. Uh I raise my hands I want you to do my tattoo cuz it'll be cheap. Okay. And it was and Dan turns to me. He's like you're So my first tattoo in tattoo heaven ever touching needle to skin was uh a cover up.

She had a teddy bear she wanted to cover with a rose and it was awful. Oh, it was so bad. So, that was that was the thing though is like Dan taught me how to be a tattooer. He didn't teach me [ __ ] about tattooing. Oh, no. No. It was like it was a lot of like uh figuring it out on my own and he would stand over me and you know, you know, yeah, you're doing that right, you're doing that wrong. But no active like here's how you fix it.

Here's how you adjust things. Here's how we grow together. Yes, it was it was definitely. But man, he taught me the right attitude, how to approach people like from from a business standpoint, he taught me how to handle myself in that environment. And that was a very dangerous environment to be in, especially where we were. Yeah. So, like I'm very grateful for the lessons that he gave me on how to carry myself in a street shop. Yeah.

Confidence and get through things that are when you're peeing in your pants, not to show it. Oh, yeah. No, that's the the first the first paid tattoo that I got when I got cut loose from my apprenticeship. Uh they sent me over to a shop on Maryland Parkway called Stanky Danky and I would spend my days there, but I would come back to tattoo heaven on the weekends because I was around really good tattooers and my learning curve just dropped right off because they stuck me in Stinky Danky 7 days a week, 9 hours a day with nobody else except for myself. So I wasn't I stopped learning. m. m. on the strip.

So, I just be around other tattooers. But the first time I got paid for a tattoo was uh in tattoo heaven. This lady comes in, she wants a the butterfly with the cat eyes in it. Oh, yeah. And she I'm all set up and I'm all fumble fingers and oh, I'm going to get money for this. " I'm like, "What? What? " Turned around and jumped right into it.

And it was like a terrifying exchange. But if I hadn't learned those lessons from Dan on how to like handle people, you know, being ridiculous in that situation and being just as equally ridiculous back, that place would have eaten me alive. So [ __ ] you go, let's go back. Did you finish school and or did you just drop out and jump right into tattooing? I did my second year of graduate school and my first year of my apprenticeship over overlapped. Yeah. So I was graduate school, part-time job. I was working the counter at the shop.

I was working. I was there. Whenever Dan was there doing that and graduate school all together at the same time, I was burnt out and I was I had to I had to make a choice. Yeah. As crazy as that environment was, like what was it that like drew you to it and made you want to stick through it? Were you from like or had you been exposed to tattooing or like any other wild environments like that before you got into the culture? grew up in uh uh Richmond, Virginia, and there's a tattooer there named So I did art school in Richmond, Virginia, which is, you know, a wild town in and of itself. I mean, it was an art school, art college.

Okay. Home of Gu. I mean, like there was great music scene, excellent place to hang out. There was a tattooer there named uh Reverend Bob. Uh he works at a shop called Lucky 13 in Richmond, Virginia. Uh I try to visit him as often as I can. He was my tattooer. He did all this over here.

All this right here. He did my first like below the t-shirt tattoo. Okay. So, you'd already been getting tattooed. I've been getting like ever since I was 18. I got my first tattoo the day I turned 18. I was like, "All right, I got that done. " Yeah.

3 months later. Um, getting my second tattoo and then I'll never do it again. Okay. Two weeks later, I got my third tattoo and I Yeah. I was Yeah. Uh, I didn't do uh neck or anything until I had been tattooing for a while. Nothing's like something that couldn't been covered with a dress shirt. Yeah.

And then after I've been tattooing for a while, then I went neck. You actually did both sides. Yeah, I did both your sides of your neck like 20 [ __ ] years ago or something. I don't know. 15. 15 years. 15. Yeah.

Okay. All right. I like it. Yeah. Dang. So then, yeah, you were jumping around shops and stuff like uh No. You were with that same company, so you would actually move? Yeah.

I'm shop to shop, but it was the same owners and I'm very I don't move around a lot. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. When I find a shop that I like, I stick with it. I mean, I was did my apprentichip and then I did a year with working for Diversity Tattoo Heaven Family. And then I went right across the street to uh Starboard. Okay.

That was Cornfed Shop right there. Right across the street on Sahara Boulevard. Still the same wild neighborhood, but yeah, just just different perspective. Yeah. And there was some good tattooers that worked in there. Oh, there awesome tattoo there. There were some guys there that couldn't tattoo their way out of a wet paper bag, but there was also some guys that just absolute talent. And then the owner of Cornfed, uh, he was just absolutely the nicest guy I've ever met.

I wasn't supposed to be hired by him. I was very tired of working for the people that I was working for. And I was taking an opportunity to just, you know, go someplace else. Not that I was going that far, but I got a chance to interview with him. " Uh he's how long you've been tattooing a year. He's like I don't hire anybody who's been working for less than five. Like oh gez. And then I let me see your portfolio.

I showed it to him and he tore it to shreds. Just absolutely everything in there. This is awful. This is bad. This is bad. And then I was like well you know any opportunity to learn I might not be getting a job but at least you know I can talk to somebody who's got decades of experience. Yeah. I was like can you show me what my portfolio should look like?

actually pulls out his big giant portfolio and he starts flipping through it and I start asking questions like, "How do you do that? " And then it turned into an impromptu sketch session and like, "Oh, this is how you do that jeweled effect for that. " This stuff is like very very ethereal. It had a lot of fantasy elements to it. So, the jewels and gold and Viking women and stuff like it was great stuff. Like very bikerish. Yeah. So, we talked for like a good two hours and then he's like, "Oh, bring your stuff down.

bring a friend. No, let's see if you can do something. Yeah. And so he gave me opportunity to audition. Write a friend down. And I sure [ __ ] added in everything that we talked about in that conversation and sketched out and stuff like that. And I did a drawing and I added in those elements that we talked I wanted to show that I was willing to learn if I was just given an opportunity. And he's like, "All right, what are you doing tomorrow night?

" Yeah. Like bring come back. I want to see if you could do some black and gray. come back the next night, same friend. Okay. Did a second tattoo on him. That's cool. And he's like, "All right, hang out.

Meet the people. " Excellent. And I was with them for 5 years. Okay. I uh until uh I got an opportunity my uh it was like 2010 and I got a had a kid on the way and I was trying to like maximize the amount of money and I got an opportunity to work at the Vince Neil tattoo shop that had opened up up the street. Yeah. So TV was you like pumping out tattoo shows. Vince Neil had a shop on the strip directly across from Caesar's Palace right there front window.

Was that actually owned by him too or did they like have like a licensing agreement or something? They he didn't own it but they licensed his name and he was there. Yeah. The casino the casino it was casino run they licensed his name. So the breakdown was 48% to the artist, 48% to the shop or to the business and then uh the the extra 4%. No, it was 46. 46 46 and then 8% to to Vince for use of his name. And he'd come in there all the time.

I tattoo that guy a bunch of times. Really? Oh, yeah. He was so incredibly nice. For people don't know, Vince Neil is the lead singer of Molly Crew. Exactly. If you watch Rock of Love and watch somebody get kicked off of that show, they were in in there with him like a couple nights later. So Brett Michaels would kick him off the show and then they'd come strolling in with Vince Neil a couple nights later.

And you're right in the midst of the strip. I mean that that shop didn't open up to the strip, but it was like right there. It was on the front. There's the front door of the casino and the front door is like right there, which is a big deal. Like a few never been to the Las Vegas strip and you're sitting there like there's a lot to learn. I mean a lot of the places that are still you got to go through a mall or you got to go all the way back to the parking deck or something like that to find where they've hidden these tattoo shops. That one was just had a fishbowl right there on the Las Vegas strip. And it was it was such a good location.

Like on nights like New Year's Eve or Halloween or something, they tell us, "Oh yeah, go ahead and get on out of here. " We just close up the shop and sit there and watch the show from from the front window. We'd pull up the chairs to the front window and just watch the the parade go by. I feel like so many younger tattooers haven't been put in that position to where they had to I don't want to say turn and burn, but like really move through tattoos and with different people, different illustrations, you know, like that's a that's a challenge, dude. And that like thickened my skin a lot by working in a really really busy walk-in shop. It just kind of bums me out when I hear that. It's almost like everybody just like tries to go to these like private little studios now, but I feel like you really do learn so much just about yourself and how to carry yourself and protect yourself and all those things, you know?

It's definitely a learning curve and having street shop experience. It really can't be beat. I don't do a uh a lot like when it comes to working now. It's it's appointments. Yeah. Uh, I'll do the occasional walk-in when they they come in, but you know, the shop that we're at now, it's it's mostly appointment and and we'll get the occasional walk in, but you know, my day is filled with, you know, appointments. But every year I tattoo out of a shop in Stures, owned by my friend Barnaby, and me and him managing it for Jesus, I this will be when I go this summer, it'll be my 13th year going, and we've been managing it. Sturgis is the largest well-known American bike gathering in in the country.

I mean, it gets it gets out of control there. m. m. lying out the door tattooing. You enjoy, right? I mean, it's not something you can you daily live with, but it's just it refreshes it and makes it challenging in, you know, unique ways. a passion for for for doing the interaction like we used to like meeting characters. I mean, you're up there meeting Oh, yeah.

I've sent you a few pictures. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is it's just cool and I like that. It's fun that you get to go up there and you have that experience and then kind of calm back down and go back to your regular nice grind. But, and I feel like there's a lot of value that comes from that.

And it's cool that you do that every year. And I really enjoy that. And you make a full-on road trip out of it. You're camping up there. Yeah. Like I don't know. Tell tell us a little bit more about that. Like Oh, it's uh I have uh a couple really good friends that they live in Florida, but they own a house in Sturgis.

And the shop that I work at is the longest running continuously operating shop in Sturgis. It's uh called the American Tattoo Society, which of course the acronym works out to try to avoid saying that as much as possible. It's so cheesy. It's awesome. It really is. It's it's it's coming back around to being awesome, but every now and then I look at that sign that we have out front there like tats. Jesus Christ. You're going to embrace it.

I have I have I have fully embraced. Yeah. It's been It opened in 79. It was run by a guy named Buzz. And Buzz passed away the year before I started. So, I never got to meet the guy, but that guy's legend hangs over top of that shop. He is constantly mentioned. You get old-timers rolling through the shops.

Is Buzz here? Oh, man. He hasn't been here 13 years. It's like, oh, all right. Hobble on back out the door. Is the shop open all year? No. Okay.

Yeah. Like most of that time badass popup. Yeah. It was Well, it's been in the same location. When they started it, it was literally like in a parking lot. It was like a tent, a pop-up tent and a parking lot. And then they made a deal with a guy named Glenn who owned a like a like a flea market space there. And so they moved it inside and it was still like out and then we're we're talking like in the in the mid 80s here.

It was still like a flea market kind of thing. It was just kind of roped off and like like a convention. Yeah. Any unairconditioned convention and then uh they made another deal in Glenn and then they were able to put walls in and then they put air conditioning. So it was like a big draw when they got oh you come on in here in this ice cold air conditioning and get tattooed. Yeah. And then what do they use it for all year long? That building does not exist.

Like most of that town, it's shuttered. Really? It's a town of 5,000 people. Yeah. Yeah. Little tiny that turns into a town of half a million people. Good lord. And then it goes back to And as soon as it's done, the same guys that you see cosplaying as bikers for those two weeks, come back like the next week are cosplaying as rodeo guys.

Yeah. Yeah. Like the Viva Las Vegas kind of crowd times, you know? So, yeah. Like I I love that. This is kind of what I want to talk about too with you is just the the not you're not shy about getting out there. I shouldn't say exposing yourself to the public. Just getting out there sharing your art.

I love that you know like you so you go up to Sturgis once a year for like two weeks at a time. You also do like two comic cons. I do uh an art convention and a comic con. Yeah. Uh so I have a booth at New York Comic- Con uh in the fall for selling uh my artwork. Yeah. And then there's a art and design convention. It was started off as a vinyl toy show, but it's exploded into everything else called Designer Con, which uh when I started it was in Pasadena, and then they moved to Anaheim for a few years, and now they're here in Las Vegas, which is so cool.

It is my favorite show of the year. Not my big money show. It's It's not where I'm, you know, like, oh man, just I'm sold out of everything. It never has been my big money show, but it is the high school reunion of of of shows. All my friends that I've made as artists uh in graphic design and illustration and poster art, stuff that I love doing uh outside of tattooing are always there. And it's just a constant stream of your friends coming by your booth or you going by your friend's booth. Yeah. Catching up for the year and then you know go out for drinks afterwards.

Yeah. And like to kind of to clarify like you're you're here at these shows on the side not necessarily pushing tattoo art style or your tattoo style artwork at all. you're out there. You have your own whole entire catalog of collection of beautiful artwork and illustrations that are all stuff. They're all like u I don't know. Can you explain like what your style is that of illustration? A lot of it is I don't want to butcher it. Oh, no.

No. It's it's very easy to butcher. It's it's all very tongue and cheek. I love doing stuff that's ods to the things that I love. So, I mean pop movies and old movies, pop culture references. I love any opportunity to take a style like that and turn it on its ear a little bit. So, one of my most popular pieces was I wanted to do something that sounded like a 70s exploitation film, action thing. And that's the title sounds like it's an exploitation film, but it definitely isn't.

So, I did a an action movie poster for Golden Girls. Okay. Yeah, it sounded like it should be it should it sounds like it should be a 70s exploitation film. And then you know you have so you have uh Golden Girls you know explode the house is exploding and they're all there with guns and the plane landing in the background and do it as a movie poster. This actually uh I did that for a movie poster art show that we had at Studio 21 years ago and that's easily one of my most popular pieces that I've done. I like a good mashup and not necessarily in like taking two things that you won't see normally together, but taking something and doing it in a in a particular style. Uh I did a piece I call American Horrors and it's Audrey and Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors.

Yeah. But I did it in such a way that it was reminiscent of uh the Grantwood painting American Gothic. Yeah. So, which was only called American Gothic because it had a Gothic style window on the on the farmhouse behind the characters. Instead of having that there, I did uh the the eclipse of the sun and it's all symmetrical. Uh the dress that she's wearing is the same calico as the the farmer's wife in the uh thing. And instead of wearing that flowered brooch, she's wearing the same cameo that it's just like taking as many elements from from Grant Woods painting and then throwing it into this with the Little Shop of Horror characters. I love doing stuff like that.

Yeah, that's awesome. Do you have you seen like a good crossover for, you know, from people you meet at your art shows versus merging of clients, you know, like And that's what I think is so awesome and and important about us getting as tattooers and getting out there and pursuing other things and all these other that's the thing living in a transient city such as Las Vegas is everybody that you meet out there and they come through town, man. They always eventually there's always a convention, there's always uh a vacation, there's always a bachelorette party like, "Oh, I'm going to be in town. I remember you from this. " Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that, man. That's awesome. You keep real busy with that stuff. And that's like another thing, too, is like you're not not shy about promoting yourself like online. You you're building a website. You're real good with your social media. You're not shy with it. Like I feel like that's incredibly important.

Keep on top of it. Tattooers need to like I don't like it's crazy to me if people don't have their own like websites and stuff. And bowing to the algorithm is awful, but it's, you know, completely necessary. If you're not present, then you're not present. It is what it is. We are all [ __ ] to the algorithm, but at the same time, it pushes me to make new things and produce. And it's like having two jobs. I Yeah.

I tattoo during the day, and then I come home, make dinner for the family, put people to bed, and then, you know, I'm out in my studio until, you know, 3:00 in the morning. It's just working on whatever project I happen to be working on. or if I have uh a client that's commissioned me for something that'll be working on that or Yeah. I've got a workbench that's got at least half a dozen projects on it. Uh I do mild sculpting. Yeah, tell me about that. I've seen some real fun like three-dimensional objects. It's cool to see.

I have personally never taken any illustration and brought it to life with the, you know, 3D sculpted and printed and molded and you do some really cool stuff. The first time I did that was there's a art museum slashpop store. It's called the Mystic Museum in LA and it is one of the radest places. If you ever get a chance to get out to LA and go to the Mystic Museum, it is so cool. But they did a uh years ago they did a Twilight Zone art show and I wanted to be in it. I called him up like, "Well, I'd love to be a part. " Oh, well, we don't have any more room for paintings, but if you sculpt, uh, we'd love to have something. I was like, "Absolutely.

" I hadn't sculpted anything since high school, and even then it was, you know, awful. I had one month to figure out how to sculpt something, cast it, mold it, and then get it shipped off to them. And I ended up doing a bust of bust of Venus as if it came from the Twilight Zone episode, Eye of the Beholder. So, it was like the most beautiful woman in the world, but to us, you know, pig face, big head. Okay. Yeah, I remember that one. And uh I figured out how to sculpt it, mold it, and cast it within a month to get it there. And it turns out the one that I finished and got there on time for the show, it was bought by Kevin Pollock.

That's cool. It was the first time I ever heard of like a celebrity having one of my art pieces. Yeah, that's right. And who else you got in there? Well, in the lineup, people that own my stuff. Yeah, you know, I know you got a lot. I can't remember them off the top of my head, but I say Kevin Pollock's probably the uh the big the highest one that I am aware of. Uh, I know my stuff gets bought for gifts for Yeah, exactly.

The guy who was the creator of most of the cartoons for Disney afternoon cartoon, gummy bears and tail spin and stuff like that. uh he bought uh a painting that I did for Creature of the Black Lagoon and I had done it in like a gilded frame and I did LA Comic-Con one time and he he came by the booth a couple times and I would see him like looking at it and and he he come you can you sign this to uh to such and such. I'm like oh sure who who any in particular he was like oh he's the voice of Goofy. I'm going to his birthday party now. It's like That's cool. That's fun. Dang. Yeah.

So, what I mean, what else you got going on? You've been you're as far as your tattooing going, you you recently kind of just seem to be locked into these patch themed tattoos. Patches. I love It's wild. Like, and everybody's hitting you up for them big time. Well, like any other thing, like just like the the sculpture. Have you ever done a sculpture? Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. the guy came in and it's still easily the most popular one that I've done is the one that gets the most traction is the I did a patch of Rick from Rick and Morty. I did a patch of his head. Yeah, I remember that. That was that was the first patch I did. " Yes, I do. Yeah. [ __ ] yeah.

Not going to say no to that. I've always wanted to do one. No, you nail them and they're great. Like as far as like what we do, it's uh you can bang them out in three to five hours and sit down. you you could do two a day and charge great for them and Oh yeah, are super happy. I love doing them. Um I like doing ones that are more geared towards like cartoon characters and stuff like that. " I'm like, I sure as [ __ ] hope so.

Yeah. Yeah. And if anybody doesn't know what the patch tattoos themes are, it it literally looks like a three-dimensional sewn patch. So the textures of the threads are in there and the highlights and the low lightss and you can see that you know the wovenness of it. It's pretty rad. Yeah, it's really wild. I I get a lot of people asking me like how do you do that? I was like one stitch at a time, man.

And like there's there's there's way this I've seen people who they color it like they would any other tattoo. They outline it, they fill it, then they throw highlight lines in on top of it. And you know, for a photograph, it looks great. But for long-term healing, it it doesn't hold up because the the the highlight lines disappear. The the shadowing looks it looks like uh try to threedimension each part of the design and it doesn't hold. But if you approach it the same way that you would approach them doing regular hand embroidery, it's one stitch at a time. Yeah. And that's that's the time consuming aspect of it.

I think that's where a lot of people like I don't want to do that because that takes forever. Yeah. And there's no shorter way to do it then but if you're tenacious enough you'll get through it. Yeah. I I watched you go through some interesting like you're such a well-rounded artist. You can approach different styles. " I watch you go kind of go through like a stipple stage too where you're doing these beautiful just I I still love doing this. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, some swarl cactuses and all sorts of fun stuff. I remember the textures are crazy. That was one of the things I learned working on the strip. m. " Oh, no.

No. I do not work in Japanese. like that I'm not eating that night. Yeah. Yeah. That's incredibly important. I I mean I guess maybe I just think it's important. Maybe it's not today's standards important.

I don't know. It absolutely is. I think so. " Yeah. Well, we we were I mean, we were just taught you weren't allowed to have that attitude and approach, you know? So I just found myself really really just trying to spend a lot more time obviously in your evenings trying to learn everything that you can. When you stop learning, you stop evolving. If you stop trying things and getting outside of your comfort zone, I mean, you might as well just hanging up.

What's what's the point of doing anything if you're not getting better at it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's always room for improvement in anything that you do. even like the biggest names in tattooing, they're the biggest names in tattooing because they keep trying new things and they keep going back and doing like look looking at what they do while everybody else is singing their praises. They're looking at like I could have done that better.

Yeah. And just standing still on like, oh, I got I got American Traditional figured out. I don't need to do a damn thing else. And it it works for a while, but after a while it starts to well me personally I I know some amazing artists who that's all they do and they are excellent at it and they probably want for nothing more. Yeah. Me personally I if I see something that is really cool. I want to be able to figure out how to do it. I like the idea of also being able to just evolve with what the clients want too, you know, like because I was absolutely I mean you saw me go through a career where all of a sudden I was just doing my specific style all the time and then I just watched the clientele just switch from like illustrative color new school stuff to all of a sudden everybody wanted black and gray and I was like [ __ ] I suck at black and gray.

I hadn't been practicing my black and gray allow me to just see what I could do here. It was an intimidating moment. But I think, you know, for a lot of younger tattooers, I'm like, I keep watching them and I'm like, I don't know. Don't get so stuck in this one way. I I don't know. Like, you know, a little wellrounded. Like, speaking of the benefits of a street shop upbringing, you know, I might not be, you know, a master of one particular style, and there's always more I can learn about anything, but, you know, I can I can knock out just about just about anything that you need. super clean version of whatever the client wants.

Like the handyman version of uh of tattooing. Can you put this sink in? Yeah, I absolutely can. I can get it done. Can Can you install a shower head? Oh, yeah. I got that. Don't worry about it.

And luckily these days you can just YouTube anything. So you you can take a quick lesson. Right. One of my favorite things about you too is a constant moving and constant like you said, you're constantly learning, constantly trying new things, which keeps you in this mental positive this positive mental state to where I don't ever hear you complain. Got nothing to complain about. I know. And I love that. And like I I feel like if we surround ourselves by with people like this and then we're constantly growing together and evolving and moving forward and never thinking that [ __ ] sucks or it's somebody else's fault.

Like we're sitting around. We should just be like if your appointment no-shows, you're right on your iPad working on your next project. If you're, you know, not you specific, yeah, you specifically, but like that's like our mentality. It's like there's always something to do. It took me a little while to figure out. I always was of the mind that like, man, I wish I could be an artist for a living. I wish I could like be paid to do my art. And I had been tattooing for five years and I was still having that thought.

Yeah. Yeah. But I was looking at it like, you know, grasses. Oh, look at those guys doing those paintings. I want to be able to do those paintings. I I didn't start painting until 2012. I was two years into Vince Neil. And as as great as that shop was, it sucks your will to live.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh it I showed up to work. I sat down on the couch until the counter kid came back and handed me what piece of Cherry Creek I was going to be doing. I would do it and then I'd go back to the couch. Yeah. There was no playing around on my It was before a lot of social media stuff. So you like you were literally just a robot.

you you go out there, you do the tattoo, you come back, you sit down, and you're in stasis until that you get handed your next tattoo, which I was incredibly busy there, but towards the end of it, I was I was dying. Like, yeah, like inside the lifespan of that is is short. We do see the value in it, but the money was great. I 5 to 10 years is a lot to do. I had been there for two years. I had just had a kid. Yeah, the money that I was making there was insanely great for being able to, you know, get a house and get uh everything I needed for having a a toddler running around, but my soul was dying. And when I finally figured out why I was so I was I can't I can't say I was depressed, but I was definitely just You think that was the people that you were around or you just didn't have that mindset yet of like No, I was around pursuing whatever.

I was around some great people, but I never thought I had been so focused on being a tattooer for so long that I didn't think that there was anything outside of tattooing. Yeah. Like this is who I am. This is when uh and then I think I saw a commercial for uh Community College of Southern Nevada. And I was like, I wonder if they have any art classes. Oh yeah. Cuz I wanted to start painting, but I've always been the kind of guy that I can't start something new without just an iota of of training in it. I feel like I'm wasting like I buy all these art supplies, but I buy all the wrong stuff and I waste all these uh time and energy and money buying the stuff that I don't need.

And I just felt stupid. So, uh I was like, I'll I'll take a class. I took one semester of an oil painting class from a lady named Loretta Degrandis. Oh, cool. She taught the class for community college up in Boulder City at their like learning annex up there. Oh, no way. And it was just enough for me to be able to like Okay. Okay.

And then I set up an easel in my studio and I started painting and my paintings were terrible. Yeah. And but you had a rough idea of where to go. Yeah. I I knew what I wanted to do. And then uh my friend Juan uh he's a local artist, Juan Munz, if you see it was bunnies around town. That's that's his stuff. He said, "Your stuff's uh your stuff's all right.

" And that was the first time I did uh designer cut in Pasadena. I took my really bad paintings and my really bad illustrations and I went there and you know some people bought a couple things and I was like well that felt good. Yeah. Yeah. And it just pushed me to do a little bit more and a little bit more and I realized that I can be more than a tattooer but I I still love tattooing and I still love the the the design aspect of them. I love the social interaction even though I do less social interacting uh with my clients now than I used to. I'm a huge fan of not [ __ ] complaining and you don't complain and I like that you're always busy. You keep yourself busy and motivated.

I was just kind of wondering if you felt like that that was who you were surrounding yourself with these these days or at some point in time, you know, when you were at Vince Neil, you're around this other certain type of people. Maybe that's just all you thought you were allowed to do is just sit there, do the tattoo and not instead of filling those afternoons or those gaps with teaching yourself something or moving forward and bettering your craft because the Vince Neil they're building the link and so the Vince Neil shop had a expiration date. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when I learned and we learned about it like six months out and I think that's when I took the art class. I was like I need I need more. Okay.

So after I left Vince Neil, I went to work for the guy who taught me how to tattoo. Yeah. He had opened up a shop uh way down by the South Point. Okay. And uh I went back to work for him and I was there for another five four or five years. I wasn't as busy as I was at Vince Nale, but I had, you know, time to I my time at Vince Neil was great for tourist money, but I lost all the clientele that I had built up before because nobody wanted to come to the strip. Yeah. Nobody wanted to go there and pay the Vince Neil prices.

So, I mean, I lost all my So, I spent my time at Dan Shop, not just rebuilding my clientele and reconnecting with the the ones that I had lost over the years, but also I went there and painted like I I had I had time now. I I worked on painting, but like most other things, I got really close to quitting painting. I learned as an oil painter and I switched to acrylics because I liked being able to finish something. I would do like a lot of live events with ISI and uh by the time the event was over the painting wasn't dry and people were like well I can't take this now. So yeah. So I switched to acrylics and I wasn't liking the results I was getting out of acrylics. I was getting really discouraged and I discovered an artist named Jason Emiston who his Instagram at the time he put out uh step by steps of how he did this painting of Bella Losce is Dracula and like a whole new world opened up to me as far as like the process of painting.

Like I was always of the mind cuz the lady that taught me to to paint at the community college, she was like straight from the tube color, not a lot of mixing, love bold slashes, and I wanted to do more portrait style stuff. Yeah. And I learned a better way and it totally re-energized my my love for the painting. And as time went on, uh, I spent more and more time painting and it and yeah, it was it was just finding, uh, a way to, uh, get out in a different direction. You've switched over primarily digital nowadays, right? I did. Uh, that that actually happened. And you're all through Procreate.

Yeah. Which is awesome. Yeah. But the thing is my approach to digital painting is the same as uh my physical painting. Yeah. St. Build up on layer after layer. I bring it up.

So, the amount of time that I put in to a digital painting is just about the same as uh what I put into a physical painting. The only difference is I really like doing digital because I can work from my recliner in my studio as opposed to cashewing myself over top of a desk. Yeah. Well, what do you what else you got planned for I mean, how's your tattooing going? Where do you want to go with? Are you happy right now with what you're doing? And do you want to I'm really enjoying doing the patches. I always love doing good.

And you do other stuff obviously that's just kind of like a fun thing that seems to be getting real popular with you right now. Well, I'm I still have the same attitude about it as I did when I worked at Street Shops is anything that comes in I'll do. Yeah. There there isn't anything that I won't tackle. I've always been of the mind like when a project comes in my initial reaction to like ah I don't want to do that. But by the time I've I've set up and I've done the drawing and I've wrapped my head around it and I broke down the process in my head before I start, I'm I'm excited again. Like there's, you know, eb and flow to your attitude towards just about anything. But, you know, by the time I've I'm to the point where I'm putting needle to skin, I'm excited about what I'm about to do, which is easily the best part of the business, being excited about about what I'm doing.

It doesn't matter if it's Kelsey's infinity symbol on her riblets or if it's, you know, a big patch tattoo or if it's, you know, a name on a wrist. It's just I love the fact that I get to do this for a living. And I still amazes me that, you know, I forget that this June will be 20 years that I've been tattooing. And it still amazes me that I get to make my living as an artist. Yeah, it's fun. any like fun new tools or anything you're using like for your illustration or do you mess around with any of these like AI type programs or I don't know what do you think about any of that type of stuff and how it applies to tattooing and I hate seeing people that are advertising their art business using AI to advertise their art business. That's really wild.

Somebody was in town. I saw it being advertised on Instagram and I I can't think of their name to to call them out but cuz [ __ ] I would call them out but they're they're teaching a a drawing class and they use an AI image of a drawing class and they're a bunch of kids sitting around easels with their [ __ ] up fingers trying to trying to Yeah. all AI generated like if you're going to advertise a drawing class maybe put up a a sample of your artwork something if you have something that you want to teach be able to present it I [ __ ] it's frustrating as a tool AI is as a finished product no absolutely not I mean for some reason I thought you taught some like seminar like illustration seminars or something I have taught uh I did an acrylic painting class uh one time that was a couple weeks long.

And that was that was a lot of fun. I really love teaching. I didn't I didn't realize I loved teaching so much as uh until I get thrust in front of a bunch of people and they're like, "Oh, yeah. Well, let me let me show you uh what I've picked up enough stuff along the way that it always uh amazes me that I'm I'm nervous as as I'll get out when I get when I get in front of uh the possibility of being in front of people. But as soon as I'm in front of people, it turns out that, you know, I retain a lot of stuff that, you know, I could just back at them. And uh there's a uh a middle school here in town that has a tattoo drawing club and they're they're not doing they're not doing tattoos, but there's just kids that are in love with different styles of and it's basically just an art club.

They love drawing and styles. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, anything could be geared towards tattooing and I'm that's one of the things. " Our last guy moved away. Can you can you That's fine. So, I I started doing that last week. Uh and it was great.

And they're talking about different styles of uh tattooing that they like and I'm getting to know uh the kids that were there. Well, we forget that these kids grew up watching t tattooing on TV. Exactly. You know, I that's wild to me. " And there's one kid in there who uh likes uh drawing fine line cho style tattooing. " Yeah. " And another one's drawing graffiti style stuff. Oh, here's some stuff.

Actually, here's a couple local guys that you might want to look into. So, you could probably meet these guys. That's cool. Yeah, we should we should really work on putting together some fun little things like that. Even if they're free and it's just like a little afternoon of a couple hours of get people together. I don't know. I just like the idea and it gets us more comfortable and where we can confidently work through it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, doing podcasts or or doing uh seminars like that or teaching any of like I'm scared shitless going into any scenario where I have to address people, but once I ease into it and like uh I've got a bunch of really really inane things to say that I didn't realize they were just on deck. Do you have any advice for young tattooers? anybody that's like newer to this world, this this entering this social mediadriven tattoo career. I feel like tattooing is every it doesn't necessarily have like a what we knew tattooing was these days. Tattooing is essentially an open Yeah, it's it's it's a different world, man. Drawing on the iPads and I have an apprentice now and I want her to know about all of these things, but I'm not actively teaching her.

like I I wanted to know uh where the industry came from and why certain things are done the way that they are, but there's other stuff that's like technology-wise it's just fallen by the wayside and I think the time can be better spent focusing on her as an artist. Yeah, I did my time soldering needles. Yeah, but I don't think she's ever gonna have to. It might be nice just to sit down and like learn that the basics and understanding of like how the tool that we're using adapted to what it is today. Yes. Yes. I will have her solder the needles. I'm going to have to go find my jig and put it all back together.

But but as you know, showing up the day of and having her solder all the needles that I was going to use for that day and then inspecting them with a loop. Different world now. Yeah. on top of the fact that they can go to straight YouTube and learn anything and everything from a million different artists. That's pretty wild, too. And in her first couple days, I was showing her setup and breakdown and it never even occurred to me. But she's sitting there with her phone videotaping me so she can study it later and then she and instead of uh watching the video, she wrote it all out in a transcript so she could have notes. I was like, "Oh, that's really smart.

" Yeah, man. Well, dude, what else you got going on? I mean, you you're we're going to get you out of here soon, but um you've got Designer Con this year, you've got ComicCon, Sturgis. People are going to be able to catch you. You started a new Instagram that's based on just your artwork, right? Well, no, actually I had I had Doss Frank, Inc. as Dos Frank Incorporated, which is the name of my business. And then I separated my tattoos out from that cuz it was starting to look very cluttered and like my artwork and the tattoos and it didn't it didn't have like a curated feel to it.

Just felt like a jumbled mess. Do Frank Inc. Ikank. So one art and illustration driven. Yeah. Cuz you know I'm clever like that. Yeah. And you do well with your online store too.

you tell me a little bit about your process like you know you you said you wake up you get the kids to school you come to work you you're tattooing all afternoon or if you have downtime you're using your time appropriately drawing then you're going home doing a little family time jumping back in the studio and that's where you'll like pack your orders and things like that and if I've got a project coming up then I'll start working on that I handle my own prints now for the longest time I did uh print on demand or print through uh a local printer And so invested in some good equipment you have in your house, which is not real crazy expensive these days, right? To get like a really nice printer. The one that I got is about the size of a bathtub and Oh.

Oh, yeah. It's it's it's good size. You're doing big big stuff, too. Big stuff. I think the biggest poster I'm comfortable printing is like a 24 by 36. Wow. Okay. So, and I can also do my own canvases, which occasionally I do.

I still outsource to the same printer for like really big canvases. Yeah. But I'll get home. I'll It's like going to a second job except, you know, really I really love both my desk. You can hang out in your underwear. Yeah. And I do. Yeah.

I'll go I'll go home in the evening. I'll I'll if I got any orders off the website. I'll pack them up. Uh I'll get them shipped out. What's your website again? com. Dossfrank. And then [ __ ] tell us a little bit of where where Doss Frank came from.

Like I feel like you went by Frankenberry for like in your early day. I don't know what that Okay. So, how are these given to you? Gifted? When I started at Tattoo Heaven during my apprenticeship, there was a guy there who he was a jackass. Was the nicest way that I could call him a [ __ ] He was a jackass who was convinced that I look like Frankenberry from the cereal box. Oh, okay. So, he was calling me Frank and Barry all the time.

And just everybody assumed that, you know, my name was Frank because uh if he's calling me Frank and Barry, it must be my name Frank. And then uh uh there's a tattooer there, guy named uh Uncle Johnny. Everybody calling him Uncle Johnny. It's Danny Knight's brother. He just started calling me Frank. Hey Frankie. He's a old old Brooklyn guy. Hey Frankie.

Yeah. So that just reinforced everybody calling me Frank. know for the longest time it was just you know Frank or Frankenberry or just cuz I was I was apprentice so I was like no no no guys that's not that's not my name it's like [ __ ] it my name's Frank years go by and I have a there was a DJ in Las Vegas named uh the goo muk this DJ goomuk and he was this German guy and he's he's back in Germany runs a a steak house he's super rad guy but uh for a couple weeks before he was uh uh before he went back to Germany, he was coming in and getting tattooed like all the time. Just wanted to get as many projects done as he could before he skipped town. " And then and then [ __ ] everybody started calling. So instead of telling this story, every time somebody asked like, "Uh, my first name's Doss, my last name's Frank.

My parents had a great sense of humor. " It's so much easier to say that than it is to tell the whole story. But now we have this so everybody knows. Yeah, exactly. So sh we got we uh you did a little collab with us. These stickers turned out badass. This chrome eagle. These will be going out real soon here.

I want to say this month. I got to double check our sketch, but thanks again for doing that. I think that's super rad. We should definitely do a shirt out of those. Absolutely. When our skill sets get there. Yeah. But um dude, I just Yeah.

I really thank you for taking the time to come down and hang today. Like, absolutely. It's super fun to do this. Um, [ __ ] What time is it? Am I supposed to be at the shop? Yeah, you got to be work here in a minute. Uh, I don't know. Anything else you want to say to the the world of tattooing?

Oh, Jesus. Put me on the spot. Put you on the spot there. Hey. Uh, no. Just Hey, hey, you stay gold, Cody boy. Done. Cheers, my dude.

We want to find your artwork and buy your artwork. com. We want to find you on Instagram. Dashfrank Inc. or dofrank inc. Take your pick. There you go. All right, dude.

Thanks so much for coming by. I appreciate you. Bye. Love you, man. Right back at you. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening, hanging in there, hanging out with us. Appreciate everybody's support.

Thank you so much. Peace.

I started calling it illustrative style because it wasn't quite new school. Like I didn't really do a lot of like exaggeration. I didn't do a lot of forcehortening or anything cartoony. Like I was always more like let me take this real thing and put an outline on it and color it in an interesting way. I almost quit tattooing because of how bad my back hurt. That was one of the main motivations for I got to make this tattoo studio thing or this side hustle tattoo smart thing really make it possible for me to not tattoo if I don't have to because I'm only getting older and this hurts. [Music] What's happening? This is Austin Spencer with uh support your local tattooer.

We are super excited to be a part of the Metaninoia Tattoo Gathering in 2025. We're here with Russ Abbott. Who's going to be doing a presentation seminar? You got some good experience in that. I do. Yeah. I honestly have no idea how many times I've done this. So, doing a long time.

So, I'm I'm going to lean on you this weekend because I'm doing one too with my wife, which will be fun cuz ours Yeah, ours is going to be like tag team little basic business structure and stuff. And then yours is going to be on Okay, so I forgot what yours is on. I do these workshops where it's it's not so much that I have like a slideshow and I have a plan. Okay, cool. It's I mean I have a plan, but everyone hopefully brought their iPad along. Hopefully they were all warned that iPad is Yeah. needed for this. So, there are a few steps in Procreate that I've noticed a lot of tattoo artists are missing.

So, even though they're using Procreate, they're using it like just one step beyond paper. That's where I'm at. I'm like elementary level, like I definitely lean on the guys in the shop like how how do I do this? How'd you do the tippity tap thing? You know, I'm I'm here with all the tippity tap things, but my goal is to make sure that they actually retain them, you know? So, So, I I want to demonstrate basically a process for how to think about your layers and how to think about a few of those little hidden secret gems in Procreate that are essential. And um I'll give them a custom brush set that I made that has like locked in sizes for liners. So, I'll give them something that will be really useful for creating line drawings.

A few different tools for that. I want to make sure that they understand how to think about where the line drawing, the value study, and the color study fit in the process, right? Because I like to take it all the way. Like I I want to start the tattoo with a completely rendered drawing, but I can't take a long time to do it. So, this is all about an efficient process to be ready to tattoo. That's a process, dude. Like, especially when you get busier, it's hard to find time to get all the way fully rendered, but dude, you can tell when people do it, the obviously you get a better return on your tattoo. It's like for me I died right like I I still want to leave a little room for you know creative discovery in the tattoo.

Yeah. But I also learned early on like when I first started doing digital and I was aiming for that completely rendered design because that was the reason I wanted to switch to digital. Like I felt like in the past I was doing that the best I could with like colored pencils and tracing paper and like lots of Yeah. you know horribly inefficient things. Yeah. And I couldn't always do it right. So I'd have to start the tattoo with just a line drawing and I would make mistakes, make bad choices about value relationships mostly, you know. So then I realized that figuring out just a value study, even if it was a quick scribbly value study, like figuring out where the blacks are, figuring out what's going to be empty and how you're going to arrange those in the composition was like more important to me than color.

Yeah. And so my process in Procreate is, you know, to start with a sketch, then to make a really clean outline of it. So I have my stencil and then I quickly value study using a few tricks and then I really quickly color study. Like the color study comes from the value study. So like for example, if there was like a red rose that I colored in and only gray values. Yeah. I can apply the red but keep those values intact. So I don't have to think about dark red, medium red, light red, pink, you know, all the way to white.

I just think about it in gray and then I pop that color in and I can infinitely adjust the colors of different colored components when the client's not happy with the red I chose or something like that. For the listeners that aren't like super um savvy on the terms like just say values for instance, you know, you're talking like what are the values to you and how do you express those through like the Yeah. So in in art theory we talk about hue, value, saturation. These are the three components of really color theory. The hue is which color it is, yellow, red, blue, purple. Yep. Value is how dark or light is it? So it's usually represented as a scale from black on one side all the way through all the tones of gray to white on the other side.

And then saturation or chroma is how intense or dull is the color. So any color can be described in these three ways. But when we talk about a monochromatic approach, black and gray or opaque gray um or even only blue and all the shades and tints and tones of blue, that would be a monochromatic, right? So value is the most important consideration because you don't have hue in that situation, right? So I believe and I think a lot of other people who have studied this and thought about it believe that value is more important than color. And so if we have a good value study and we we know where the darks and lights and grays are and we've thought about how key moments in the composition are going to benefit from a certain decision about dark and light from there we are very likely to have a successful tattoo even if we make [ __ ] choices about color.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I totally agree. Yeah. That's wild, dude. We kind of talked about I for some reason thought I want to go all back into the history and everything that you were you were like an art school graduate. like you really nerd out about this [ __ ] dude. And I've been watching you do it for so long.

It's really fun. It's a total opposite of like kind of just how I have always just like played with things and had fun and never really got super in-depth. So when I definitely ask those things, it's because like I sometimes genuinely don't know the difference. Like you get really deep into color theory and all this stuff. It's super fun. I love it. And you found all these unique ways to express that through like your brushes and everything like that. That's it's really fun.

So that's more of what you're going to be covering, but like you said, you want them to comprehend it. For me, somebody that's like a artist that just kind of gets lost in the sauce. Like sometimes I'm just get like zone out when it starts getting super technical. How do you uh approach them or like what are the exercises or anything that you're going to kind of be going over with them to get them to retain that stuff? Well, we have a lot of time here. I think um when I've done this in the past, I did it in like an hour and a half, but I think I have two and a half hours this time. So, I'm thinking of kind of creating a little project that we can all do together. Some simple tattoo design, you know, so that it has the sketch, it has the outline, it has the value study, and it has the coloring process.

So, sometime between now and 2 days from now, I will have a better answer. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to sit down and just do it myself. Thinking about like I cuz I can demonstrate it. Um, and and I try to not demonstrate it with anything that's too overwhelming and fancy. Although I do like to pull those those designs up and let people see how far this madness can go when you when you really know how to think about layer structure and layer blending modes. You know, things like overlay and uh multiply layer blending mode, which usually when I say that to tattoo artists, they're like, "No, I don't. " But those are important, right?

Those are like a critical component of of and and they are in my opinion like basic digital art knowledge. They're just not things that our peers are using. Yeah. So for me like stuff we make for Tattoo Smart is is aiming you know people like accelerating their you know abilities digitally. Yeah. And the frustration or the difficulty in doing that is that we still have to get people to remember to like somehow know the basics. So Yeah. And dude, when you say they go you go deep, like you get I was going into your all of your threedimensional models and everything that you're building.

Like I still haven't played with that. Like I'm still old school and I'm I'm looking forward to like sitting down and hopefully obviously learning something this weekend. I'll demo that process too because people even the people typically people who have purchased model humans and they're working with those 3D models have also missed some of those little things that make all the difference in how easy it is and how useful it is. So, there's a lot of work for me to do to like educate people on how to use the things that I've made. And a lot of times I feel bad because I haven't done that work, you know, like I've been more like, "Oh, what's the next product? " So, now I'm working a lot slower. Like I just released a new a new set called the washi set and it's Yeah, I'm excited to check that out.

I was watching all your promo videos. Super fun, too. Yeah. So, that one it has a uh tutorial 30-minute tutorial video, which is not something I've ever included with any of the previous sets. So, that's cool. So, I'm really um slowing down and I'm making sure that like Yeah, that's great. That I think that is personally an awesome idea. I was digging through your Instagram last night and I like going back to the body models, those silly ass videos you made.

I don't know how you did it where the where you open the door and the body models there. I don't know. I just I'll tell you. Yeah. I was like, how did you do that? Yeah, I'm glad you such a technology not savvy human. It's um it's view and AR. So, you've got any 3D model that you pull into Procreate.

Okay. You can click a button that says view in AR. What? I didn't know that. Yeah. And so, after a few seconds of thinking, it will project that little tiny per It actually comes out really small. Yeah. It's like a full person, but it's like an inch tall on your screen.

And so, you have to get really close to it and you have to pinch zoom it bigger and get closer and pinch zoom it bigger. And eventually I got him to be like 6 feet tall. Yeah. And I'd put him on my front porch. Okay. Yeah. Right. And then so you're filming through your camera.

Um you screen record on my iPad. Okay. Okay. All right. So like I'm screen recording the view of my iPad's camera while it's seeing him in real life. Yeah. And that's how I did it. Whoa.

Okay. And then I have open the door and I pretend to talk to him, but he's not really there. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Cool. Yeah. I I don't know.

It's it was just creative and like fun little thing. And thank you. One thing that I find real fascinating about you is that you seem to you kind of drive me crazy sometimes because you execute everything so well. It looks like from an outsider. So, you know, like your shop is beautiful and when it comes to like your education, it's you take a lot of time and energy and put in that and it shows and it's and you've been doing it for a very long time, too. It's like it's fun to see and watch from an outsider. Thank you. I do it mostly for me cuz Yeah.

No, you just just I just call it nerding out, right? just having fun and applying it to like tattooing and um you seem to always be like at the forefront of like technology applying to tattooing, right? I'm assuming that's like that's your thing, right? Yeah. So, if we could go all the way back and get to know Russ a little better like how did you get into tattooing or do you have any fun like interesting references in time where you were exposed to tattooing and and it lit something up inside of you or Sure. Yeah, I have two. Um, one I had a next door neighbor with a Donald Duck tattoo on his upper arm. Okay.

You know, he used to like mow his grass with his shirt off and you know that I remember that tattoo specifically cuz I would have been like seven or eight years old. Okay. But I also have my grandfather Matt Abbott had a eagle and flag that he got like right before he shipped off to be at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked by the Japanese. Yeah. So like his tattoo and his story are a big part of like my connection to it. That's cool. You were obviously a little guy there like always around like high school or something where you started like really kind of Did you ever venture out and like sneak into tattoo shops and [ __ ] underage? Yeah, we would go, you know, I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, you know, so you know, kind of like shielded from whatever culture really kind of was happening.

Okay. you know, so but I was into skateboarding, you know, and I was I was attracted to that type of music and things like that. So, like when I was like 16 or 17, we thought we can go to Little Five Points and try to get an eyebrow piercing. Okay. Right. And so, like I wasn't old enough, right? And you needed your mom. So, like then I went back and brought my mother, you know, and uh she signed for me to get this eyebrow piercing.

And then I went back to my, you know, conservative town and was the first kid with a body piercing at that like moment when body piercing was like all of a sudden a thing. Like every, you know, people were getting their tongues pierced all the time and like Yeah, dude. I watch my friends do that [ __ ] in my bedroom when with like a [ __ ] safety pen. And we were doing the earrings like like we would we would like pierce each other's ears with a hold ice to it and like stick a needle through and get, you know, only a left ear, you know, you got to be safe in the '8s. Yeah. But um you know go to the skating rink for the for Friday night and then come back home and take it out before our parents saw it. You know that was like the kind of [ __ ] we did when I was like 13.

Yeah. So piercing was first, right? And then you know tattooing. I had a friend met this guy who moved up to my town from like South Florida and he had a bunch of tattoos and he had a tattoo machine. He got like a kit. Oh [ __ ] Yeah. And he was a tattoo artist. He did my first two tattoos.

Okay. And I remember um looking through the catalog. I was 18 but didn't have any money. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Or maybe maybe just about to be 18, but I didn't have any sense either. Like how do you pick a tattoo artist when you're still living at the time?

Okay. So, you're hiding that [ __ ] from your mom and dad? I didn't have to hide it. I don't think I don't remember hiding it. I don't think they really like were that kind of parent. Yeah. So, he did my first couple of tattoos and I remember seeing the I think it was Superior brand. Okay.

Um, but he also had a Spot and Rogers catalog, the one with the Flash in it. Yeah. And I remember looking through all those little thumbnails of Tiny Flash that they sold. And um, I was just like blown away by the artwork, you know, I loved the tribal stuff. I loved like Japanese looking stuff like dragons and these types of things. And so that's when I realized and I think I asked and he said that you could just send off and they would mail you one of these cataloges for free, you know? So I guess I like like write the letter, send I think I did. Yeah.

There was no internet, right? So I this would have been like 1997ish. And so I got the catalog and then when I started going to college right after that at Georgia State, I was staying in the dorms and I would just look at that catalog and draw, you know. Yeah. And it wasn't even like at first an idea of look at the other catalog that has all the starter kits in it. That just came with the book with all the pictures, you know. So, I remember kind of just like finally just getting the idea because at first I would have thought, man, I can't do this. Like my my buddy does this already, but I had like left there, you know, I had like started a new life.

I wasn't seeing him anymore and I was like, I guess I could do this, you know? So, I I had a credit card and I just bought, you know, I got Huck Spalding's tattooing a toz and I read it cover to cover and um No [ __ ] Yeah, man. Were you illustrating ever since you were a kid? I mean, I was always drawing or like where was your creative outlets like? Yeah, I was always into drawing. Um, you know, I my high school voted me like most artistic or something like that, you know? All right. Like people knew me as the like art nerd, but I wasn't really all that great at it.

You know, I feel like I learned most of what I know about art through, you know, wanting to be a better tattooer. Yeah, that's fascinating. I I always find it fascinating. Like I I interviewed a dude the other day that had never even illustrated until he saw a tattoo and was like, "Well, [ __ ] I can't play the guitar very well. " And so he got into tattooing. But that's fun, man. I see. I've been drawing ever since I was a little kid, but which doesn't make me any better than anybody, but that's for damn sure.

But so you didn't have like a lot of creative creative like influence in your home. Are you like the one art artist that kind of came out? I didn't really have I mean I guess my mom's sort of into crafting, you know, like she would do stuff like like make fake stained glass with like gels and stuff when I was a kid and stuff like she makes like she likes to make greeting cards and Yeah. like stuff like that. And then um my grandfather was a a draftsman. I have I have incredible illustrations that he did that architectural. Yeah. So yeah, I guess there's a little bit of that in my jeans, but yeah, it was more like me just kind of like I was into several things.

Like I would define myself as like an artistish, you know? I don't think I was that good back then, but like it was important to me. A musician. Like I play guitar since I was a kid. Yeah. And banjo too, right? Or something. Yeah.

So many different stringed instruments over over the years. Banjo is was a phase for a while, but these days it's mostly just ambient guitar, you know? Like I love to do like strumming, you know, playing like songs and singing. This is all stuff I do by myself. Sometimes I'll put it on Instagram. Yeah, it's cool. I like it cuz I don't know. I just always like it's always fascinating to me when artists have like all of these outlets that they can grasp.

I cannot play the guitar. I cannot do anything other than just maybe draw and do some graffiti type [ __ ] But that's cool. That's fun. So, okay. So you got into tattooing and you started tattooing in your college dorm. Yeah. Like your buddies and [ __ ] like you just [ __ ] around? Yeah.

My roommates, you know, guy from across the hall. I probably did like 10 or so and it was just another set of circumstances occurred and I ended up stopping college for um probably what would have been one semester. It's a long story. It's not that interesting. But I I moved back to live in my parents' basement at this point. I skipped my old bedroom and went to the basement. Okay. And um I remember I slept on a couch that my friend's parents had had decided to discard.

So it was like a 1970s like velour like striped orange and put green stripes. All right. Couch. That was my bed. It was also my tattoo table apparently. Yeah. Another funny thing is um like I didn't want to be dirty but like the the book itself was written like 15 or 20 years earlier than that. Yeah.

Yeah. And that was the guidance that I had, right? Like I was aware that there was a thing called an autoclave, but they also sold you a bottle of sterilizing liquid with the kit. So it was like the and the implication is that you can use this safely. And so I would like my needles were new, the tubes were stainless steel, and I would I would do my best to scrub them out. And I remember thinking like, how do I change colors? Oh, yeah. Cuz the book didn't cover it.

Oh, no. And so I thought that what I needed to do was completely disassemble the machine and rinse it out in the sink between colors. Oh wow. And at one point I was like, man, maybe I need to use some dental floss and I'll feed some dental floss through there and then I can like run the tube up and down the dental floss. And I tried that for a while. But it wasn't until I got my first tattoo from a pro in Panama City Beach on spring break. Oh, okay. Not my first tattoo, but the first time that went into a shop of age.

went into Black Hat in Panama City and um I met a guy named Vampire Brian and he did an outline of a koi on my upper arm that I have since had covered and then lasered. Yeah, it's not his fault. It's just um it was it was just the wrong tattoo. But I remember he him being like strangely helpful, you know? He wasn't he didn't like adopt the persona of like [ __ ] you kid, I'm not telling you anything. Um, and and one of the things he told me or I quickly noticed was that there was a rinse cup that you could like run your machine in the rinse cup and then you were good. Um, but like so yeah, that was a funny story, but I went back home after spring break and I ended up going to the local CD shop in in the town where I lived. Yeah.

They had started doing body piercing. Okay. So, so like the conservative suburbs now had a guy doing body piercing. And I was thinking, I wonder if that guy will let me bring my dirty tubes up here and use his autoclave. So, I went in to see if I could broker a deal to have a sterilizer. And um as soon as I told him that I tattooed, that was enough for him. He was like, "Why don't you come in here and run one on me? We'll see how you do.

" What? So, I I did. I came up there and I ran one on him. Ran one on him. Yeah, that's that's how he said it. I still remember it, you know. Yeah. So, I I ran one on him and um I'm imagining him wearing a top hat for some reason.

Weird like neck tattoo. He had he was he was cool, man. He had he was probably a like 10 or 15 years older than me. And he had like a like kind of a blondhaired mullet. Yeah. Yeah. And he was a white guy, like blonde mullet, kind of like southern accent. And he wore like a Native American like choker Oh.

thing, you know, dude layers tall. Just piercing out of the back of a CD shop like a badass. I like it. Yeah. So I I built a little I went to like Home Depot and I I bought some countertop and some 2x4s and like made a little station in the closet in the back of the CD store and started tattooing. And so I used that same little catalog of get the [ __ ] out tattooing him or customers too. No customers. We I made a sign.

I made a sign and I said now available tattoos and we hung it outside and like people just started filing in. No [ __ ] And you were like 1920 or something like that. It was like Yeah, it was 19 early 98. Okay. It was a few weeks, right? And I actually ended up calling Vampire Brian and I said like, "Hey, man. How does like the tattoo business work? cuz I got a job tattooing and I need to know how the business works cuz they were asking me and I don't know.

" So, I went to them. I said, "I'm going to buy all my supplies. " So, dude, who were the owners? Were they just like just super Let the story go long enough they eventually wisen up. But like Yeah. At first they they they were making some really really shady decisions honestly. Like I didn't really know any better but Yeah. Yeah.

No. Everybody was they should have going for it. Yeah. Yeah. Which is pretty fun especially when you look back at it. Yeah. I mean it's legally and this is the same town I still live in now who still won't allow me to open a tattoo shop. But at this point in time I don't believe we ever asked anybody's permission.

They already had a business license and so thug life. We just started doing it. But and nobody else was doing it. So they're really just like [ __ ] it. Let's just Yeah. We haven't We haven't even thought to outlaw it yet. Yeah. Yeah.

Dang. So, you became Did you come become like a legend in the neighborhood with all the youngsters? No. I tattooed a few people. Um I probably did about 15 or 20 tattoos. Okay. At that place. Yeah.

And at that point in time, I met this guy who was visiting his brother and he and his brother came in. Actually knew his brother. We worked at the uh food delivery early version of Uber Eatats. We worked there together. Yeah. We used uh CB radios and um and maps. Okay. And delivered food.

Yeah. But I worked with his brother and they came in and that guy's name is Eric Campion. Eric told me he was from New York City and he was a body piercer and he had the best tattoos I'd ever seen cuz he was from New York. Yeah. And so during that week, we hung out. We became buds. And Eric needed a ride back home. And I was like, I have a car.

He said, "Well, let's go. We'll hang out in the town I live in. It's like an hour from New York. I'll take you to the city. Yeah. You know, you'll tattoo my buds. Damn, you went straight to the Yeah. All right.

So, I went to the owners of the CD shop and I said, "Hey, I got this really cool opportunity to like learn more about tattooing and go to New York City. " Yep. [ __ ] So, I left. A week later, I came back and I remember and all those things happened like we hung out. We had incredible time. It was like one of some of my best memories in life were from that trip. And um I came back and the now available tattooing sign had been taken down and I kind of knew what was up. You know, I started to put the pieces together and then I went in and the piercer had moved into my station.

Okay. Okay. And my stuff was in a box and um they were like, "Yeah, okay. So, this is maybe not so awkward. " And that was roughly one week before I decided I needed an apprenticeship. and and I got one, you know. So, yeah. So, all of the scratcher stuff like ended.

Yeah. Yeah. And it switched over to um you know, a much more like professional kind of tattooing. Yeah. And was that was that overall pretty good experience? Was that in New York or No, no, you said you just went there to I just went to New York to get some culture. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. And then you came back. So then you got somebody to teach you how to tattoo in your hometown. Exactly. Yeah. But it's still connected to Eric, right? because I was looking in the local um creative loafing. It's like the magazine that talks about culture in Atlanta.

And there was an ad in the back that said in the flesh tattoo seeks body piercer. And I knew that Eric wanted to potentially I don't know why anyone would want to do that but he wanted to move there cuz he had family there. Yeah. So that was like my reason to go meet the people at this tattoo shop. They weren't looking for an apprentice but like I was like I know a piercer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I got the I went there. When I got there, there was one person um Billy Brown, still tattooing out in um Hawaii, but she was there that day and she wasn't tattooing. She was the only one working. She had just started the job like a month earlier. Yeah. And she was telling me about the owner. His name was Troll. Okay, cool.

Everyone had a nickname that I never got Brian Troll. Um, but she told me that, you know, Troll was cool and that he would probably maybe talk to me about an apprenticeship and I hung out and talked to her for a while and and she said he really likes Jack Daniels. Okay. I'm not yet old enough to like purchase Jack Daniels legally, but I went got a friend and we we I didn't know anything about Jack Daniels, but I bought the most expensive bottle available. Okay. you know, it was like a special label and um so when I'm went to meet Troll, I was like armed with the um the secret magic ticket in cuz he had been like at a convention when I went in the first time. So he came back and I remember him standing there wearing all purple, you know, he really loved purple and uh it was be like a purple vest to hide his two pistols.

He had he had like under under each armpit he had a gun. Okay. Yeah. And um like full harness thing. Yeah. And so like that was his vibe. So it'd be like um his vibe. Imagine like a feel like he sells cocaine too on the side.

Maybe. I didn't see that. But no, there was like a beard with like probably braided maybe with like some beads on it. I'm thinking I don't know. Yeah. Rest in peace. Troll. Troll is no longer alive.

RP died a few years back and I don't have any anything awful to say. It was it was an incredible lucky experience to have someone take me in. But he was he was cutting up flash cuz we had like a system of like the line drawings had to go into the file cabinet, right? Cuz people actually came in and picked Flash. And so like he had just come back from a convention. He bought a set of Flash and he needed someone to cut the line drawings and number them and file them. Yeah. And then he had other flash that didn't come with line drawings.

So he needed someone to trace them. Yep. Yeah. And so like that became my job. Like I had to trace all this flash cataloging and organizing artwork. Yeah. That's great. Dang.

And I had to paint things purple cuz like all over the shop there was like Well, I remember there was one unfinished booth. There were four total booths, but the shop had been open for like a year in this location. And the one that I would eventually get to tattoo in was not painted. So I had to paint all these things purple. And um That's badass. Yeah. One of the first shops I worked in, there was everything was blue neon and diamond plate floors. So when you're sitting there trying to like work on talk about color theory, but being thrown into a challenge, it's just blue neon lights on you and then blue neon reflection from the bottom.

It was like all the old school tattoo shops were like they have chain link fence in there with it. It wasn't that cool. But that Yeah. Slayer playing 24 hours a day though. Yeah. Yeah. That was the vibe. So Troll, he guided you to the light.

He was your tat lord. Yeah, he was like he he we started with what I just told you. That was like my first thing. And it felt like every job that I got to do like got taught to do was like an achievement. Oh, cool. You know, so like the next job and it seemed like he would even hold back on things that he I knew were horrible for him to do. But I think he made me work there for 2 weeks before I learned to scrub tubes, for example. Right.

Once I learned to scrub tubes, I was scrubbing a lot of tubes. Yeah. And then later I learned to make needles. So that was scrubbing tubes, making needles, tracing things, painting things purple, working third shift at a gas station, you know, and trying to do my weekly drawings because I had like 10 drawings a week that were due. Oh, cool. Not having any reference, right? Like this is crazy, you know, cuz like now I'm in the reference business big time. But like at this point in time, dude, I was looking through the [ __ ] yellow pages for little like from logos from businesses to give me ideas.

I didn't have any access to anything to give me inspiration and give me something to draw when I was sitting at the gas station all night. So, you didn't have like a great collection of books or anything like that. I guess I didn't think through it deeply, you know. I I could have just brought that flash book that I had, but [ __ ] it. I like the the sourcing images through the yellow pages right now. Yeah, it's a pretty weak way to learn tattoo design, but was there some characters in there? Was that shop like you said overall was a pretty positive experience? like did you get to work with some other unique just fun Yeah, I still keep up with um Timothy Kid.

Mhm. He was Troll's first apprentice and he ended up moving to Colorado like Boulder, Colorado just a little bit after I started. So I was with him for like 3 months and then you know we always kind of kept in touch and eventually I started doing guest spots in Boulder at the shop he worked at. We did some conventions together. He started building tattoo machines and I used to use his machines. Oh, okay. Cool. Um but yeah, he's still he's a a shop called um Live Easy.

Really really cool shop in the uh Denver area now. Okay. And um we still keep in touch. Nice. That's cool. Did you ever have to dive into like machine building or anything like that? Was Troll having you like things? I definitely had to learn the parts of a coil machine.

Wanted to learn the parts, you know. I think Machine Gun Magazine was really helpful with that back then. I don't know if you ever saw those, but yeah. I don't know. I feel like there was definitely one laying around, you know, and I looked through it. I defin I for some reason never really just gravitated towards the machine. I always thought the mach I thought they were beautiful. Um and I collected them, but like not to the level of like really nerding out on them, you know?

My machines never worked that great. Yeah, that's why I was always irritated with it. Like I was just like I just want to [ __ ] draw, you know, and like paint and and tattoo. And the machine always was pulling it out, filing my contact points or like you know the [ __ ] it was just always something and I never my mentor didn't really like give me a whole lot of information on that but we like you said we took things apart and whatever. So, well, Troll was self-taught and I think when I met him, he'd been tattooing for 6 years. So, okay. Like, I don't have a strong like tattoo lineage where there was someone who delivered that knowledge, but even still like he had managed to figure out a lot of great information that he shared with me, but I still felt like there was more I had to go out and get, you know.

So yeah, you know, I I remember um sitting with Tommy Steaggle. He used to be a a popular machine builder around our our part of uh the world and he was really nice about bringing me in and giving me lessons. Oh, cool. You know, I definitely found other like mentors with that. But you Yeah, you're not a shy dude. It sounds like you always like put yourself in the position to be around good people and and that thirst for knowledge was always a good drive, right? Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

So, you were tattooing there for a while or like did you tattoo there and like work with Troll for years? I think it was like about a year in I became the shop manager cuz Troll Troll was um traveling and I would say he was mostly traveling down to the Benigans down the street spending a lot of time at the bar. Okay. Um he was kind of like getting to a place where he was thinking about leaving and he wanted to go travel Europe. He wanted to like backpack across Europe. And so he ended up selling the studio to another guy that I work with there that quite frankly didn't love the fact that a 19-year-old kid was his manager. Oh, no. Yeah.

You know, and so we didn't have a really good relationship. And so like so my mentor was leaving, the guy who was buying the shop openly hated me. Yeah. And so I began to think about moving and getting out. There were like three options that I knew of in Atlanta. There was Psycho Tattoo with Dino Cook. Oh wow. Oh, I didn't get Timeless Tattoo with Capsumsky and there was Sacred Heart with Tony Levas.

But those were the three, you know, big shops that, you know, would would be a level up, right? So, but I was strangely a little nervous at that point to even go ask. So, I ended up making a little bit of like a lateral move and going to a shop down the street that were we were friends with. did that for like two years and really like kind of like developed up to a point where eventually I ended up at Psycho Tattoo and um that was like my first kind maybe maybe three or four years in where I was like okay now I'm around Dino Cook and I'm around guy coming to do a guest spot you know Tom Renshaw coming to hang out you know dude you're in a great environment dude and like at that time I mean Dino Cook he was [ __ ] the magazines were where you were at if you were anybody and he was crushing it.

That's crazy. Is that shop still around? I don't even know. Yeah, he changed the name to Sinker Swim a couple years back and he's still there and he's That's awesome. He's still doing amazing color realism tattoos, mostly like underwater photography t like he does the photography and then he he tatto. Oh, that's red. Okay. So, dang.

So, the environment there was awesome and that was like just gassed you up even more and got you really Yeah. It gave me access to, you know, a higher higher I guess echelon of big and great the world of tattooing is, you know, and can be. That's fun. So, you got to meet all different kinds of people through there. And then you worked there for years or worked there about 2 years. Got restless again. I think I'm like a two years in place until I opened my own. That's pretty much the pattern.

So, I worked there for two years and then at this point I'm in Marietta, Georgia, which is like still the kind of the suburbs, you know, still thinking like Atlanta's where I need to be. And I got an opportunity to go work at a new shop that was opening up in East Atlanta and super cool building, awesome location. And we ended up, you know, just like shifting over there. Oh, cool. And I was a part of that crew. You know, that was the last place I worked before I decided to open up Ink and Dagger. Yeah, you know, that was just I think 2007, right? So from 1998ish when around the time I did my first tattoos to 2007, I worked in those shops.

Nice. When did you have like a certain style that you were kind of clinging to at the time? I mean, it was starting to be like I I did everything, right? Like I I I did lettering, I did tribal, I did so many lower back tribal Yeah. tattoos. I never got to do a Taz. like I just missed it. Just just [ __ ] missed it.

I did Japanese. I tried to do it traditional. Um I did um black and gray. I tried to do realistic portraits. I just wanted to be capable of everything. And I I felt like at that time that made a lot of sense because I was sitting at the shop hoping someone would walk in a lot of the time, you know, and so it was like I need these skills. I need to be able to say yes to almost everything. Yeah.

That's how we were all we were raised. you know, my our kind of age group that where we were learning how to tattoo was there was no such thing as niche. " Oh, yeah. Famine. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, the the style came along through I think early influences. Joe Capabeno, Jimmy Litwalk, Gunner.

Yeah. heavy illustrative like gray bold texture at some point would have been an influence. Um, you know, pretty much just watching like religiously looking at Dark Side Tattoos website when Joe was there. Yeah. Um, Eric Merrill was there, you know, just really getting inspired by that. Also, Guyen, you know, his his book Reinventing the Tattoo and the earlier books that he made before that, those earlier books were all in in Troll Shop, you know, big ass binders like Yeah, there were like I think there was like three different seminar booklets that he had. So, I was I was learning a lot of like tattoo theory through that and being inspired by those those artists that I mentioned illustrators like unique all unique illustrators, which I've always been a sucker for, like any tattooer that has their own real good touch.

I remember I was sitting at a convention one time and I was standing over Jimmy while he was working and he's talking. " And I was like, "Uh, I don't know. I think I was I was kind of being shy about doing conventions and I had only been tattooing for a little bit and I don't even know how I knew him but uh he was like well that's a shame you should be out there sharing your talent and I was like and I I don't know you know he speaks like him and Joe like speak so direct to and I was just like oh [ __ ] and then I just started doing conventions after that it was fun but he just was always one of those people that just said one little thing to me and it was a little pivotable or pivotal mo moment you know my tattoo career was cool those are good dudes like I wonder if he gets to hear this someday.

And yeah, maybe maybe it doesn't. But yeah. Yeah. I try to be that for other people, you know, like I really do. I enjoy that. I've had the the cool experience of having people come back 10 years later. Yeah. " Yeah.

That's great. That's fulfilling. you're and I I mean I guess that kind of transitions us into like when did you start feeling like you had a wanted to have a voice and teach people, you know, like you kind of you've been teaching for a long time and doing a providing a lot of cool components for tattooers to use and back to like your you I mean I remember you making a color wheel and I was like what the [ __ ] that you made your own color wheel? How does that work? That's so cool. Yeah. I feel like in the the overall story I'm skipping a few years cuz like when I was at Psycho Tattoo got this really cool clientele of these like 18 to 21 year old like hardcore kids you know okay and like they were getting the coolest [ __ ] you know like this guy got a full sleeve of like army ants fighting each other like sort of like a bug's life but my own interpretation you know so I was like getting to do stuff where like Lego blocks I'm thinking like Honey, I shrunk the kids kind of stuff, you know?

Like so Lego blocks are huge and the ants are fighting and like super creative stuff. That's right. And like each of those kids was like trying to out interesting the next one with their tattoos and like I was their guy. So like Oh, that's cool. I started getting to do some incredible stuff and um you know, not really making a lot of um money doing it, but perfectly happy to be doing it for what they would pay, you know. Yeah. Building up your portfolio and presence. Were you uh at the time were you submitting your stuff to uh magazines and [ __ ] or like No, I was too scared.

Really? Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't. But I was, you know, definitely like building the portfolio that would attract, you know, the future clients and doing doing more and more creative work and, you know, starting to find my voice, which, you know, eventually I started calling it illustrative style because it wasn't quite new school. Like I didn't really like um do a lot of like exaggeration. I didn't do a lot of forcehortening or anything cartoony like I was always more like let me take this real thing and put an outline on it and color it in an interesting way. Yeah. I feel like my process has always been kind of like that.

I need an image or a picture of what the thing looks like in real life. Yeah. And then I'm going to arrange. And that's why probably I got into digital then because I can take like pictures of things, you know, that I either take myself or found on Google or whatever and start arranging the composition. And then once I can start to see what it is, then I'll start drawing and and changing it like Photoshop like you were doing renderings and like kind of collage aspect type things. A lot of my processes for that type of work has always been about collage. So I never really like developed a great ability to draw like anatomy for example. never get whatever it like the skill that I was building was more about an efficiency and a process like getting to a point where I could start tattooing.

Were people asking you about that type of stuff or like we're seeing or like you know what was kind of the moment where you're like [ __ ] why did I start teaching? Like I remember um so they just had Cigar City Tattoo Expo in uh Eore City, Tampa, Florida a few weeks ago. They brought it back, but the very first Cigar City was happening and um I'm in Atlanta. They're in Tampa. And somehow I knew someone that was connected to them. So I just reached out and asked, "Hey, I want to do a seminar. " And they said yes. And I was like, "Fuck, I got to do a seminar now.

I got to figure out how to like what I'm going to talk about and like how is anyone even going to show up? And I've heard that you can charge like 100 bucks for these. So like how am I going to do that? So I I pulled that first seminar together and I just thought I would talk about illustrative tattooing which meant you know how I think about the process, how I think about outlines, what's black there for, you know, what colors do I use? And back then you could just do a seminar where you literally were like this is the machine I use for outlines. would you like to feel how it's running? " But those those things were a little bit like more more secret. I forgot the seminars were happening back then.

Like I remember before I even started tattooing going to the Austin, Texas I think it was the not the round up at the whatever but anyway I got into the elevator and Bob Terrell came in like super hammered and it was like 2:00 in the morning and we were like oh we were going to we my dad and I were we were thinking about taking your seminar tomorrow and he's all I wouldn't he's like such a correct character I love that dude. So uh anyway, but yeah, so I guess they were going on for a long time. And so yeah, I did a seminar that one of Dino's seminars when I was working with him. Shane O'Neal black and gray realism seminar. Um and I remember Shane's seminar like a lot of like well here's what one of my stencils looks like. It looks like a topographical map.

You know, I take the picture of the person and I put it on top of the purple jelly part of the transfer paper and I draw through it with a ballpoint pen. Okay, cool. That was some interesting knowledge, right? it was worth something at that point. And then I you could feel how his machines ran. He talked about how he makes his drop system and just you know that was the seminar and DOS was was like that. It's just a process, right? Like how do I do it?

And you know, I I'm actually planning to teach a seminar like that again very soon. But it'll be less about the equipment and less about, you know, the needles I choose and more about the overall process, right? how I think about tattoo from, you know, consultation all the way through, you know, being done with it and having, for example, like really nice video and photos that I've captured throughout the process so I can make a case study and hopefully market to the next client. So, I guess the the best answer that I could give you to your question is once I started thinking about teaching, I started thinking about what what do I know? Yeah. and what's interesting about what I know or how I do things. And then I started designing my existence around documenting those things, right?

So because I started to learn like when I want to teach something like I need examples. Yeah. And so I start collecting the examples while I'm doing my work and I start, you know, like sort of chronicling my my my process a little bit just so I would have it for that future thing that I would want to teach. And like I guess I got I felt like I got better at tattooing because I was being so thoughtful about things. So like in a way that teaching or the the stress of knowing that I would be teaching was helping me develop. That's cool. Yeah. I'm doing my first co- seminar this weekend.

So I was telling telling you how I'm honestly kind of like nervous and like oh [ __ ] Like yeah I I definitely don't want it to not make sense, you know? And we're trying, ours is like really simple and just kind of more about the basic business structure and stuff of tattooing. But it's still nerve-wracking. You know, you're getting up there and but like anything, the more you do it, the better you get and the more interest and time and energy you put into it. I'm hoping to get some advice from you this weekend, too. But yeah, I'm excited to see all your stuff. And so, you've been like kind of back to like tattooing and your presence in Atlanta and area, right? So, you're like suburbs of Atlanta.

Yeah, that's where about 30 minutes north of Atlanta. Okay. And so you've tattooed full-time there ever since you started tattooing. I obviously you've traveled the world in tattooing, but that's cool. That's that's always been home. Yeah, that's great. So yeah, as far as traveling too, I mean, have you done seminars like overseas and stuff too or? Yeah, the biggest one was the worldwide tattoo conference in Venice, Italy to about 300 people who were all wearing headphones and I was being translated into three different languages.

Wa. Okay. Yeah, that's wild. That was incredible. That was put on by Alex Depasi and uh Gabe Ripley back in uh I don't know, maybe it's been like a decade now, but yeah, you know, they you don't have that anymore, but it was it was really really cool. A couple years ago, I spoke at the Colombia National Tattoo Conference. Also being translated into Spanish. That's rad.

I still continue to get these these really cool opportunities because of, you know, and maybe you will, too, cuz people there's a really small group of people who have have, you know, kind of gotten over their imposttor syndrome and gotten on a stage. Yeah. And attempted to do this. And so, um, you know, it's it's not like the people that are putting together these educational conferences aren't asking more people that we'd all be interested to hear from. It's just they're getting really used to people saying, "I don't know, man. Like, who am I to, you know, to tell anybody what to do, you know, cuz I think that that sort of mindset is stopping a lot of people. It's a weird place to get to, you know, like it's nerve-wracking. I kind of just by doing this podcast project have learned so much.

you can't help but learn about yourself by because you're having to like edit and watch videos of yourself and the way you talk and express yourself and but then listening to tattooers or younger tattooers uh tell you like you said like a few like few nice things about you and you're like oh [ __ ] I don't know I I guess I guess I do have that knowledge you know whether you think of it or not. So, it's weird and and an interesting process to um package it and try to figure out if anybody will give a [ __ ] But yeah, but I I want to double click on that because like you said, you're doing your first seminar and in my story, I went to teach that first seminar at Cigar City. Yeah. And I think about 10 people bought a ticket and I was thrilled, you know, cuz that was as good as a great day of tattooing financially, but you know, it was a different thing that I could do.

And so I started wanting to be able to like do that at tattoo events, maybe tattoo two days and maybe also have a seminar. So yeah, you know, I did that a number of times. But the very next day after my first seminar, got two different messages. One from Gabe Ripley, who was about to have the very first Paradise Tattoo Gathering. Oh wow. Okay. With an invitation to be there. Oh [ __ ] The second one was from Derb Morrison, who had been running the Hell City Tattoo Fest for years.

I I was nervous to even reach out to Derb to see if I could maybe one day work his convention. Yeah. But now he's reaching out to me and giving me a spot to do the seminar. So like I took your one in uh in Columbus. You were at Matchm Hill. I was just looking Gunner, right? Yeah. Yeah.

That was 10 years ago. I just saw a photo of you there in the audience. Yeah, I thought that was hilarious. I think you posted it and I screen captured it and sent it to Big Mis and him and I were just sitting right next to each other cuz I was there for the tattoo fight club. We had like tried to set up and do this whole like interactive tattoo fight club thing with Derp. It was cool. Yeah. So then I just I I wasn't I don't think I was tattooing.

So I was like [ __ ] it. I'll take a seminar. You know I was I was thrilled to see you in the room. You know I don't know if I like I don't know if I knew you at the time but like when I saw you in the photo I was like holy [ __ ] Austin was there. Big niece was there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That was cool. Yeah. That was a real fun time man. It was like a really big mis and I I think he had come out from Ohio and was working at my shop at the time and then we both decided like we were going to start going to do conventions together shortly after Jimmy called me out, you know, and I was like, "All right, [ __ ] it. " And then next thing you know, I'm like in Canada working the Calgary show right next to Jimmy and Joe. And I was like, "This is so cool. It's like such a beautiful place. Like tattooing can just be so fun and in like it's cool that you've incorporated it all in traveling and everything.

Like it's it's really rad. Have you always done a lot of guest spots or anything too? Like I never not a lot. No, I did those guest spots at Boulder that I mentioned. Um a few here and there, but you know, if I if I wanted to travel now, that would be my preference, right? Like I I'm really really over tattooing at conventions. I I'm over the lighting. I'm over the, you know, not having the comfy table for for my client or the comfy chair for me.

I've become extremely sensitive about the environment that I tattoo in I need all my things. I'm not like I remember taking the lamp from a hotel room and like duct taping it to the garbage can upside down just so I could get some light cuz nobody even thought about that. I did all that. Yeah. at this point like I I still want to go to shows but I much I value conversations and you know building relationships that can maybe I can discover people that I can work with at Tattoo Smart or I can you know have a greater impact than I would just like sweating bullets trying to finish a tattoo in time you know. Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you're going there to compete like some and plus what the guys are doing at the conventions nowadays is insane.

It's like three full days. Like why are how are clients like able to get tattooed for three full days? I've seen like an evolution in the tattoo conventions. Yeah. Right. And a rise in the gatherings and the you know more of these type of things, these intimate tattoo gatherings where we aren't working the whole entire time. We're actually learning and working on building relationships and educating ourselves. Yeah.

Which I think is awesome. like it is because look, I mean tattoo conventions at this point I think are for the general public and tattoo conferences, educational events or other other similar things are popping up and um like I'm going to a wellness retreat that's being organized by Dan Cuban, the machine builder. Oh, in Costa Rica. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. In I believe it's in August. Is this like the second one?

I thought, yeah, I believe he's he did one that was more like machine building class and blah blah blah. Yeah, blah blah blah. I'm sure it was great. I I But I I started to pay attention to this because a few of my um friends are are on the the roster. So Mike Chambers, uh Ryan Roy, and Ben Shaw are all joining with Dan. I apparently am joining as well. So cool. That's the that's the news.

Um, but the is it just like an invite only type thing or is it um they're going to start trying to offer it? There's only 20 spots available and um it's a pretty pretty big price tag comparable to what it would cost to go to Costa Rica and stay in a nice place and eat good food for 9 days. It's not like Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I think it's a really fair price if if that's the type of thing that you um are used to spending a few thousand dollars on. But I think the the the point is the various things will happen. But it's at a wellness retreat which al always you know is available for people to go there and spend some time um having various uh experiences. I think we're going to be doing some yoga together.

I think we're going to be eating healthy. We're going to be um fasting from some from alcohol and nicotine and coffee. This is mature tattooing. We're tattooing mature. Yeah. Yeah. This is a very very specific thing like this is like okay you know like I think the reason that it's men only is you know to in a way is almost like a fast you know I don't it wasn't explained to me that way but I kind of think it's that way like you know like there's a different like we're at a convent or very small event right now that's for not only women only but women who are moms. Yeah.

So, I think that's that this sort of like, you know, niching down of communities is um like I'm not even sure why we're here, but I I'm I love a mom. Like, she's she's here with me. But, you know, the idea with that I think is let's have a tighter bond between the people that are there. Let's have deeper conversations. Let's build relationships. Let's really like get past the surface level and you know with this group of people and you know hope to have an incredible experience into it dude you can come. I'm constantly preaching to every young tattooer like you need to be your ass needs to be in yoga. Like it's like I'm actually missing my class right now but yeah and hot yoga specifically.

It's like the best thing I've ever done. All I'm doing is trying to just straighten out my back and it's like helped me so much, dude. Like I mean that's every every tattooer, right? Yeah, you know, at this point I'm 26 years in. I almost quit tattooing because of how bad my back hurt, you know, like that was one of the main motivations for I got to make this ink this tattoo studio thing or this side hustle tattoo smart thing, you know, really make it possible for me to not tattoo if I don't have to because I'm only getting older and this hurts. I feel like we need to do some sort of like like sounds like what they're doing is kind of longevity driven, but definitely like longevity education on um for younger tattooers that get in this and things that help their eyes and the lighting and all, you know, just there's a lot of different information there that can be thrown in, you know.

So, that'd be kind of cool. Ergonomics is a whole topic. Maybe you and I will put together something. Yeah. A small dude's yoga retreat. Do you do yoga much or no? a couple times. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard for me. I I do strength training mostly. Um I don't really particularly enjoy cardio, so I just like pushing heavy things. Okay. Um I like, you know, I started taking TRT like Okay. A year and a half ago, so like I I have a uh healthy 18-year-old lucky man's level of testosterone now.

Okay. Wow. All right. Which is good. Um I can I can recommend that. I was working out before, but like once I started doing that, started actually like building muscle more reliably and like and you know, strength training was a big part of correcting the back pain, you know. Another thing that helped was I got a table that actually like lifts up to a height where I can stand. Yeah.

My whole career I was working on the hunch, you know, the I'm just like up literally just bent over. And then, ironically, I was in Denver like for um Wolf and Goat has this winter art show and I go over there and Van his table just lifts all the way up to where it's like 5 and 1/2 ft off the ground. He He's not the tallest dude, too. And I'm like, damn, dude, you're so [ __ ] lucky. Your whole entire career you're just like working right out like this. What was I thinking? I don't know. I never You weren't thinking an option that I knew of for that.

Adrian Lee's got a new um product where, you know, I I forget exactly what it is, but it I think it's designed to extend your normal massage table to make it higher. Oh, okay. I don't have that. I got it. My physical therapist actually sold me one of her extra physical therapy tables. Yeah. Then and so there's a rail that goes all the way around it and you just touch it with your foot and it goes up and down. Oh.

So, it's really smooth motor and it can hold like 400 lb or something like that. And um ever since I got that, I've been standing 90% of the time. Oh, that's awesome. And now I have a new kind of pain, which is like my knees hurt. I know, man. I don't know. I always joked around about getting some sort of like adapting one of those weird sex swings to where you just from the ceiling elevate. Yeah.

Yeah. You have the same idea. I always say sex wings. I don't know of anything else like that. Yeah, that's what everyone would be thinking. But, you know, it would just be like a system of um pulleys and like various things. Like I would actually if you think about like um Tom Cruz and like Mission Impossible where he comes down from the ceiling like why why would be in that situation hovering above the client. Yeah.

Right. That would be really awesome actually. Yeah. You just Yeah. All like all the weight and everything is just distributed evenly and dang. Yeah. Or if we could tattoo floating in water somehow. I would love that.

In space, right? Like Yeah. Weightless in space would be nice. Dang. There's a lot of new problems to solve once we start tattooing in space. Just catching your ink caps like flying around the room. For you, for someone that's always so forward thinking and the technology application to tattooing, like where are you seeing tattooing going? Are you I mean, we've been throwing around the ideas of the, you know, seeing the people with robots or lasers like I don't know.

Do you see anything weird that's coming in? And not coming for us, but like Yeah. Look, I mean, I think that machines that do the work, you know, autonomously are probably going to continue to be developed. They apparently already exist. Yeah. Like Austin, Texas, there's a guy that has these machines that he's making that's doing these like small square portraits and and they're actually using cartridge type setups, too, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

saw saw some of the press releases and all the panic going around, but I have always wanted to experience what would happen in the future, right? Like I've enjoyed the fact that I was born when I was born. Yeah. And I've gotten to experience so many of the major shifts, you know, from not having the internet. Yeah. From a beeper to what our phones do now. Like I had a beeper. Like I'm I'm loving this [ __ ] you know?

you know, of course I want to be able to keep making a living as a tattooer and a tattoo studio owner. And so I I don't love, you know, thinking about the I guess the doomsday scenario where it's like the Starship Troopers Yeah. version of tattooing where they, you know, all the cadets like went into the booth and they came out with new tattoos. Like that's happened in a few movies. Um that seems bad for for us. But I but then I also know like there's always a place for or an appreciation for the people who do things the old way a human experience. Before that there can be a huge like disruption where a bunch of people who do things the old way that are refusing to adapt end up having no choice but to die in this not die literally but like to maybe like not be able to make a living doing the thing they're doing.

So, one example that I can think of is um sign painting. Yeah. Right. Like I enjoy supporting sign painters and and bring people from other places to come into Incander and do this because I think it's [ __ ] awesome that there's this like skill, you know, that that people develop to the level that it was. But in a lot of ways, you know, there was this giant workforce of sign painters and they were making show cards and they were making billboards, billboards and real estate for sale signs and all kinds of boring [ __ ] that none of them particularly enjoyed doing. " I was kind of sick of painting these stupid signs anyway. I'm just going to buy this machine and let it do it. " And they complained about it and they didn't stick with like adapt and ultimately they are not in that business anymore.

Right. So a disruption will absolutely occur and is occurring. Yeah. In so many ways in tattooing. And then there's like always going to be people who are like, "Fuck this. " And then there's going to be other people who are like going to educate myself about this. I'm going to see what it is. I'm going to explore.

I'm going to understand it at least and decide if it's useful for me or not. And I'm going to make an informed decision. And then there's going to be the younger crowd who are just out automatically comfortable with it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Those cycles continue. So I mean what is my answer?

Uh it will continue changing. People like me will continue wondering what its usefulness is and you know exploring it. People will also complain about it and we'll try to stop people from exploring it. We'll try to shake them away from doing it. We watch the same things happen with so many different cultures and yeah it's interesting. I don't know why I'm like convinced that there's going to be some sort of machine that like the laser can change the pigment of your skin. Like I feel like we'll have like some sort of weird like digital like we'll see what we think tattooing is now it it won't be what we we know it is now. I'm sorry I'm stumbling over my words but like in my head I feel like I see like there'll be like especially like melanated skin like being able to like laser in cool patterns or some [ __ ] I don't know.

Or what if you can laser in a portrait and it bleaches your skin? That'd be wild. Well, yeah. It seems like you could Yeah, I think I think it's already possible to bleach your skin. Yeah. Right. And make it lighter. I think that's popular in some countries like Korea for example.

I think they are into that. So like I've often wondered like well can you selectively bleach a specific area and then like once it's lighter can you make colors look brighter in that skin? Is that a thing? I haven't wondered about it enough to try it. the um but yeah like technology that I've seen seems to revolve around the idea of medical tattooing. So when there's something that pops up where you're like you know you see it press release goes out you know someone's trying to raise money you know some scientist somewhere is trying to apply some technology to tattoo but they already recognize that tattoo in the normal sense isn't a big enough market and isn't interesting necessarily to investors. So if they need to raise money to try to fund their their big thing, they tend to go like towards the medical use I've noticed.

And so it'll be like we are developing a tattoo that will change colors when your blood sugar is too high. You know, I don't remember the exact use case, but they have already, you know, there's patents for this [ __ ] and they already put out press releases. So if you if you Google like medical tattoo you know you'll you'll enter into a whole wormhole of stuff but like so that will happen or people are trying to bring that into existence and then these like encapsulated particles that of like there's been a few attempts and patents around that right like so that's wild we can instead of a normal tattoo pigment if we can encapsulate a particle of some dye in something that will dissipate as soon as we hit it with a certain type of laser. We can laser tattoos out in one session.

Okay. Right. And so, of course, the the tattoo community says, um, not interested in that. You shouldn't get tattoos if you don't want to keep them for life. Yeah. Yeah. But then clients or potential clients hear it and they go, maybe that would solve the problem of why I haven't gotten a tattoo. Yeah.

Because of the permanence. And so there's like this possible market and then there's these people who are like I don't want to deliver that service right over here there's like a bunch of press and publicity and money and investment over here there's a bunch of people saying [ __ ] you I'm not doing it and those companies they have like a hard time like crossing that that bridge. Yeah. I guess the scary thing is that like if there's really a demand like you know someone will pop up to you know deliver it. It'll just be like Another thing it'll be like um microbladers learning to do tiny tattoos, right? Yep. Right. And why are they doing that?

Because there were a whole bunch of people in tattoo shops who were saying, "No, I don't want to do that work. " But there was a bunch of people who were not nice to them when they walked in or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of did it to ourselves. Not us, you know, but like Yeah. Like it's simple economics, right? If there's like if there's a market that desires a product or service, someone's going to jump on it.

You know, someone or some entity is going to be thinking about how can I, you know, rise to meet that demand. [ __ ] Well, I think we're good, dude. I don't know. What do you think? I don't want to get too doomsday, but yeah. Like, I think uh I think tattooing is is at an exciting place. I think um technology is at an exciting place. Uh, we haven't said the the, you know, we haven't talked about AI yet.

I'm happy to. I use AI in my business quite a bit. You know, like I get a lot out of AI tools. I have experimented with generative AI image stuff. I think it's so fascinating. I think it's fascinating and it's it's it's really interesting. And I also understand the um the ethical, you know, problem that artists have with it. And so I've kind of like stayed on the side of like I'm interested and I'm going to explore it cuz I don't like to, you know, not know what's going on with something, but I haven't like started, you know, like bring it into my tattoo process really, you know, and I I haven't started using it to make tattoo smart stuff.

Like we still go out and like hire artists. And I think that's like that's me sort of like saying, "Okay, this is like I think where I'm going to stay stuck now, you know? I'm gonna stay because I I believe in compensating artist. Yeah. And I believe in what artists can produce and you know quite frankly like if there is anything huge that's disrupting the business of tattoo smart it's AI you know like it's like here I am like in this like mindset of of like okay we should adapt or die and then I'm like I don't know about this one. So that's where I kind of sit right now but I'm you know I'm not strongly against but I'm also not like you know, running to switch over to the world where I think it's just nice to be curious and and at least like roundaboutly knowledgeable about what's going on.

But damn, that [ __ ] is changing so fast. Like it is. I follow a lot of like just educator AI educators and those guys like it's like every every month like it's it's insane. I do too. Yeah. I just I'm in the algorithm and YouTube for AI. So like I I see all these updates and I think about how can I apply this or how would I you have to you know especially with what you're doing like it's cool. I don't really have any thing that I'm aware of right now of what I can apply it to other than just like helping you like write content and stuff like that and help us like build emails and text kind of stuff.

copyrightiting that I mean there's an industry right there that's massively disrupted right now you know because you know humans used to get paid to think about words and yeah companies still will do that but I think what they'll end up doing is hiring copywriters who can sound more human you know cuz it's really easy to spot AI copy now yeah if you're not good at prompting it you know like you can tell I know when when a tattoo brand is using it because I've I know I know like it's Trust me, we can tell. Always like on our in our team, I'm like, "These tools are great. " Like, give it your flaws, give it your character and stuff. So, perfect example of the maybe if there is a more ethical way developing of how to use AI and have and still feel human in that process cuz I think that's like the key thing that that's I always hit on when I think about what's going to happen in the future.

The version I like the best is the one where the AI or the tool, whatever it happens to be, helps to do the work that frees your your human creativity and time up to do some more interesting work. Because I think I naturally like the more digital design tricks that I've learned, the more that I've had energy and effort to put into what I wanted to create. I never stopped wanting to create because I'm a human. Yeah. Right. And so I guess there's a general level up that happens because of whatever the tool is and then there's like what am I going to do with the opportunity created how am I still going to compete against other humans who are also using the same tools. Yeah. And and then it just you know that's the utopian version.

Yeah. You know for anyone who's like stuck in the dystopian version right now try to think of it that way. I randomly keep wanting to play with the character generators type thing. I don't know. I don't know how you describe that, but like basically you can like film yourself doing talking head video and then you can build like I I wanted to build like this character that was a penguin like is our mascot for our company, you know, and then have him talk. I just want to play with it and see what it comes up without. Yeah, I watched a video about that the other day. It looked like you have to do some like basic rigging like you've got to like connect the eyes to, you know, like if you build your own character, right?

Like you have to like go in and tell it, okay, this is a mouth. And then you have to give it all of the different mouths for all of the vowel sounds. Oh wow. So you program all those different shapes of mouths in that they give you like a template for, right? So you just draw those mouths with your penguin. Wa. And then there's the brows and the eyes and you basically just like fill it in. Yeah.

And give it all the parts. And then once you do that, you can act out what you want on camera and the the penguin will follow that. It'll just copy you and use your voice. Weird, dude. I think it doesn't look that hard. No, I just think it'll be fun to play with. It would absolutely be fun to play with. Yeah, I want to do I want to do that.

I'm going to I'm going maybe talk more about that. I'll try to look in my video history and find the video I lost and figure out what the software was cuz a lot of times with AI stuff, you're you're stringing together three different AIs to do it. Like you you might be using one to generate um a voice. It's like you put a script in and it reads in in a in a voice and you take the voice and you feed it to this other one and it hears the voice and makes the AI characters um mouth move to say those words. Oh, weird. And then you can take and then you can change the voice now too to to where like I can make a penguin sound like Snoop Dog and like Yeah, that's that's tricky, dude. And a lot of that stuff I think is coming into like the Cap Cut app for Tik Tok too.

So like I guess the way it works is like there's random software that's hard to use with a bad user experience and like early people will go and explore it and then the user experience gets better and all of a sudden like it hits mainstream and everyone can use it and I think we're in like the sort of the middle right now where user experience is starting to get easy enough but it's definitely not mainstream. I want to play with it more. I'm glad you nerd out about that stuff. It's cool. Awesome. But, uh, yeah. So, I don't know. I think we're I think we're pretty good.

We said we were done 10 minutes ago. Oh, yeah. I know. I keep I always start back up, dude. I always say I'm done. And then I think we're cool, man. Like, I'm I'm super happy to have you here and, uh, get to know you and your wife better. And, um, I'm really pumped about sitting down and listening to your seminar.

So, um, yeah. Today or tomorrow? Friday. Friday. Okay. Okay. Mine's tomorrow. Worse.

the schedule. I got to check my schedule like 10 times a day. But yeah, dude, I hope you enjoy Vegas, man. And uh I would really like to bring you over to the Maverick Warehouse and give you a little tour and we talk about things. Yeah. Yeah. So, and then uh maybe I'll go show me or I'll at least show you where some of the murals are that we painted this in town so you can get out there and check some stuff out. But sweet.

Uh I appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me, dude. It's always really good to like get to know you a little better. And uh yeah, I appreciate it, man. and give us a little quick lay down your Ink and Dagger tattoo. Yes, Ink and Dagger Tattoo in Roswell, Georgia. Yeah. Uh Tattoo Smart in Universe. Yes, we are available in most of the world except for where they are blocking um the internet from this country.

Okay. Might be happening in a few places. Oh, that's interesting. Holy [ __ ] And uh social media is we follow you on most everybody I feel like already follows you but if you don't get on there and check out maybe um yeah so thank you so much dude I appreciate it man and look forward to hearing from you this weekend and I think that's a wrap. That's a wrap. All right guys, thank you so much for tuning in.

One of the biggest parts of tattooing to me is the experience and the time spent with another human. The art is is its own thing, right? And you work as hard as you can to do your best at that. My kids need to know that I work hard, you know, or so they will know what it takes when they're old enough. So that's my mentality. So I kind of those two things work. Tattooing and family life kind of like feed off each other for me. I'm the type of dude like if you give me a goal, I'm going to make time for it and I'm going to meet that goal.

Yeah. So, just like those art shows that I've done, no video games, no listening to records. You got to focus. This is free time. Like any free time you have, you do that. [Music] Pier, we're here popping. What's happening? What's What's happening?

What's happening? Uh, this is Austin Spencer with Support Your Local Tattooer. Super super pumped. I always say this, but I [ __ ] genuinely am to sit down with my man Chance. I'm going to say Gomez because your Instagram says Gro Gomez. Uh Chance Gomez. He's a Las Vegas based tattooer. Hands down like one of my favorite just genuinely kind dudes.

Like I love your energy. I was really excited about sitting down with you today. We were talking about not sleeping and I was like laying in bed. It was like 3:00 in the morning. And I'm like, there's like so much fun stuff I'm looking forward to learning about you today. Cuz like we get to see each other. We have a lot of really like good mutual friends. But you know, like when we get to sit down like this, it's so fun.

Oh yeah. And it's like it's just really cool to get to know each other more. And we've been tattooing in the same city for 20 How long you've been tattooing? Technically 24. 24 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So were you doing your apprentichip roughly like around the same time I was? So, it's with me it's a different it's a different thing. Okay, let's just let's go let's go there right now. Way back. So, I was in a hardcore punk band around the time I actually met my wife through a punk show that we were playing and we decided to get married like within a year. It was like a quick thing when the guys in the band and a couple other friends, Bob's older brother, I think Bob too, okay, they pitched in for our wedding gift and got me a setup from Unimax way back in the day. So in 2000, okay, so in 2000 literally get home from my honeymoon and you know the packages there on the doorstep and uh just broke into that thing and [ __ ] really it had it came with remember the Huck Balding book, How to A to Z, how to tattoo.

Yeah. Yeah. " All the dudes in the band, they're like, "You're such a good artist, dude. " Because, you know, it was kind of Oh, 2000. It was kind in the in the punk scene and and that stuff, it was catching on. Like, people wanted to get tattooed. So, I went to town. I did my first tattoo on my leg.

Did second tattoo on the drummer, the band. Pre-YouTube, you're just literally free free balling it. Just Yeah. Probably didn't use rubber bands the first, I don't know, 50 tatto. Yeah. Some of them turned out pretty good. Really? So you just jumped How How old were you then?

You So you were pretty young. I was 25 24. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. So you started a little after me, but Yeah, that was 2000. Okay. Yeah.

Well, [ __ ] Then so did I. Yeah, cuz I started roughly around 2000. So then you you were just going to town on all your homies. Yeah. Going to town on all the homies. Uh you know, back then you had to make needles. Yeah. So I had to figure out, you know, you could order them like single needles and then you had to solder them.

You don't you you Yeah. Yeah. No, I made them like the jigs and everything. So, did that come in the kit and [ __ ] No, it didn't. It came with just like a handful, but then like uh because Okay. Even before this, me and a homie when I was probably I was 15 years old. We watched a uh like a prison documentary on HBO and they actually in this documentary they showed how they made their machines and [ __ ] Oh. So, we made machines.

So you rewatched that [ __ ] and and tattooed each other. So that technically was my first tattoo. You know, we're tattooing each other as kids. So I kind of knew I knew like how it all worked. I had to find out. There was a local guy. I don't think I want to say his name who we used to get drugs off of, like acid, meth, all that stuff. But he was a tattooer.

like he was one of the guys back in the day that wasn't involved in like the bike clubs or like which is kind of a Nazi. He might have been a Nazi. I don't know. But anyways, he's the local drug dealer. Okay. And he tattooed at a shop, which I won't say the name either. Yeah. " And he's like, "Oh, come over to my house.

" So he invited me over, went over his house, which was crazy, dude. This dude had like It was like a movie, you know? Walk into his house, there was like beads. It was like a opium dim, dude. Except there was like shotguns everywhere and [ __ ] dude. But he was hella cool to me. " And he was just like, "Dude, this is what you got to do. " There was like Cam Supply, Unimax Supply.

You could get stuff from those places, but they didn't like like needle jigs. You couldn't and you couldn't and like the internet was just barely there. Barely there. Yeah. So, it was like you had to like know somebody. So, I went, me and my wife, I believe it was right after we got married, we went out to this show called Inkslingers Ball. Old school show in LA. Yeah, I was in Hollywood at the Paladium.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Went out there, met hella cool tattooers out there. If you didn't know anybody there, right? So, you just kind of went in blind like Yeah, totally. I mean, I got tattooed there by a guy that we knew that tattooed here in town. I can't even remember his name.

Yeah, my memory shot so long. Yeah. But yeah, I got I got a bunch of needle jigs from there. Oh, okay. Okay. And then then it was on I was tattooing Yeah. everybody out of the house, working construction, tattooing at night. No [ __ ] Yeah.

And you were you still doing graffiti? Like you were real big into graffiti. I know. But this was after graffiti. Oh, okay. Yeah. After the the great fallout. Yeah, dude.

So, we can talk about that, too. I just remember hearing some wild ass stories. Uh, you know, we have mutual other mutual friends, I guess, that were involved. And you got raided. Yeah. Is that what you want to call it? I mean, Jesse Girl's house got raided. Yes.

I mean, kind of. Yeah. When did I meet you? I was trying to think. I think Vanessa or someone was asking me and I was like, "Did I meet you at like a punk house party? " We have We have a lot of long time mutual friends, but I knew graffiti. So, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's what I thought. Yeah. So, we were You were way more advanced than me. I was just kind of I mean, I've been painting since I was a kid, but not like out getting up type. I don't know about advance, but a little bit loose on the morals of city and malicious destruction of private property.

Um I think that's all what we were doing at the time. If you're an artist at that time, you were doing graffiti. Well, yeah. Now, uh now graffiti is, you know, it's on every commercial. Yeah. Back then it was like it was the only way to get out and do art other than, you know, corporate nonsense. Let's go back even more. I like hearing about anybody's first experiences with uh exposures to tattoos.

Like do you have any weird uncles or anything that were had tattoos or Dude, nobody in my family had tattoos. Um my first exposure I believe was besides like seeing like you know bikers and magazines and stuff. We lived in this apartment complex. I believe I was in middle school and we lived upstairs and our downstairs neighbor was this elderly couple. And the the husband, I think he was a veteran from World War II, but he had this big black panther right on top of his forearm. Yeah. " And it was probably just this it probably just looked like a big black blob cuz this was in, you know, this was in probably 1990 or whatever, but but it was cool as [ __ ] Yeah, dude. All of us were just like, we're going to get tattoos, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was the first time. That's awesome. And then seeing people tattooed, you know, going getting skateboarding magazines and then going to punk shows. Uh seeing a lot more tattoos like that. Were you touring at some point in time or no?

Yeah, multiple times in different times in my life. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy how many tattooers have ties to to music and being in bands and uh traveling through that. So, they kind of get accustomed to being in love with that lifestyle and tattooing kind of just made like a perfect match, you know? It's like, oh [ __ ] you mean I can get paid to draw and [ __ ] go see my friends all over the country or world? You know, it's pretty cool. I I don't I don't know how to play [ __ ] music.

I don't even It's fascinating to me, but it's cool that you guys go all I haven't done it in a while. You know, when you get a little bit older, have kids, it's a little bit Yeah, it's different. Yeah, I like it. I'll revisit it for sure. " Yeah. Have to start going to conventions, maybe write a record, go on a tour. Who knows? Yeah.

All right. [ __ ] a. I like it. So, [ __ ] Go back to like um Yeah. I don't know if you want to tell a little more about the the big graffiti fallout. Is that what you want to call it? Yeah, I guess. Um, so the house got raided and you were in the house.

At least back then. I mean, I have a lot of friends that are cops now that I tattoo, right? And they're great great people. But these cops back then, they were [ __ ] shady, dude. Yeah. They like tricked us. They tricked us and we were just kids. But yeah, anyways, I was asleep.

Cops come into Jesse girl's house. I I was sleep more often than not I would sleep on the couch there. Yeah. Cuz me and our mutual friend would be out writing graffiti all night and Yeah. They came in. They didn't get much. They got my blackbook, but I didn't have any like cans or my photo album or anything. We were tipped off.

Oh, okay. So, we went and hit all our [ __ ] That's how they tie you to your name and everything. Dude, they got they they freaking swindled us into like confessing for it. Oh yeah. And do you and straight hinged you up? Lock like locked your ass up or what? Like Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Or I mean I think I was locked up for a couple weeks and uh but then like when it was all said and done like stupid amount of restitution I had to pay. Oh. But then they ended up just like because I don't think it I don't think the way that they got us hemped up was like legal in a sense. But so they kept like dropping the dropping the uh the amount. Oh, okay. And then eventually I paid it like off on a credit card and then that was that.

Damn. Yeah. But yeah, dude. Man, up on billboards, freeway, side of the freeway every night, dude. Dude, I could I never That's kind of where I stopped. I was like I didn't I loved it, but not that much cuz I was getting into some positions where I'm like, I'm either going to get [ __ ] shot or Oh, yeah, dude. Lots of those or pulled down off of this wall or [ __ ] We got chased by people constantly alleys along the highway that you're trying to like squeeze through to jump out onto the Oh, yeah. There's all kinds of dangers, man.

I think back on that like my son right now was 15. Yeah. I think back and like, dude, when I was 15, 16, 17, that's what I was doing, man. Dude, I remember in junior high, my junior high, this kid was like, "Yo, my mom's out of town. I'm going to steal her car. we're going to go out. And I was like, "Fuck it, Doug. " He's [ __ ] smoking weed.

He's like, I don't Yeah. How How old are you in junior high? Like [ __ ] 12 or you know, 13. " Yeah. " And that's that's what we were doing. It's [ __ ] terrible. So, I kind of started to get out of that, especially since my dad raided me. He specifically came into my room while I was gone.

He knew what was going on. Pulled all my cans out. pulled all my uh all my photos. So, I have no history of any of my graffiti. It's all gone. You know, see, they got a lot, but like I got I got maybe like a handful of photos, but yeah. Yeah. All my books, everything, dude.

I gave him home one day and it was just gone. And we've never talked about it. So, if you listen to this, I understand why you did it, but but damn, I wish I had those [ __ ] photos, dude. And all those drawings. So, all my 35mm prints, you know. Yeah, you would used to, you know, we would we would take all our photos with a flash in the dark and then it would be all grainy and blown out and then go get it at the two day hour or two day later on became one hour photo and then you wait and get all your [ __ ] out and you're like what? Oh yeah. Yep.

" Especially if like So we uh we painted on freights a lot, dude. So like you painted it, the train was gone, you never see it again. So whatever documentation you had, that was that. Yeah. Yeah. You maybe see it by someday some photos will pop up. There's a lot of like graffiti writers that shoot all the freights and then just document them all. You remember those like websites you'd go to?

They would just, you know, try to find art crimes. Yeah. Yeah. That's the [ __ ] Yeah, dude. Yeah. So, you've always been fascinated with illustration and art in general, right? Ever since you were a youngster. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Uh, fourth grade I was failing. Fourth grade, right? My parents come, my parents come in for a conference with the teacher. Why is our kid failing? Teacher's got like a stack of just drawings. She's like, I can't get him to do anything but draw. And that was the beginning, you know.

Yeah. And, you know, my parents, as good as they they were trying to do, like back then, an artist wasn't a, you know, a proper job that you could have. It's just like that's just a that's just a hobby, you know? You got to do good in school. Yeah. But yeah, they couldn't I couldn't figure out how to do good in school. How to put Yeah. to channel you in somewhat of a direction.

Most of it's entrepreneurial driven or or I guess like at our time everybody was like, "Oh, you're an artist. You're a graphic designer. That's it. " Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even that was very lucrative because computers and internet and that all that hadn't even Yeah. My mom was an illustrator ever since I was a little kid.

a professional illustrator. So, I got to grow up around that. It was real real fun to see that. So, I saw her be successful at it, you know, and then so we kind of knew that there is some some sort of a lane here. That's great. But a lot of parents that weren't necessarily creative people didn't maybe they just didn't know. It's not their fault, you know? Yeah.

No, no, I don't blame them at all. If my kid liked football, I wouldn't know what to do. I'd be going to football games begrudgingly. I always joke around. " Okay, bud. Let's figure this out. Let's go brush up on Black Sabbath. Yeah, I'm good with that.

But yeah, so [ __ ] Yeah. So, you got um I don't know. Let's get back into your tattoo world. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so you got like Well, yeah. Learned how to make needles from the Yeah. the meth dealer.

Yeah. Guns in the house and Yeah. beads and drugs and [ __ ] So I was tattooing out of my house playing in a hardcore band. Yeah. Working construction. Um that lasted quite some time. Uh I met a guy through the punk scene, Kevin. I believe he was apprenticed by um I don't know if if it's this is correct, but I think it was either Buddy or Ryan Downey.

So So back then um so he was like a proper traditional tattoo artist and we were we hit it off, you know, we were both into the same kind of music. Uh we were both straight edge at the time. Okay. And uh so he like kind of taught me how to draw a little bit. His name my buddy Kevin, he still tattoos. He's out in Florida, but he taught me like the basics of like American traditional, like all the Jerry Ed, you know, type stuff. Um, because before that I was just copying like uh, you know, Huck Spalding Flash and like Cherry Creek stuff like Yeah, it was even this was even before like uh, I mean before pricks before like the graffiti stuff had even been inter intertwined in tattooing. Oh, okay.

Or maybe at the dawn of that, I don't know. I I wasn't around it. So, so I learned how to do American traditional, how to draw it. Um, and you know, and then all that stuff started coming in. I started uh messing around with like all the chrome stuff, graffiti stuff, but man, back then there wasn't really there wasn't a way to get in and all the shops were seedy, bro. you know, it was all drugs, Nazis, bikers, which was its own era of stuff, but like I was like, here I am like this, you know, trying to be on a straight path here. Got married and I was just like, oh man. And my buddy, my buddy Kevin, he was working his shops, shop to shop, you know, he'd get kicked out of a shop because Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. There was like whatever. A bunch of bikers came in and he didn't want to tattoo him, so he got fired or got beat up, got all the [ __ ] taken by the owner, you know? Yeah. So, I was like, man, I don't think it's going to work out for me tattooing. So there was a few years that I just didn't, you know, I would tattoo out of the house like homies or people from work or whatever, but I didn't I didn't see it as a viable future. This goes on from 2000 to I think probably 2007, so 7 years of just, you know, I always painted.

I always like drew stuff, you know. Um drew all the graphics for all the bands, you know. Um 2007 I got laid off from my job and uh a childhood buddy of mine, Corey Holton, he had apprenticed somewhere and had started tattooing um had like a little spot. It was like a salon that had let him have a station in there, you know. He hit me up and he's like, "Man, I know you're a good artist, dude, and I know you know how to tattoo. " So, I went over there and started messing around with him. No shame. He moved to like another shop uh and I moved with him probably about a year and he opened his own shop and signed me off and that was it, dude.

I fell in love immediately. And and these shops like one of the shops was like Tropicana and POS and then the shop he opened was Lake Me and Nellis. So they were in like but I was loving it, dude. I was loving the characters coming in there, dude. I was just like what? This is a whole like different world, you know? It kind of brought me back to like that danger of like riding graffiti, you know, going through like the tent cities on the side of the freeway and on the overpasses and all that. So it gave me that kind of feeling and I was like, yo, but I'm making money, too.

So I was just like, hell yeah. Yeah, dude. those like we were just talking about it yesterday with Clark North like and Phil Luck too on his interview like those really rough kind of wacky shops were the most exciting like yeah dude I mean there was so many unique stories just tweakers coming in weird weirding out on you tell getting naked in front of you prostitutes coming in offering all of their services for a tattoo I remember I was standing right with my mom at the front counter We were, you know, we had partners on that shop and these two girls come in with their little mini skirts on and stuff and they're I'm standing right in front of my mom. " You know, trying to treat everybody, right? " And I just lift up their dresses and they're butt naked.

And I was like, "Oh my god, a [ __ ] mom is my poor mom, dude. " But just weird [ __ ] like that was like pretty regularly happening in all. Yeah, man. I had on the on the the shop that I worked at, it was called Electric Eye Tattoo after the Judas Priest song, Lake Meet and Nellis. I had a guy come in. Well, first off, like dude, it was probably couple weeks after we were open. Like it it was just a little shop, two stations in there, you know, just a tiny little shop. I had a guy come in.

So I I would work like kind of the evening shift. My buddy Cory would work whenever he wanted cuz it was his shop. " And he pulled out a handgun, dude, with the serial numbers freaking filed off. And I was just like, "Yo, no, I'm good on that, my man. " And just freaking took off. " And I was just like, "I don't this isn't my shop, man. " And he was just like, I can't remember his exact words, but they were kind of threatening. Yeah.

And then he took off and I gave her I gave him my buddy Cory's card. " From then on, the doors were locked at night time though, dude. I was like, "Whoa, dude. " And same thing happened. Prostitutes would come in trying to trade tricks for cigarettes and stuff or just like wow, dude. The [ __ ] is happening here, dude? That was like a I don't I don't I don't I want to say a miss it cuz that was that was a time when I was young and it was it was I'm thankful for it, but miss it. No, I feel like I don't know if you remember like how many potentially incredibly tense moments there was with walk-ins like guys and they were just real aggressive and you Oh, yeah.

you're just kind of trying to get through the consult, you know, with them and then figure out if they're serious or not. And uh there was all so many times where you'll you you're [ __ ] terrified inside, you know, like you're scared out of your mind, but you're trying to just maintain it and you're cool and get through it. And then sometimes they end up being like the coolest most. Yeah. But they kind of felt like they needed to be tough when they came in or something, you know? I had to learn so much. Then they just they're like open books when they sit in the charity. Yeah.

Bro, that's like So that's one of my favorite things about tattooing, right? Me too. Is just the connection you can have. Like it's taught me not to judge people. Like Yeah. specifically this big bro guy comes in and uh you know fox shirt on raised truck you know American flag tattoo type dude and I'm just like this douchemag you know then he you know we have a consultation and he's very con confronting me you know like very I'm just like oh man do I really want to like sign up to do this guy's sleeve but you know you just I the era I came up in you just Well, yeah. You weren't allowed to just judge and walk away or whatever. You better work this [ __ ] out and get it done.

You got you got to get it done. It's not like, "No, it's not my style, you know? " But so anyways, you know, I begrudgingly do the tattoo and this dude turns out to be the most sweetheart of a guy, dude. Like his freaking wife um got killed, you know? He's a single dad raising his kid on his own and he's just like the most empathetic sweetheart of a guy. And every time he gets in my chair, I'm just like, "Chance Gomez, you are an [ __ ] for judging this guy. " Yeah. And the tattooing is like the most intimate experience, dude.

People just open up and that's my favorite part, man. It's It is amazing, dude. Yeah. There's I got a lot of those stories. That's damn sure. Me, too. [ __ ] will get you tearing up, dude. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Talk about like empathetic. It's weird if you don't have that trait as a tattooer to just be so cold and closed off and not open up to all of these different kinds of people and they teach you so much about just different kinds of cultures and ways of thinking and I don't know. It is really fulfilling. Yeah. It changes you, man, if you let it, dude. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm I just even just simply like not judging people by they come in and they're maybe like boisterous and tough guy or whatever or they're real quiet and they don't really give you a lot of information and then you sit down and you start trying to pull it out of them a little bit and then they get comfortable then they open up and it goes from a little tattoo to like I I always wanted a full sleeve you know and then you're like well [ __ ] let's let's be homies dude let's do this you know and if you don't take that time to like be patient with people and open up and give them the benefit of the doubt. So many doors like just don't [ __ ] open, man. And dude, that's the po the well, I shouldn't say the point. That's like one of the biggest parts of tattooing to me is the exper the experience and the time spent with another human, right?

The art is is its own thing, right? And you know, you work as hard as you can to do your best at that. Yeah. But as far as like someone coming to get a tattoo, especially if they're Well, I I shouldn't say that either. From the smallest tattoo to a bodysuit, man, you're giving them an experience and in return, you're receiving experience. Yeah. So, it's like that's the biggest part. It's not um it doesn't really matter the tattoo in a sense when you're like opening up when someone's opening up to you.

And sometimes they don't and that's fine too. But you just learn a lot about yourself and other people and community from tattooing. At least I have. Yeah. You know, I couldn't I couldn't imagine like just doing like just drawing things on people, you know, just like and I know people do that and that's cool like whatever like however you get the the thing that you want to be done done, but like I couldn't I can't close myself off like that, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Like I go I go home and paint or draw flash when I want to just close myself off and do art, you know?

Like tattooing is tattooing is a whole other thing to me. I still have some great I people that I met 20 years ago through tattooing. I have so many of my really close friends that I admire and look up to came from tattooing. Oh yeah, dude. Like Oh yeah. My wife came from tattooing too, you know. uh met her in the in a shop and then she I met her 10 years later, you know. But that's cool.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. But there I don't know. It's tattooing. It can be all of the all of the feels, you know? It can stress you the [ __ ] out.

It can make you so incredibly happy. It can make you cry. Like, I've definitely been in the middle of tattooing with hearing some pretty v, you know, people. They open up to you, man. They're vulnerable. They're they're hurting, you know, and they share those stories with you. And I'm I'm like a firm believer in like weird energy and good energy that you can feel off of people. I don't know how many times you've been working on people's ribs for hours on end and if they're not feeling it, it makes you so tense.

It makes you so it's exhausting. You come home and you're just like dead. Yeah. And I've always I never really know how to verbally express that other than just like the energy from their tenseness and stuff like comes into you. And I don't know, dude. I got um so there was a time I don't know it's probably about a decade ago when I was like getting really bummed out on tattooing. You probably had that in your career where you're just like, man, like whatever the case may be. Like I I can't pull [ __ ] straight line.

I can't I don't know how to design anything. I can't draw. like I can't, you know, when you sit down, you can't even draw a rose. Like I was going through one of those times just like is this like what I should be doing, you know? Like should I do I need to go back and do something else because this is not working out for me like mentally. Yeah. Um and I had this this little old lady walk in come in and her husband had just passed away and she wanted to get his signature on her arm. You know, kind of a typical I wasn't thinking about it type moment.

Um, sure. You know, sit down. 100 bucks. Let's go. Yeah. " And like that moment just like freaking it was just like a a lightning jolt in my spirit. " Yeah. Like this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

Yeah. It's not, like I was saying earlier, it's not as much about the art like you were placing the emphasis on. It's more about like the full experience. You know, I was just looking at the small part of it and not the whole. So, I keep that. I still got the little stencil of her husband's name in my machine drawer. That's cool. So, anytime I'm like bummed out, just look at that and like, oh, no.

Yeah, you're good, dude. Just keep on going. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, tattooing can kick your ass, man. Like it can make you like or I guess what we're talking about there's all the feels ups and downs there. Those downs are rough, man. Like Oh, yeah.

I don't even know. I'm going to tell this story. Let's go. The moon phases, you know, like the whole [ __ ] the moon phases tattooed it dozens of times. Yeah. So, I did I don't know what is there like six in a row or something. Um I did those and I felt good about them. I was just but I was having a great time with the client and I was talking my ass off and giving her a great experience and everything.

She was really happy with it. I took a picture and I didn't really think much about it. " And I was like, "I don't I don't know if you ever do this, but you're like, "I don't know. " Yeah. It's like you could be so busy all day long and then you just completely forget. So I pulled out the pictures and I was like, "Oh, I did this. " Huh. Why does this look like six cookies?

just like the texture like in different phases of being bitten. I don't the texture just got too 3D or something. I don't know. But I was like I was [ __ ] depressed for like two weeks that [ __ ] dude. And I was like scared to go in and do my next tattoo. And I don't know. I just I she and you could be on a roll and then one thing like that'll just break you. Just crush you forever.

I don't know how your partner is, but my wife is straight up like she goes, "Yep, that looks terrible. it looks like six cookies. And I'm like, [ __ ] man. Which I think continue to help crush you and kick you while you were down. But I uh I appreciate the honesty, you know? I really do with her. But yeah, I was bummed out for like every But it did make me go in and reassess the tattoos that I did for the next couple weeks. Is this the best I can do?

Am I, you know, how am I going to shave this? How am I going to slow down? you know, cuz it's also you tend to get into that like grind of let's do this, you know, I got like three three appointments today, plus I got two meetings with two different artists that are [ __ ] off and like they're not doing what they need to do. And then I got meeting with a partner and then like, you know, that [ __ ] can get all overwhelming. I was never really that great. How How are you at like uh organizing your time? Like do you are you good at compartmentalizing like That's a good question. home life versus work and family.

Yeah, family has always been number one for me, but also I kind of I've learned that like work plays into that, you know. So, I grew up and my dad was always the bread winner. He would always go to work. I would always see him working hard, see him exhausted. Um, me and my brother, we started working at the family business at a young age. So we always worked because we always saw the example of my dad working. So I my kids need to know that I work hard, you know, or so they will know what it takes when they're old enough. So that's my mentality.

So I kind of those two things work, tattooing and family life kind of like feed off each other for me. As far as everything else, dude, that I do, like, you know, going to shows and uh going to conventions and doing everything else, paintings, art shows, like I'm the type of dude like if you give me a goal, I'm going to make time for it and I'm going to meet that goal. Yeah. So, just like those art shows that I've done. Yeah. Um, you know, no video games, no no listening to records. You got to focus. This is free time.

Like any free time you have, you do that. So that's how I've always been. I So I guess I I'm okay at it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As long as you're Yeah.

You're fulfilling your priorities of, you know, that family and everything. And we do the same thing. We work a lot like pretty much every day. But we bring our kids along with us, you know. So we'll Oh, yeah. We'll be here packing orders with the team on Saturday and then we'll be working nights going over everything that we need to do together and then working during the day. But we all only want our kids to be around us. So it's like Yeah.

Oh yeah. That's the reason I stopped doing the music thing essentially. Um I was out on a tour, you know, three week tour. U my son, he had to have been two or three two years old maybe. Um and it was like at the dawn of FaceTime. It was like Skype, you know. So every few days I'd Skype with them. And you know, we're at a what it was in Indianapolis.

It's like it's actually a really cool little bar, like a Viking bar. Um, playing a show there. And before the show, I'm skyping and like my son, you know, he's in the bathtub and saying his ABCs for the first time. And I'm just like, what the [ __ ] are you doing, dude? You're out here with your buddies playing punk music in the Midwest when you're missing these moments. " And then that was that. And I came back and I had Mia's tattoo homesick on the top of my knuckles, you know? Nice.

Yeah. And that was that. Yeah. I was like, "Okay, like this is this is a different phase of life. You know, you're a dad now. You got to be around, you know, tattooing is is a whole like other like marriage and family in itself that you have to stay true to, but now you have this family to stay true to. You can't be, you know, Yeah. Yeah.

[ __ ] off. Tattooing can lend itself to a good like open mornings to be able to get your kid up, get them to school. I love that [ __ ] I'm able to drive my kids to school. Oh yeah. And then I'm fortunate enough to where I got the shop rolling good enough over the years that I don't have to be there at nights now. But so I'm able to go pick up my kids and that's like incredibly fortunate for that. That's cool. Well, I'm I'm so thankful I'm in the position now like and I've always kind of worked at shops where like you know it was the homies that owned the shop, you know.

Yeah. So, I've always had a little bit of freedom, but now it's it's it's amazing, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With me and Mary Beth at our shop cuz we're both parents, you know, all of our artists are parents, you know, so Yeah. Tell me more about your shop collective. Yeah.

In Las Vegas. Um yeah, you and Mary Beth are partners on that, right? And then you've always been I just feel like really good at keeping people around and nurturing them and teaching and Yeah. I mean it just it works out that way, man. I guess I'm a some say I'm a natural at mentoring. I guess um I've known Ryan for god almost two decades now. Yeah, he was apprenticing at a shop that the guy that apprenticed me worked at for a little bit and like we connected on like punk music and stuff. So like we always stayed in touch and I ended up mentoring him and getting him signed off and like we've just been best bros ever since, you know.

Yeah. Um Bri was Mary Beth's apprentice, but Mary Beth, her husband's in the military and she had to she had to move during Bree's apprenticeship. So Oh, okay. Yeah. Uh, I took on Brief, you know, helped finish. Yeah. And she she was with us. Dalia.

It's almost like now that I look back, I kind of had like a little bit of a bleeding heart. Yeah. Because Ryan, he was going to quit tattooing and I was just like, you know, because literally he's like my favorite artist in the world. Even back then, he was my favorite artist. I'm like, dude, you can't quit tattooing. Yeah. Yeah. We'll figure it out, dude.

I'll talk to the owner, dude. We'll get you over here signed off, whatever we got to do. And then we uh Dalia. So Dalia was apprenticing as Piercer at Red-Handed Tattoo where I worked at. Um and she the person apprenticing her took off. So she was just like bummed out. Didn't have nothing to do. So I was like and she drew and I was like, you know, we were homies because we both like the same kind of music and we're both vegans and I was like, well, you want to learn how to tattoo?

I'll teach you. And nice. So yeah, and then Bri, Mary Beth had to travel, so sure, I'll take you, you know, like you're a lover, dude. Same thing happened with Jeffrey, dude. Jeffrey, he had wanted to quit tattooing. Um, and Bri had gotten pregnant, and I was like, well, come come through, dude. You could you can don't quit, dude. You could work while she's out.

And then he just became family, and we just kept him like, so yeah, I I don't know. I guess I'm I can teach. I I don't know. Well, you have lovable energy. Yeah. Yeah, you're kind. I don't know. I hate talking about myself, dude.

Like, as far as I'm concerned, I'm a piece of [ __ ] you know? No, that's far from the truth. Well, that kind of brought me up like I don't know if we could try to like help lessons be learned and stuff from our experiences. The um your experience Well, we won't mention names, but you you were working in a shop that I don't know. Can you tell me a little bit about roughly what what happened when the like you showed up in this shop that you were putting all your time and energy into um was locked up and all of your [ __ ] was inside. Yeah, man. Trauma. That's what happened to me.

Um all of your tattoo equipment. Yeah. You had been paying rent or or you commission. I don't remember where you're at. That uh Yeah. And it wasn't just me. It was a shop that I had I had gotten Ryan a job there. Oh, I was apprenticing Dalia there, our buddy Steve, got him a job there.

So, it was like a lot of my friends, too. Um, and some other artists that had become my friends as well. Well, anyways, I mean, I don't know all the specifics. All like there's some hearsay that, you know, with the AC had broke in the shop, right? Yeah. And, uh, the landlord had refused to put up the money to fix it. So, the owner was holding rent and this and that and then finally the landlord locked the doors or whatever that case may be. All I know is that we came into work one day and the doors were locked, you know, and we're just like that was brutal, you know, appointments on the books, everybody's shit's in there locked up.

No, no way of even like going to another shop to tattoo cuz we didn't have any [ __ ] dude. We didn't have any equipment. We didn't you know what are you going to do? go to a shop and just be like, "Hey, I don't even have a portfolio to show you, but I can tattoo. " And damn, 100% of your stuff was locked up. And then, so then, yeah, what ended up happening? How did it kind of Dude, I went home, you know, your appointment, cancelled all my appointments, told him like, you know, we'll get it figured out, you know, whatever. Kept talk trying to talk to the owner, seeing when we could get our stuff at least.

Yeah. " Yeah. Like it's there's no getting our [ __ ] back, dude. Like either I like, you know, put up a few thousand, try to get some new machines and stuff and and try to go get a job at another shop right now or I just quit altogether. And I literally was cuz this was this was actually during one of my low points that it happened too. So, it was just like I was like, "Oh, man. " Um, and I had I had recently befriended Mary Beth. I think I had I don't know if I had if I did her sleeve or her neck at the time, but we had spent a substantial amount of time together and we were friends.

And we would talk on occasion, you know, like just about our lives and tattoo stuff. And so I hit her up because, you know, a lot of I don't I don't want to demonize anybody, but there wasn't like a lot of people to talk to on a like a sole heartfelt level about tattooing except like the people that were around me like Ryan and stuff and they were just in the same spot as I was. So I hit her up and I was just like, "Yo, I'm thinking about just hanging it up. You know, I got a buddy that can give me a job at the Smith Center right now, dude. And I got a family, dude. like I can't. It's been a week and I haven't made any money. And she was just like, "No, dude.

You cannot quit. Come here. You can use all my stuff, whatever. You could come in when I don't have appointments anytime. " She's just like, "Yeah, dude. " She got the same soul as you. You guys, you guys are a good match. I was just like, she kind of brought the squad over there, right?

Didn't like a handful of you guys kind of all Yeah. Well, I had Dolly Dolly was my apprentice at the time. And this was a room like probably about as big as this, you know, maybe even smaller. But yeah, and it was it was a wild time, dude. She would tattoo during the day. I would come in and just be like waiting for her to get done, go right in. Like my appointment would be there. I'd have Dolly there like Yeah.

And then she had she had free Yeah. " I was still using coil machines, dude. " Or it was either that or don't tattoo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I figured all that out and and yeah, that was it.

Like, it was great. It was like I don't know, man. That that happened for a reason. Yeah. You know, she she was there. It it was all meant to be. The universe just put us together. Yeah.

You know, I credit her with uh just being there for me in my time and need. So, yeah, that's cool. I might not be tattooing. I might not be right here if it wasn't for her. Damn. So, you guys came to How long was it till you guys kind of How long did you have to do that before you formed kind of a partnership and got onto a shop? There's so much trauma around that dude, you know, cuz I didn't have my [ __ ] still. It was probably what month before we got to get all our stuff out.

So, you did end up getting to get it back. I knew that. Yeah. So the Yeah, the landlord agreed to just let us in there and I don't even know why, dude. That's super nice on his part. He probably just like didn't want all the [ __ ] honestly. Well, yeah. And it was And they only let us in for like like an hour.

Okay. " I don't know what the deal was, but I was just like I I called Dolly. " Like a whole station. You know, you know how much it is. It's like moving a freaking It's like moving an apartment, you know? And all that [ __ ] means something to you. You So, we just blew through there and got it all out. That was like a month after that.

Then I had my own stuff. I want to say it was about 6 months. Yeah. We were tattooing in that in Mary Best's little private room and you know, Ryan had gone to another shop where he did not like Yeah. like the vibe, you know, wasn't his his jam. So, he would come over there all the time. I we had Bri and Dalia in there in this tiny little space just crunched in. Like they'd be out in like the hallways and stuff like working on these big paintings and stuff and we'd get in trouble and be like, "Yo, you guys can't do that.

" So, yeah, we had them set up on little TV trays like in the corner drawing and stuff. Anyways, and then our buddy Steve, he was working at like in a makeshift like spot at another shop like in a back room with no lights, you know? So, like everyone was just like it just made sense. Like I don't know how the conversation came about, but you know, probably I was just talking to Mary Beth and I was like, "Look, like these are all my friends. Like, we got people. " I think that's how it started. And then we're just like, why don't we just try to [ __ ] do a shop, you know? Yeah.

And I had no idea how to do a shop. I just I was a I'm a punk rock street kid, you know, dude. Came up writing graffiti. Yeah. And we figured it out. We found a spot. I think we we maxed out our credit cards and like Yeah. We did it, dude.

And I'm just like, I don't know what I'm doing. You were able to get into a spot that was already built out for tattooing, too, right? It was, but it was kind of I don't even understand how it was. I never went into it before, dude. There was no running hot water in any of the stations. Yeah. I have no idea. We had to run our own hot water.

I think that shop was run kind of underground. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Appointment only type. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. There's no way it was up to code. But yeah, anyways, it was somewhat built out. You know, the stations were at least built out. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. So, you jumped in there, built that out all together and came together.

And you guys have been open now for 10 Let me think, dude. 2016. Okay. Almost 10 years. Almost 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. " And then so after we opened like a handful of freaking months later, Mary Beth's like, "Yo, my husband got stationed up in Oregon. " So Oh, yeah. I was partner by myself all of a sudden, dude. You know?

Yeah, just like trying to pay the bills and figure everything out. Like literally figuring it out on my own. And I I didn't think I I had what it took. And luckily my wife was so encouraging cuz I was just like, I don't know how to be a leader. I don't know how to be a boss. I've never done any of these roles ever before in my life, let alone like deal with money and, you know, this and that. And she's like, dude, you're like you got what it takes. like you're a great leader, you know, you're compassionate, you love people, you know, uh you came up in a time of tattooing where like it there was like hard stances on things, so you're not going to be, you know, easy, but you're also compassionate.

So, I don't know. I guess that just worked out in my favor cuz here we are. Is there any like advice you have for like creating partnerships? Like lately, I've been that's been on my head on my mind a lot. like you and Mary Beth seem to have obviously worked out really well together, but those those can be like really interesting times. I myself have partnered up with a lot of people that didn't compliment me and work with me. Well, I don't know. You said it right there, dude.

Complimenting um you got to Well, you're married, dude. Yeah, you like a partnership is like a marriage where you have to you have to give you have to swallow your pride and you have to give. You have to um you have to see like what good the other partner has to offer and you have to let them run with that, you know. Yeah. and and vice versa if it's not like both ways, you know, like Mary Beth is very good with like uh business and like um marketing and marketing. Yeah. All that stuff, all the stuff that I'm not good with. I'm good with like just handson like I'm good with like you know the clientele.

I'm good with all of our artists like hands-on, you know, that like I I talk to them about their lives like they they're feel comfortable when they come into work, you know, not like this is just like, you know, sergeant like barking orders, you know, it's not a transaction. So like we're we're both let each other excel in what we're good at. I mean, I'm I' I'm blessed, you know, to have her to that that it all came together like that because like Yeah. I could have never gone out and found a partner. Yeah. Like I could have never I never would have tried to open a shop on my own because I just don't I just want a tattoo, you know? I don't want I don't care about it's too completely all the rest of the stuff. Yeah.

You know, there's like not too many of us that can really battle their way through both of them. You know, it's like pretty rare. Yeah. Um, but you know, you understand and respect and and like you said, like you create your portion of the puzzle and she creates hers and Oh yeah, dude. I uh I've sat in on a few bad P part partnership stories recently and I'm like, man, I feel like we need to talk about this more within our community because there's always these like kind of explosive moments where people either gang up and leave or or just get in, you know, the the partnership splits up at one shop or the owner gets all cracked down and then everybody basically like creates these spontaneous partnerships which can be real dangerous, you know, and Yeah.

and create even more drama after all the money's brought in and then nobody communicated about these expectations of each other and stuff. Uh I don't know. I kind of want to like start putting together some more information for tattooers specifically about how to do that cuz I've made all the mistakes. Well, money and and the the chasing after it as like the top priority is is not that's not the jam. Yeah. You're always going to come up short if that's all you're chasing, you know? For sure. You've got to be in love with what you're doing.

And um Oh, yeah. And you have to have the partnership can't revolve about around money, you know. Yeah. That's why those partnerships never work. Yeah. or they just become cold and vivid, you know, not like not like something I would want to be a part of. Yeah. I think that's what makes our partnership uh work a lot too is that we both tattoo as well, you know?

Yeah. We're not like trying to just make money off a shop tattooing. Like that's like that's kind of secondary, you know? We tattoo and then like we do the shop together and that that if I'm honest, that makes it a lot easier as well. Yeah. that mutual respect amongst the everybody's goals and stuff. But you guys do real good um is it annually you do an art show or or you just kind of happen to have somebody on the team like put something together like seems like you do a lot of art shows. We've done I think collectively three.

Oh, okay. you know. So, we did two last year. I did a solar art show, then we did a shop show, and then Ryan did a show this year. And um that was just a a blessing that had just happened. One of our old clients from a decade ago started a gallery. Oh, yeah. Screaming Demon.

Yeah, Screaming Demon. Okay. Our buddy Frank and uh you know, I'm always painting. So, he he hit me up two years ago was just like, "Hey, man. I'm starting this gallery. like, you know, I look up to you. Like, I wouldn't be whatever doing art or interested if it wasn't for all you guys. And, uh, I would love to have you.

And I was just like, uh, you want paintings right now, dude? I probably got like 30 paintings in my garage doing nothing. " So, I went down, gave him a bunch of paintings to hang up. " I'm like, "All right, cool. " Yeah. Did that. and then decided to have the shop, a group art show, and that was really fun. That keeps people motivated, you know?

Um I don't know how you are, but like I it drives me nuts if I see any of our artists like or anybody on the team just kind of sitting around doing nothing. Like that [ __ ] doesn't even make sense to me. Like uh and these days it's harder and harder with us being all so easily distracted by Tik Tok and Instagram and all this [ __ ] that's in our pocket every sports game. Whatever you're into, you can just stop doing what you're doing and zone out. But you're [ __ ] at work. Like, so how as such a nice guy, how do you feel that you show and keep these your, you know, your team like motivated to constantly be creating? I lead by example, bro. you know, like I've always like, well, coming up in the era of tattooing and and graffiti and all that stuff, like there wasn't no no copying [ __ ] like there is now.

Like, yeah, we've gotten a little bit lazy with that, but I've always just drawn and painted all the time. There's no other way to learn or get better. Yeah. You know, and so like a lot of these people that work at our shop, they've I've known them for over a decade. Yeah. And so they've always just watched me. They watched me before they were even tattoo artists what I did. Yeah.

You know, and they've seen me do that for 10, 15 years now all the time. Drawing, painting all the time. And it's just bled off on them. Yeah. You know, I would hate to be like, you need to be drawing. You need to be painting. You know, like that's not the type of leadership I Yeah. It's not my jam, dude.

I just I go in and do my best. And like that's the standard. You guys go in and do your best. And bro, I love it. I walk into my shop any given day and if people aren't tattooing, they're working on like now is the records, your record show there. Like everyone's working on their records, you know? Thank you. Or like when when Ryan this past year, Ryan had his art show.

So he was always working on he had like four or five paintings he's working on every day. " I mean, so I miss that. I feel like I kind of am not able to fulfill that like I did my whole entire career with me being so kind of taking on so many other projects. Yeah. There's this like underlying guilt, you know, that I'm not there that I've always tried to battle with and not tried to battle with, but been battling with, you know. Well, you you're just following passions, you know? So, like, you know, this stuff might not last forever, but you'll always still have you'll still have like a canvas or or or a pad to go back and draw on. It's like the same I think about music.

Like, I kind of feel like guilty. I'm I look at my guitar, I'm like, damn, dude. I haven't picked that up in like a month or two. Like, I haven't written a song in a few years or whatnot. But I'm like, I've accepted it in my life, you know? I'm like, that guitar will always be there. You know, right now you got two teenagers and a shop and, you know, clients to take care of and now a new puppy. Like there's other things that demand your time right now that'll be there for to come back to, you know.

Yeah. I think that comes with age too, you know, like well, especially kids and all your time gets incredibly limited. you start to really understand like I can't do everything like I do have those inner battles but I also don't feel heavy guilt or anything because I am genuinely in love with what I'm doing and I think that shows so hopefully they you know people just try to stay motivated and do stuff around me and my team and stuff but yeah dude it's a I mean you want to paint all [ __ ] day motivate me dude it's bro you had a freaking mural company going before you started all this jam yeah I did Yeah. So, I definitely am not shy about producing art. I just I want to do it every day. All day long. Yeah. But so do I.

You know, but I also I'm creating and I'm get to work with uh artists all day long. Every day and we have such a great team. And we have that family culture, too. And now I'm just trying to merge it all. And I think by throwing like group art shows and stuff at the shop, then that gives your artists to-dos, you know? So if they have deadlines, which we as all artists need deadlines. So then they'll be doing less time tick- tocking than uh give we just need [ __ ] direction and Oh yeah. And a spank on the bottom.

Yeah. You know, because artists are we're just crazy people. Well, we're all like we'll just do raging meth butterflies. Like tweaky butterflies. I'm over here drawing this. No, now I'm over here. I'm like designing this. Now, now I'm over here like, yeah, all over the place.

You should see my garage studio. It's a nightmare. But not to me. I go in there, I'm like, "Oh, yeah. " Yeah. Yeah. I'm in the middle of doing that right now. Like, now that my kids are a little older and they're obsessed with drawing and illustrating.

So, now we're building out this building or this warehouse thing that we have. It's like a big ass shed. We're building that out to where it'll be like family space and creative space only. So, when you're out there, it's only for paint nights. And only for I'm gonna I'm gonna put [ __ ] instruments out there and stuff. I don't even know how to play them, but I just want all the kids to be like have creative access to it, you know? Yeah. So, we can I got to get you come over some night.

We'll just do do that. That's great. So, any like I don't know where's like where's tattooing going for you? Do you feel that you you have some like any new goals or like a direction you'd like to I've been styles maybe to focus on? Man, I've been obsessed with Japanese Asian style work for a long time since I was a little kid. Yeah. So, that has been something that has come into fruition in my tattooing over the past I guess 5 10 years. Um, so like that's a a neverending pool.

Yeah. To reach into for me. And I mean that the possibilities with that are endless. you know, another bodysuit, another sleeve, just like in these projects for these long-term projects. And I love that. I love having a a big long-term project. I love persevering through something and then at the very end, you have this big thing you accomplished, you and another person, and it's just like, oh, it's the best the best feeling to me in the world. So, that's where just more of that for me.

So, exposing your clients to just bigger Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love doing like the black and gray realism. You you you wellrounded illust like tattooer. I've fallen in love with it. I don't didn't really like it too much um early on, but I'm okay with it now. Yeah. I would love to sit down more with anybody doing black and gray and learn.

It's something that I kind of dabbled in in the very beginning of my career and then just kind of took off on bold, colorful, illustrative [ __ ] Yeah. But now I'm like I kind of want to throw all my colors out and just do either black traditional work like just black work and pieces that are like I can comprehend you know like softball size. Yeah. I I always want to uh in a sense progress in my style. Yeah. but also progression and regression at the same time to like honor like tradition but do it in my own way where I'm pushing myself, you know? Yeah. Um I've never been one to to create a style.

I've always like even when I was doing graffiti, I would always, you know, I'd always stick to, you know, whatever bubble letters or character or a wild style, you know, with like the the 3Ds this way or, you know, this or that. Like, so that's kind of like uh just how I am with tattooing, you know, if I'm going to do American traditional, I'm going to stick to the formula and do it to the best of my ability. And uh the same with Japanese. And the reason Japanese is so appealing to me is it's a never endless thing to learn, right? There's a million stories and there's a million things to learn. There's there's so much. It just goes on and on. Like I can I can I can for a long do it to the best of my ability, you know?

I can do it and create kind of my own, you know, vibe of it. Yeah. but and honor these traditions that I can continue to learn and learn and learn and learn. I feel like it's it'll be a lifetime like I'll never It's not I guess that's the point. It's not something you can master. Yeah. You know, so you're you you want stick with that for now. Yeah.

Go big. I just want to keep going. Yeah. I just want to learn. Yeah. Like I don't that's I just you know even in my personal life that's all I want to do is learn. It's the best. I I read I'm I'm reading three or four books all the time at any given time.

I just want to learn I want to learn about more myself. I want to learn about art. I want to learn about music, culture, everything, other people's life experiences. Yeah. And so obvious and with tattooing like that's what I want to do. Yeah. Even if it it takes a different direction, you know, who knows? I'm open to it.

I'm not one of these guys that's kind of just like a lot of people these days are just rigid and stuck in their style. this is what I do. Come to me for this. And if that works for you, that's great. But that ain't me, man. That's a struggle. That's why we're seeing a lot of people getting part-time jobs and stuff. I want to learn.

I want to learn more. If it takes me in the realism direction, I'll go that direction. Like, I don't Well, and you could meet some new fun clients that, you know, you make those connections with. And they know that you're putting your all into it because And they even know that you're probably not. It's kind of awesome how clients can be so rad sometimes and like they know that this isn't your thing, but they kind of wanna they just want to connect with you. So yeah, once you do like bend a little and give them a little more of what they want and stop getting in your own way, you can build some great tattoos and great relationships. You learn about yourself. You learn about what you're capable of.

That client's [ __ ] happy, dude. like you may be able to like kind of pick your tattoo apart or something, but the [ __ ] dude? That's We're all every tattoo you do, you should be learning something. So, don't be afraid to try some new [ __ ] And like I honestly don't understand when people just And don't get me wrong, I'm not [ __ ] on it, but like when they just do this thing and that's just what they do, you know, and they don't like they don't progress, they don't degress, they don't try anything new. Yeah. That's not how I came up. And that's just not how I'm how wired. Yeah, totally, dude.

I'm just like, man, I want to I want to learn more. I want to do more. I want to I feel like life like is that's kind of one of the only bummer things to me about life is that I can't learn everything. Like I can't be this welder. I can't be this wood fabricator guy. like I want to do all this stuff. But now I'm realizing like, all right, just be in love with what you're doing and just try to be the [ __ ] best at whatever it is that you're doing to evolve and learn. Like you said, learn [ __ ] new every day.

There's that Jerry quote. It takes you go to college for 10, 20 years, become a doctor. It takes a lifetime to be a tattooer. Bro, the first time I heard that, I was just like, yes, this is what I want to do. I I want to be a tattooer because yeah, there's just endless possibilities. That's what that's what the whole appeal is to me. There's just endless amounts of possibility with it. Yeah.

And even with a lot of these new guys doing like different styles, creating styles, like Yeah. Even though that's not even though I I realize that's not my lane to like create a style, dude. Bro, I want to learn that style. Dude, I want to figure out how you're doing that. How are you putting like these huge fields of color, dude? How are you doing like the weird lighting like that, dude? You know, we grew up in a time where it was like three styles to choose from. And then when people started doing chrome and stuff, we're just like, whoa, what?

Boom. You know, black and blue chrome. What the I'm assuming that was all the graffiti dudes and influencing like getting in there like that, you know? Yeah, that's I don't know. That's fun. Well, I love your outlook on everything, man. I love your energy, dude. I'm incredibly blessed to like have you in my life and and you as well.

Yeah. I don't know. Anything you want to say to wrap it up here? You got all these youngsters out here. Maybe some uh I don't know. Like just stay true to yourself, man. Always learn. Always be open.

Always be open to to other people's viewpoints and their lifestyles and be empathetic for others. You know, try you just the best thing in life is learning about other people and their experience. And that's the only way we can understand each other, understand the world, understand art, tattooing. Yeah, just fill in the blank. That's how you understand. You're open. Open to learn. Yeah, we've been pushing this lately.

Not pushing, but this is just one of our new A kind word is never wasted. A and it's like a It's a proverb. Yeah, it's just a simple [ __ ] thing. I love it. So So how do we get a hold of you? Um you can call the shop collective tattoo parlor. I don't even have the phone number memorized. Mainly mainly go to our Instagram.

Dude, my wife is like, "So, like, we're at this convention a few weeks ago and I I I printed out like a portfolio, like a regular portfolio. It's the first time since before the pandemic. " And she's like, "Dude, you don't even have like business cards with like [ __ ] on them or anything. " And I'm like, on the very last page of my portfolio is like a scan that goes to my Instagram. Then you got to go to my Instagram and read all the [ __ ] find my email, then you got to email me and then wait for the response. I'm like, I want like real clients, you know? I want them to do all the work. You know, if they do all the work and get a hold of me, I know that you're down.

You're down. Yeah. But anyways, I I'll still take walk-ins. You walk into my shop, we'll take a walk in. Okay. I just But yeah. When are you in the shop? I'm in the shop Wednesday through Saturday.

Yeah. And then our Instagram, my Instagram is C Gomez Shop. Instagram is Collective Tattoo Parlor. Um, yeah, catch me there. Yeah. Yeah, dude. We got You have such a great crew and um Yeah. And we're in Las Vegas.

You're in Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, well, dude, thank you so much, man. Oh, you're welcome. Pleasure. It's a pleasure.

Really, really pumped. Um, I really appreciate you taking the time, dude. Of course, man. I'm looking forward to working with you. I'm looking forward to seeing what your team does with the records. I know you guys are so talented and I'm already almost done with mine. Yeah. Okay, cool.

I'm going to get on mine tonight then. [ __ ] Yeah, dude. Get to work. Well, thanks for tuning in, guys. We greatly, greatly appreciate all the support. Um the following has been going great. Uh it just means a lot to us and we're just out there just being tattoo nerds trying to share our stories and it's it's pretty fulfilling, dude. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll see you around. Thank you, guys. Have a good one. Heat.

There's no way of learning faster than getting tattooed. Yeah, there is no way. I mean, you get tattooed by your favorite artist. Like, you really like pick them, you know? Pick the person that you like or you want to tattoo like. Get tattoo in a spot where you can see what they're doing. And now you got a million questions. Tattoo artists are nice now.

They're nice now, right? They're great. They're so nice and inviting. I honestly think that a shop is not really a money maker thing, you know? It's a place you open with your friends to have a safe place for you guys and let you know share the rent. We now we don't have to pay a you know like a place to work out. That that's how I look at tattoo shop. It's not really a business.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] All right. Hey, what's happening? This is Austin Spencer here with Support Your Local Tattoo. We're in fabulous Las Vegas today, man. This is my favorite city in the world and I am super lucky to have Gian Carlay in the house. Uh he's cruising through town. What's happening, man? What's up, buddy?

Yeah. Yeah. So, you're cruising through town. You're working at One Block DJ and uh Brett's shop. I am. I just stopped by uh well, we've actually been working there for like the past 3 weeks. So, I'm on a tour right now. going around the states and uh stop by here Vegas and that's usually the shop I work at when I'm here.

So yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I worked with him uh in I was with him in Inkmaster and you got Emanuel over there, too. Manual is amazing. Oh my god, he's so good. And uh yeah, Brad, you know, everybody over there is just great. You guys, they do a good job of like constantly bringing like some crazy talent. Oh yeah, and right now Bobby uh Bobby's working. I Well, he's the rumor on the streets is he's moving to Las Vegas.

I mean, I think he might be. Dude, the more the better. I think we should all be out here, man. Like, let me tell you, I've I've been going around the states for a long time now. Um, it's been almost 3 years and I've seen almost all the states and Vegas is still probably one of my favorites. Dude, no natural disasters. There's plenty of entertainment and there's plenty of nature around, too, if you want to get out and about. It's beautiful.

Like, you you're constantly seeing mountains. They're awesome. Like snow right now. They're just like snow peaks, you know? And they look amazing. Yeah, they're um dude, Vegas is underrated. It's definitely got a bad rap, I think. Like when you tell people like Vegas, they're like Vegas, I could never live there.

I'm like, dude, dude, people complain about the heat for like two or three months of the year, but like [ __ ] a hurricane. All you know, we're just seeing unfortunately all our friends be affected by this crazy weather across the country. And um it's been crazy, dude. if it I mean it's bad if the AC goes out here but like you just got a couple of homies on the hook. That's the thing. Come by and fix my plan is like my dream would be to park my RV here in Vegas, right? Like pay the yearly um rent to like park the RV and then work here during the winters and then go to New Hampshire where I love, you know. Um and work over there during the summers, you know.

Yeah. or bounce around like we have we we spend a lot of time in Montana so Montana so summertime's up there [ __ ] that's one of the spots I got to go I got to go to Montana dude Montana's like a real um real it's a real big state but there's not a whole lot of population and there's not I mean there's a handful of tattooers that we've we've met with and buddied up with in like um Bosezeman and a handful of tattooers now in like Missoula area that are pretty cool but and some Vegas tattooers just recently moved up there too never gone I think that's one of the spots I got to go. Yeah, I have to go over there, dude. Uh, no, I mean, I got like probably a handful of of places I haven't gone and that's one of them. Um, yeah, it's been great, dude.

Dude, tell me a little more about that. Like, I feel like So, for the last three years you've been traveling and living out of your rig. So, here's the thing. Here's exactly what happened. I'm going to give you the whole story. So um initially uh CO hit and we had bought a house right before CO you know and CO hit the prices went crazy. Yeah. And I was looking at my wife like hey let's sell this house.

Okay. You know I was like let's just sell it. We're never going to get this money that it's they're asking for. So we put it up put a crazy price on it. And you know it sold. week later, we had to move out of this place pretty much like we had like like a month or something like that to like move out and we basically uh moved out. Our plan was to get another house and did it was impossible, you know, at the time during co you couldn't get another house. So, it was just crazy.

And me and my wife were like, "Hey, you know what? We've always wanted to do an RV thing, the RV life. let's just buy an RV, go on the road for a year until things kind of calmed down. And we did that. We just bought the RV, we bought a truck, and we decided to go on the road. And our plans were just to do it for a year. Um, man, after we came back to New Hampshire and a year passed, we're like, "Dude, what are we doing? Just keep doing it.

" And we did it for another year. " Dude, that's And now we're year three and it's awesome, dude. So many people they they they like the idea of it and then they'll get out there and they It's got its challenges in ways, you know, obviously, of course. But, you know, the way we do it, honestly, we've had, you know, knock on wood. Um, no challenges, dude. It's been I mean, not nothing serious. You know, we stay in these nice RV parks. Um, we got a nice RV and did everything, you know, flows well.

Yeah. You got your rig and then you see you guys will just share that and drive drop you off at the shop, do your work. Like right now we're staying in like an RV resort here in Vegas, you know? It's got like pools and and then jacuzzi's and stuff. Not that I would ever go in there, but I've had multiple friends live there for like a year, two plus at a time doing the same type of thing. They I mean it's it's been a really fun thing to do, you know, and um yeah, we're you know, we're at that point we're like, all right, where are we going to buy a house? And we got no clue. Well, dude, right now you're just like putting in reps, like getting out there and checking out all the cities and like getting that authentic like a month in a city is a pretty special thing that you got to get get to do at a time.

Well, we're doing two months here in Vegas, you know what I mean? So, it's like and and I stayed two months in Texas. I stayed almost two months in North Carolina not too long ago. Going to Grain Junction now to work at Ryan Shaw for like two months, too. So, yeah, it it dude it's awesome. And not only that, I get to like really hang out with like my favorite artist. Oh, I know. You know what I mean?

" I was like, "I don't know anybody that works there, but Mike Chambers works there. " Mike Chambers was cool with it. And now I'm going to, you know, his shop and I'm with him for a month. We become friends, you know what I mean? Now we're homies. were hanging out. Yeah. It's like, dude, he's one of my, you know, my idols, you know?

So, it's just cool, dude. I'm like hanging out with Mike Chambers. I'm like, this is the craziest thing ever. I remember it was like 2012 or I was started working a lot of conventions at that time. And I worked that Philly convention. That's the one and only time I worked that show. That was huge. Crazy.

So, I was sitting there doing this cool little chili pepper with a skull in it on this guy. And I you know some you feel that sense of community and I turn around and it was Mike Chambers and he's all that's awesome man and I was like he's such a I was just like a young tattooer. It was real cool. Yeah. Yeah. I I do I love that I get to meet these guys like you know like Nico I went to Nico's shop for two months you know I didn't know Nico but you know I got to work with Nico for for for a long time you know. Dude, good for you for putting yourself out there. Like I I feel like that's such a big thing and uh and a challenge and it's intimidating but you know you've obviously know like you don't put yourself in these positions without learning and growing whether it's a good and um you know it runin or bad you know.

No 100%. It's never bad honestly. It's usually really good and man you know people are tattooers are nice now. They're nice now right? They're great. They're so nice and inviting and people are so good, you know, like when I started tattoo, it wasn't like that at all, you know. It was like you keep your your secrets to yourself. You don't teach anybody.

Um yeah, it was almost like like groups, you know, or like uh I don't know how to call it. No, no. Very clicky. Yeah. And you were like kind of under the reign of your mentor and you kind of had to do whatever they wanted you to do just so you could get through it cuz that was the only gate in, you know, and it was tough. And now I I just I was never really that's one of the things I never liked about tattooing. was how like uh like it's almost like like groups and stuff like that and your group against this group and if somebody was man I I mean my friends would get bothered if somebody else was charging too much you know I mean they would be like this guy's charging way too much what an insult I'd be like what do you mind your business that's I always say just mind your [ __ ] business keep your head down people are going to talk [ __ ] about you no matter what so you might as well just do what you enjoy and be yourself easy yeah and honestly I was one of those guys too I'd be Yeah, that guy's an [ __ ] for charging too much.

Totally an [ __ ] It's easy when Yeah, especially when you're younger tattoo and you're kind of just trying to like find your place and your footings. Oh my god, I was so pissed at everything. My friends were pissed at the time, you know, and I feel like they've changed. I've changed. Uh the group that I'm with now, it's just everybody's so nice, helpful. Everybody's helpful, educating. Dude, tell me a little bit about like where you kind of where were you introduced to tattooing or maybe tattoos in general? Like do you remember having Oh, I mean, honestly, since I was a kid, um, I love tattoo art.

You know, I I always painted and drew and, you know, I would ask my mom to buy me these these tattoo magazines that had like the flash pages, you know, would cut them up and do like collages with them. So, I've always [ __ ] Yeah. I've always liked that. But, you know, I never really got into tattoos until I was like 18. Yeah. like around that time when our friends started kind of kind of I think I think I was not even into it and one of my friends was like, "Hey, I'm making a tattoo convention. I'm doing a tattoo convention. " And I was like, "Yeah, dude.

[ __ ] yeah. I'll go to tattoo convention. " You know? Yeah. " Okay. You know, I'm broke as [ __ ] I That's like $1,000. So, for sure. " Mhm.

with $100 and just, you know, while I'm there. I Okay. That's That's how little of tattoos I I need. I thought you can just get a whole sleeve done in like a couple hours. You know, they're just tracing. Yeah. People still believe that. Yeah.

And I was just like 100 bucks to cover that. And uh I went over there quickly realized that's impossible. Yeah. And I was like, "Fuck that. These guys are just like tracing these little drawings on people. like I can do that. I'm just And they were selling like these tattoo kits at the convention. " I mean, easy, right?

I mean, it's genius. I'll I'll [ __ ] save a bunch of money. I know how to [ __ ] draw, dude. You know, I know how to trace [ __ ] Yeah. " You know, my homie is like super pumped. Oh yeah, everybody got a bunch of [ __ ] shitty tats. He's got like four [ __ ] weed plants on him, dude. " I remember like it was yesterday and I drew this shitty koiish.

I put it on him, you know, with the speed stick and all this [ __ ] And um that came in the kit. No, you learned through the street. I think I learned it from like seeing somebody else do it at a convention or something. So I was like, "Ah, speed stick. That's how you do it. Y So yeah, I put the stencil on this guy, dude. I turn on that machine, dude. I do the first line and man, I just go right out of the stencil, dude.

Like a whole inch right out of the stencil. Then I keep going. I could have stopped. And I had this line this big inch going out of the stencil. " And I just turned it into like another um uh drop shadow or some [ __ ] weird. Turned it into like one of those things. What do you call like flipper? A fin.

Yeah. So it turned into this [ __ ] fin, dude. So you got a koiish with a bunch of extra fins. Yeah. It was the worst tattoo I've dude. It was terrible. And it was still the best tattoo he had. Was he did he did he pick up on the fact that you were [ __ ] with that?

You [ __ ] it up or no? No, bro. " It had like mom's uh inks in it. Remember the mom's little tiny Yeah. Little tiny pouches. They're like ketchup pouches, dude. It was so bad. Dang.

That's a big lesson to learn there right there was like, you know, cuz you later on I'm sure you made mistakes too as they came up and you learned how to like sweat through that without letting the client know. That's terrible. And then I did that and he loved it. " He was like, so he would come every [ __ ] week to get a free tattoo from me. And I was like, "Fuck yeah, dude. I'm tattooing. " You know, and he would give me like 20 bucks or he would give me like a joint and I would be like, "Fuck yeah, dude. Best day ever, dude.

" Yeah, that's stupid, dude. And I just kept tattooing. my friends would come in and then his friends and you know eventually got to a point I'm like dude I'm doing all these [ __ ] tattoos for like 40 bucks a piece or something and you know it just turned into one of those things I was making more money than working in the tobacco shop that I was working at the time you know so that's fun I made my money that way you kind of like then fell in love with it and started kind of pursuing I fell in love with it I I was doing it for fun you know what I mean I thought it was like this this hobby hobby thing I was doing on the side. But then I just like really got into it, you know, and that's really how I got into tattooing. I didn't even have a tattoo at the time.

It So I didn't even get tattooed for like a year after I started tattooing cuz as soon as I did my first one, I was like, "This is terrifying. I'm not doing my [ __ ] sleep. " It is [ __ ] scary. Never going to happen. Yeah, dude. Like I never tattooed myself. I just I was like, "Fuck that, dude. " Was that in Puerto Rico or or here in the States?

Oh, this was in Puerto Rico. Okay. Okay. So, I couldn't remember when you I know you grew up in Puerto Rico and then you moved here. No, I grew up in Puerto Rico. So, this is all in Puerto Rico. Yeah. Not a lot of people tattooed at the time.

Puerto Rico. It's impossible. There's no Google images. Yeah. There's no YouTube. Like I remember like my number one question was how does the needle go? Does it go like you know solder down solder up? Nobody knew.

It wasn't like just twisting it around and trying it. What the [ __ ] So that's why I use my solder up, you know, like the the needles on Oh, sorry. Solders going down. Yeah. Like backwards to what usually people would do. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like hammering down in the tube.

Very weird. But that's how for me it made more sense. It's still to this day it makes more sense to me that way if and you know I I show it in my seminar. Actually I explain why it makes sense to me. Okay. But um yeah, dude, it was one of those things like I I just no information, nothing. There was just all playing around with stuff. And you know, doing that for like a year, maybe a year and a half.

And then one of the So at the time, I had this bar next to my house that I I was rent this shitty ass house. And there's this bar. I had tattooed the owner of that bar, okay? And the owner of this bar calls me at 1:00 in the morning and I'm literally sleeping in my house like in bed, you know, on my underwear in bed. And he calls me at 1 in the morning. " Calls me. He's like, "Hey, man. There's some guys here um from the show um I can't remember.

" Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. He thought they were from that show. They weren't. They were just they're just random um you know these these uh random tattoo artists that had come to Puerto Rico for uh for a good time. You know what random is the guy you know I I ended up knowing these guys very well but point is these guys went over there. I had never met a tattooer at the time.

I've been tattooing for a year. Shitty t never met a tattoo artist, you know. And I was like [ __ ] I'm going over there with my portfolio. So I [ __ ] got in my bicycle because I didn't even have a car. So you knew enough to be you were taking pictures and like I was taking pictures of my [ __ ] a body of work. I had a I had a business card. Okay. You were hustling.

All right. That's how I was working with it. I was like, "Oh, these [ __ ] these guys from from like this show or whatever. I'm going to show them my portfolio. " And I [ __ ] go over there to this bar at two in the morning, my bicycle with my portfolio, dude. And I meet these Mexican dudes and I'm like showing them my stuff and they're like, "Yeah, that's cool. " They're like, "Hey, man. We got a convention coming up.

" And [ __ ] like that, bro. " So, I just uh I did that, dude. I [ __ ] flew with them to California for convention. Never been out of Fer Rico. Okay. I [ __ ] flew out of there. And dude, it was awesome, dude. And you just stayed with these dudes.

them out and then I stayed with them for years and then they they basically taught me, you know, they taught me how to tattoo and it was great. These I mean it was Angel Vanova which which is still a tattoo artist right now. Just old school. He's not really in the limelight or anything like that, but doing his thing. He's an amazing artist and he showed me so much. Like he really took me under his wing and he was like, "No, this is this is how you How [ __ ] cool is that, dude? So cool. if you wouldn't have got your ass out of bed and went down there that night.

You know, if I wouldn't have done that, my life would have been totally different. But that's why I'm always telling my friends like sometimes you just got to [ __ ] take the opportunity, man. Yeah, bro. You can't be sleeping at [ __ ] No, bro. Get in your [ __ ] bicycle. You don't got a car, get in your bicycle. I got a shitty bicycle. I found trash.

That's what I had. Trash bike, dude. Yeah. No way. So then you you went like So how long did you stay in the States for? You bounced back. So, I started going with them to California. I think I'd lived with Angel like sleeping in the floor with him for I don't know like six months.

That's great, dude. Fields of California and like you're like 22 or something. So, I was in California. Yeah, I was like 20, 21, you know. I was around the same time I was learning. Yeah, it was awesome, dude. I mean, I was I thought I was in, you know, I was in Hollywood, you know. I was like, dude, the movies are filmed here, dude.

Dang. Was your mom wondering where you're at? Well, I was in Quinshaw. I don't know if you know what Quinshaw is. It ain't Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But man, the palm trees and the fields of the sun and everything and you know, you were just like in this new bright place. Awesome. And people like, "No, dude. " I'm like, "This can't be the hood. " Like, how bad can it be? Oh, yeah. This is Crshaw.

Damn. So, [ __ ] Where'd you go after that? like um I went back to Puerto Rico and I just kept working with them, you know, going to conventions and working in Puerto Rico in the meanwhile, you know, while we waited for the conventions. Yeah. Was were there no like tattoo shops around you in your neighborhood or anything? Were. But I didn't have tattoos at the time. This is all when I started, right?

And I was like 2 years without tattoos. So it was a big no no to start tattooing with no tattoos. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was huge. So I would I remember I would go to these shops and they would be like, "Bro, you got no tattoos? " Yeah. I had the same scenario, too.

I I And I would hate it. " Honestly, like I didn't get it at the time. I was like, "This is crazy. This is, you know, this is uh they're they're profiling me over here. " And now I totally get it. Like come on. Like you got to experience it from both sides. I'm a firm believer in But I mean if you're [ __ ] in love with it, like jump, dude.

This is your career. You're you're going to love this. How can you tell somebody how to heal a tattoo without never healing it yourself? You know, listen, you can 100% can't. I got friends and and um I'm thinking about one right now and very good friend, very nice person, doesn't have tattoos, amazing artist. So, is it possible? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, for sure.

That's just like my personal like approach. I just like to dive in and figure things out from other people's perspectives and stuff, too. And so, you learn a lot from that. But I I get it now. It It's important. You don't have to have the visible the visible tats or whatever. Just get one tattoo at least, you know, like feel it, see how it goes. Tell you're telling people how how to heal tattoos.

So, yeah. I got one of my youngest most talented, he's super young, talented tattooer. He's got one tattoo on his leg and he's getting it removed. " He's supposedly gonna get his whole [ __ ] done or whatever. But yeah. Well, I mean, that's cool, dude. But it is interesting and I do like to ask him about it. Like, how just how come?

Like, it doesn't make sense to me, you know? It's Listen, I I didn't get it at the time, so I get it. But that's cool. It's tattoos. And also, you know what? The There's no way of learning faster than getting tattooed. Yeah, there is no way. I mean, you get tattooed by your favorite artist.

like you really like pick them, you know, pick the person that you like or you want to tattoo like, you know, that's like your the person you would love to tattoo like. Get tattooed by them and get tattoo in a spot where you can see what they're doing and now you got a million questions million questions. They're not going to bother. They're not going to get bothered cuz you're paying for the tattoo. " And they always seem to have a lot. It's just building that relationship with them is so important, too, you know, and you can always have a reason to reach back out to them. You know, they'll most likely answer your DMs because they might you want to get another tattoo cell phone and like you can hang out and dude I've learned so much like for me it was Timmy B.

Yeah, at the time Timmy B was my favorite artist of all time. Not that he's not right now. I love his stuff but at the time I wanted to be a new school artist and Timmy B was the [ __ ] you know? I remember. " And I did this whole sleeve out of him from Timmy Bee's book. I literally just coped everything. I traced it and I [ __ ] put it on his arm. Yeah.

And I I'm I'm at this convention one day and I'm in line to do a stencil. [ __ ] Timmy Be's right in front of me, right? " And I'm like I'm like Timmy. He flips around. I'm like a I'm like dude I'm your number one fan. I did that book you had. I did all of them. I've d he was like you know what dude that's not what it was for but he was like that's not what pleasant dude.

He was like that's not what it was for but that's cool actually that you got to use for I was like all right cool dude. I was like hey man like if you got any appointments open like let me know. " No [ __ ] [ __ ] Dang. How old are you? I don't know why if if you don't mind me asking. I'm 39. Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah. No, it's 38. Sorry. I'm turning 39 in a couple months. Yeah. So, okay. Yeah. So, you've been tattooing for a while, though.

It's been for a while. " Like, dude, it was 700 bucks at the time. Okay. He was hooking me up and dude, 700 bucks was like $7,000. Yeah, you're about to get best of show for the day or whatever. I was broke, bro. But I grabbed the last penny I had and I paid for that tattoo. And yeah, he got best of show with it.

He always does. " Yeah, dude. And if he's on the roster, I'm not in. I learned so much from that tattoo cuz it was in my form was this one. Okay. And I learned still looks fantastic, too. Yeah, it looks okay. Now, I got to get get it a little touchup, but you know, it was just amazing.

really I really learned so much from Timmy B and I I asked him a couple questions but I didn't ask a lot. I was just looking the whole time and I still to this day tattoo with this with kind of like I don't know stuff that I learned from that tattoo, you know, like tricks and and yeah, I did like a deep dive on your Instagram and was kind of digging like your older stuff and then seeing where you're at right now is like, dude, you're like in the last like five years was like like you you're just learning so much and applying it and it's so great. Traveling, dude. And you've been putting in work. I've been traveling so much and the this artist that I work with, they're so good, dude. Yeah. Like they're so much better than I am. And I love that.

I love that I'm I'm like the weak link. Out of every shop I go, I feel like, oh man, I'm definitely not like drives you and pushes you to stay up later that night and work on your illustrations and stuff and not let your homies down. No. Yeah, dude. And I see them working hard, you know, like DJ DJ works hard. Brett works hard. " Yeah, you're an ink master judge. That's why you got all these clients and that's why you got all these people coming after you cuz you're in TV, but that's not Yeah, you were busy before you went on there and successful in your own right, you know.

So yes, um these people like Ryan Ashley, um DJ, uh Nicole, dude, these these these guys are not shitty artists. These are amazing artists. They're they're great at what they do and they're working hard. Dude, you go to Ryan's shop to work over there, you think Ryan's like living out in Master Money like, "Oh, I'm Ryan Ashley. " No, bro. She's [ __ ] working and she's late there with me working like three, four days a week. Crazy. like a lot of hours, 12 hours, stuff like that.

And they dude, they never stop. DJ never [ __ ] stops. No, I know. " I mean, stretch that back, though. Yeah. Longevity, dude. Yeah. You know, you have to, but you know, at the same time, you you you gotta [ __ ] you gotta if you want to grow in this thing, you gota you gota [ __ ] dude these days like the the level of artistry that's involved is on some seriously like that's kind of like to be completely honest with you why I felt like I was like I need to diversify myself in this industry because I'm like I I was owning I owning running a shop and I was having so much time taking away from my tattooing but at the same I don't know I just felt like damn these people are like I remember when my mentor looked at me and he was like sour towards me uh because I was like kick coming up on his skill set like pretty quickly you know and then but now I don't have that negative outlook on it I just like I admire it and love it and I love to be surrounded by the younger kids and like and older guys that are still in love with learning you know I think that's such an incredible I I love that too that's the people I surround myself now with you know everybody's good everybody is great the bad you know the the more I in the industry.

The longer I'm in this industry, the the more amazing artists I meet, you know, and the young kids are are so good. Like so good. You know, we did the uh you did the the Eden Symposium thing. U you were you there? I No, I didn't get to go yet. I really would like to. Dude, it was it's a blur cuz there were so many people there, dude. Like they do a really good job.

Yeah, there was like 160 people there. That's crazy. You know what I mean? Like doing a seminar in front of 160 people is crazy. Yeah, dude. I mean, we just did one in front of like 25 people and actually wasn't nervous for some reason, but Oh, it's nerve-wracking every time. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you're doing more of that now. Like, I think I I like to I really enjoy this like sub culture of like people that are coming together to help each other out and teach even though, you know, there's kind of been negative stigmatism, which I've never supported any, but uh that's cool that you're doing that. So, like I don't know h how did did you always just kind of feel like you enjoyed it? I always wanted to do it. You seem like you're a great sharer and and just a kind human, you know? " Like, I'm not doing anything evil. I'm trying to actually do something kind.

I don't give a [ __ ] And I don't surround, like I said, I don't surround myself with no none of these this hate. I don't even hear about it. Yeah. Now I don't even hear about. Everyone's just like, "This is great. " For sure. If there's people out there that don't like it, oh, I don't even hear it. It's not hasn't even gotten in my ears.

Well, you shouldn't never let it get in yours, you know, like especially if your intentions are good, you know, and this isn't like weird cash grab type [ __ ] You're just out there genuinely to give somebody a full I remember like before we did our seminar the other day, I was like up all like at night like stressed about it. Like I want only because I wanted to give as much value as possible and I didn't want them to leave and be like my [ __ ] [ __ ] No, I I Exactly. You want to like teach him, give him something, you know? To be honest, that wasn't me my first time doing it. When I get up, I got up there. " And yeah, when I saw and I did a, you know, my my seminar was okay. I just didn't have this PowerPoint presentation or anything. So, I was just like talking, answering questions, showing them stuff.

And then Mike Chambers gets up there and [ __ ] you know, John Nelson and they give these amazing presentations. Oh, good. You know, with like PowerPoints and all this stuff. I was like, dude, my [ __ ] sucks. That's right. You know, you learn from that and move forward and you know, this new one we're doing at at the Eden shop, I got this whole presentation in Dallas, Texas, right? This is in Dallas. Yeah.

And I got this whole presentation going and this this uh PowerPoint, you know. So, what are you focusing on on these in this seminar? I think I'm I'm mostly focusing on the drawing aspect of how to draw neotraditional, you know, a little bit of the tattooing, but I feel like a lot of people focus on showing you how they tattoo, but that's just one of those things you you're going to figure it out for sure. You know, asking in layout and like application, like how it fits your body and stuff. " Yeah, it looks crispy. You know, start putting the shading up against that line. It It's a lot to do with the the way you designed the tattoo. So when that the final product, it looks like you did all these this hard work on it, you know, which you did, but it looks like it was harder than it actually was for you, you know.

So that it's a lot of smoke and mirrors, man. There's certain lines, certain s maybe I don't do a full circle. I'll do half of it like certain little things that just make your tattoo better. And now I don't even focus on my outlines that much, you know? It's not like it's going to break or, you know, make the tattoo, you know, if I do perfect outline and it's still shaded like [ __ ] It's like who cares, you know? Like, yeah, it's a it's it's more than just the application. I always tell people that now cuz I'm like, man, application is secondary to that to that design you got. I would say for sure, you know, as long as you don't [ __ ] it up.

Size comparison and flow and everything. Yeah, you guys like I say you guys just like these guys that I've been looking at lately so much just the layout is so nice. It's like everything that I was doing in the beginning of my career was like three subject matters stuffed into this, you know, and now it's like just the layout is so nice and and it just makes like you said makes the tattoo work so much better in the long run just with the size comparison to things and it's easier to tattoo. Yeah. I feel like I'm relearning like so much lately. People come and they leave with like, bro, most 99% of all my clients, they just want the sleeve, you know? They want to be sleeved up. They want to be fully tatted, you know, big tattoos.

And when they come in and they leave in one day with like half their arm tattooed, dude, they feel good. They feel so good. They You can tell, you know what I mean? " Yeah. What What kind of stuff are you working on right now, not subject matter- wise? Like do you feel like you're doing more sleeves or you like are you getting into back type stuff and torso or I'm doing Yeah, I'm doing I got a couple back pieces mostly sleeves like panels, you know, like people will ask me like to do the outside of their sleeve and then I'll do the inside, you know. So, I've been working that. That's interesting.

That's I've been watching a lot of guys do that. I've been messing around with that a lot. And you obviously lay it all out kind of roughly in your head first. Yeah, I kind of lay it all out, you know. I try to do the panels. For me, the panel is easier cuz in my opinion, you know, I want when somebody's just doing nothing and he's just hanging out and just your normal, you know, for somebody to be able to see the whole Yeah. Just kind of old school American traditional be able to see the whole thing from across the room. Yeah.

Right now, I'm sitting here. You can see the whole tattoo. That's super cool. I like that when you see it and it looks cool. I and and then my seams, you know, it would be kind of in here where I got to put my whatever it is, you know, I'll put a torch in there, I'll put a couple butterflies, whatever they want in there, but that's where I'll put my secondary image. It's in the inside, which is the way I think about it. You getting like a good kind of diversified uh suggestions from your clients, you know, on like subjects and stuff, or you Well, I mean, when it comes to like that stuff, my wife does all the bookings. She does all the bookings.

People contact me through my website. Yeah. And in there they'll put like they fill up this questionnaire thing. They put all the stuff they want. " Gian kind of likes doing this kind of stuff. Yeah. You know, so she helps them. You have a little bit of a nurturer and like a buffer to help.

Yeah. She's like the one that helps them create the email that I'm going to get. You know what I mean? That's kind of like the way they look at it. It's like, "Hey, I like she's like, I'm here to help you out. you know, let's do something. " Yeah. Yeah.

He'll kind of like kind of put in her ear like, "Hey, I'm I'm burned out on doing this or I mean, I don't think I even have to tell her anything. She already knows exactly what I do. I love doing there's certain things I can do every day of my life, you know, and she, you know, skulls, you know, flowers, stuff like that. Can do them all day, every day. So, my wife knows that stuff. So, she knows me. she knows what to put in there or if she's got a weird request, she'll be like, "Hey, this person wants this weird thing. " I'll be like, you know, maybe we'll brainstorm together.

There's I very rar I probably said no to one person in the past like I don't know 10 12 years. You know what I mean? Like I never say no to any tattoo. We always figure out something that's cool or cooler that one they ask for. Yeah. You know, we always just brainstorm it, you know? Have you found kind of like a formula with your traveling that you um maybe have regions that you hit or you like do you feel that you get like a why am I getting so many people from North Carolina like I'm going to line that up or Yeah. as a trip or there's certain states that I get more clients than others, you know, like Vegas it's a hit or miss.

It depends on what time of the year I come in, you know? And and sometimes I get a lot of clients. Sometimes it's it's harder for me to cover like the month or two, you know? I mean, I always book it, but it's just like you see it slower sometimes. Chicago, it's crazy. Like I go to Chicago, it's immediate. I book them all in one day, the whole month. It's crazy.

I just It's hard for me to live in Chicago. You know what I mean? It's uh I do love Chicago. Yeah, man. There's so much fun stuff. I really do love the city. Second to none. The city is great.

Just I'm not a city boy kind of guy. So, how'd you end up landing in that New Hampshire or uh New Hampshire New Hampshire area? So, the the mentor that I that I was working with, he had a house in California and in New Hampshire and he would fly back and forth and that's how I started going New Hampshire and Boston area. Yeah. You know, I only worked at Boston convention once. It was like a 4-day convention. What was that? Yeah, it's I I haven't gone in a couple years.

I used to go, but yeah, you know, I don't a lot. Yeah, I mean, you know, like I don't know. I was partying at the time, too. I used to Yeah, it was just a lot. Yeah, I I used to go. I got some friends that go, some some that don't. I uh But yeah, I love I love Boston. Boston is nice.

And when we first moved there, um, or not moved there, but when we were working there with with, uh, Angel and the the guys that I used to work with, did like it had been legal. Tattooing had been legal for like, you know, so it was like recently legal. So it was like three or four years before I started. Like it was illegal. You couldn't tattoo there. So that mentor, you ended up going up there and working with them and that was it. And worked with them for years and then just did my own thing. Eventually, I just had to do my own thing.

But yeah, they they were definitely very supportive, but definitely not into teaching or anything like that. Like, they were respectful of it. That's what I was they were respectful towards me. " So, but yeah, he was he was he's always a very nice guy. Still to this day, very nice guy with me and that that's cool. Did you end up opening up your own shop for some reason? I thought you said I thought I heard that you were going to. We were going to open one up in in Massachusetts actually, but man, it's uh it's tough.

It's tough to open shops up. Uh so much being home, you know, the nice places, they don't want a tattoo shop in there. And if and if they notice that you do well and whatever, dude, the prices are crazy. You know what I mean? So, I mean, I had a couple places where we're like going to rent a place and at the end it would just bump the rent up and be like, "What the Yeah. Yeah. " So, I had a couple places where we had to like, you know, let go because of that. So, is that kind of like a long-term play that you might want to go back to or are you seeing diversifying and doing some other things?

You know, opening shops these days is weird. I think, you know, I did. It's like I always wanted one and I uh I did God knows I've been this these past three years I've been buying [ __ ] for my future tattoo shop. Every time I go to antique shop I'm like you need that that's going to look great on my tattoo shop and I just got so much [ __ ] for tattoo. I got paintings. I got a whole warehouse like Yeah, I was going to say you ship all that to like a a pot or something. Yeah, I got we got like this storage a huge storage place in in New Hampshire. Oh, okay.

It's got pretty much a whole house in there, plus a tattoo shop in there. Well, maybe like the Oh, you know, working on the seminars and getting better and better at those, it sounds like you're putting a lot of time and energy into them to bring as much value as possible. Maybe that'll open up a whole new road to where like um I'm feeling like right now I'm seeing like a just kind of like a staticness where tattooers almost like I don't know if that's the same path. Like we've all been taking the same path like learn how to tattoo, get some friends, open up a shop, you know? No. And now there's like a million shops everywhere. So I'm like, I don't know if that's necessarily the path anymore. Like I watch some of my buddies still do it.

I'm like, I don't know, man. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, I can open a shop, but I honestly, you know, I honestly think that a shop is not really a money maker thing, you know? It's a place you open with your friends to have a safe place for you guys to share the rent and share the rent. We now we don't have to pay a, you know, like a place to work out. that that's how I look at tattoo shops, you know what I mean? So, I don't look it's not really a business. It's not really uh like, oh, I'm going to have this.

You're not going to retire off of it or anything. I don't look at it that way. So, that's why I'm like, I want to make money. I just kind of wonder like where we're all going to go or what we're going to get into, you know, and I don't know. I let my other friends worry about having, you know, the tattoo shop and stuff. I just work at them and, you know, but I I don't know. I might open one. I got got, you know, I got all the stuff to do it, you know.

got it all. I'm sure it'll be beautiful. Yeah, it should be beautiful. That's so much [ __ ] Yeah, I do. I do. I love it. I love all that stuff, but at this point of my career, I'm just trying to save money, trying to retire in a good way, you know, or figure out a way to be able to retire, you know? I mean, I'm always preaching that, too, is like you don't have to invest in a tattoo shop.

You can buy a rental house here or buy this or, you know, save up and buy a building and then you can do run other some businesses out of it. And then if that doesn't work out or you sell that business, you could still rent out the the building to somebody else. And that that's how I'm looking at it right now. So I'm like, man, really I I'm at a point in my career where I'm like, I definitely I don't want to tattoo forever. I do love tattooing and it's not like, oh, you know, I mean, but I don't want to be that guy that's like, I'm tattooing today. It's basically pretty taxing on the body, dude. Like a lot of people kind of don't I don't know. Maybe don't talk about it too much, but it's it's [ __ ] hard, dude.

And like I'm like trying to do everything I can right now to fix 20 plus years of tattooing with my back and like in your eyes. Like dude, I'll tell you it's fixable cuz my back got fixed. So yeah, I Yoga is like my savior. I don't I don't do anything of that, you know? I got I do nothing, you know. Dude, I was a little bit I hate it, dude. Oh yeah, dude. I [ __ ] hate tiger bombs.

Put a tiger bomb on this [ __ ] I'm like, this is terrible. But it does help. That's hilarious. Yeah, but my back is so much better now. Um, and it's just cuz I got a good lamp. I'm conscious about it while I'm tattooing like the height of the bed. It's like all these little stupid things. And dude, my back's way better.

So, all of my mentors and everybody, they all just ignored all that [ __ ] There was nobody talking about longevity and tattooing and health or anything. Just like smoke I I was literally told to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and do be a tattooer. That's it. And carry a gun if you're [ __ ] scared. Like well I mean every year I smoke one of those cigarettes. Now I quit cigarettes. Thank god. I don't even know how long it's been but it's been I I want to say like six years now.

Like six, seven years. Yeah. I don't even count them. But yeah. So your back's not [ __ ] with you because you focused on lighting and lighting was a big one. So like most places So meaning you're like not having to like hunch over and get as close and those little lights going to the side like that. No, that's that was ruined my back. " You know, you just But you're constantly like this tattooing, twisting your your sides.

And if you notice most tattooers, you go that this is where it hurts. You know, it's the sides like right right there. And it it's cuz you're like twisting your body this and this way for hours. Yeah. Now I got a lamp and this whole contraction thing that I travel with and uh it's right on top of me straight down and it's helped me so much, you know, massage bed. A good massage bed. I always tattoo with them flat on a t on a massage bed. Never like tattooing like this.

Yeah. I just spent way too many years like hunched over. I was I just kept kept [ __ ] growing. Even I swear even in my early 20s, I just kept growing. Dude. And uh I just was always looking at that. Me too. I was so close to it trying to get these outlines perfect.

That was my major thing. Just try to get this outline perfect and and it would be so stressful. " You know, I wipe it and I just keep going, you know, and then Is that part of your process, too? You come back at the very end and tighten up line work at the end. [ __ ] Yeah. If I have to, but I usually don't even have to cuz man, it's all in the confidence you got. It's like as soon as you start like like like like uh like being a little bit nervous like it just immediately shows through your to your through your lines. You know what I mean?

As soon as you just go like the Zoro like you know that thing is looking perfect. Your clients are always like double. Yeah, dude. I'm [ __ ] flying through this tat cuz I want the I want that flow, that confidence to project into my tattoo, you know, even if the outline's not perfect, which will never be perfect, you know. Even if it looks perfect at first, that's you you might get the the width of the line perfect, but the depth of the line, it's always going to be thick, a little bit deeper here, a little bit deeper there. So, especially if you're taking too long, you know, if you're going too lineing some big [ __ ] man. You're pulling some long ones. Going pulling long ones fast, quick and it just makes me go so much smoother and the the the lines just heal way better, you know?

So, I always got I somehow developed like a I always tapered in my lines and then tapered them out and never fully connected them and I would just come back in with my shading and then just kind of sculpt everything out and it kind of connected and then if I needed to like little dets at the end, whatever. It's the little tricks, you know, it's the little things that whatever makes, you know, worse for you. I remember. Yeah. Any tattooers that were standing around me, they're like, "What? " I'm like, "I don't know. I just first of all is like efficiency. I can just jam through this and get Yeah.

" And I'm all about that at this point. I wanted to, you know, give him as much I can uh and a good tattoo. And I feel like if I take too long on the tattoo, it just for me, it doesn't come out right. You know, I start, you know, it's not like when you're doing this like realism and stuff. You got to take your time with that. I I totally get it. It's just two different styles. Yeah.

Yeah. I never got personally. Yeah. My style is neotraditional. You want it to look tough. You're getting a handful of clients that are doing back to back. Uh yes. It's like crazy to me these days.

I'm doing now. It's so crazy. I watched people get tattooed for three days in a row at a show. " Like clients never could do that before. I couldn't do that before. Yeah. I got So every time I would back in the day, I would grab a two-day tattoo and be like, "You know what? [ __ ] it.

" Yeah. " They I would have to cancel the next day. Like, it it was just I was [ __ ] them up and I wasn't There's a trick to it. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you Oh, no. Definitely. I'm all about like it's just doing them, you know? You got to start doing them and not be afraid of it and touching certain areas and not touching certain areas, right?

I mean, I think it comes with experience for sure. Like it's one of those things that you're not going to like do a black fade, do like a whatever color and then come back and get in the middle of that. You can't [ __ ] with that. So you're like got to plan this thing. How you going to stop day one to continue day two? Yeah. Without really [ __ ] other things up. I've done it a hund different ways since I've been doing it, you know?

Like I've done all the outline and all the blacks and then the next day I do all the color and that's and that's a tough one, right? That's sketchy cuz you know I would say seven out of 10 can take it but those three out of 10 that can't take it and now I'm charging them a lot of money. They're flying in and I can't tattoo the next day. Bummer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's not cool with me.

You know what I mean? So that's cool. Yeah. Developing an art form for that [ __ ] And like now Yeah. Now I'm tattooing like a printer like you know how these guys do like realism but I'm doing it with new traditional traditional which is [ __ ] art. Okay. you know, because I gotta outline everything halfway, then blacks, then color and then realign your stencil and everything. Line up the stencil the next day or like what I've been doing is just getting better at not [ __ ] with the stencil and letting it last till the next day, which is a [ __ ] art form in itself.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. It's a whole It's a whole thing. It's a whole these little tricks and and ways to keep the stencil, which I've learned from people like Deanna, you know, like she does these uh you know, from Texas. She does Eden. Yeah, she does like three, four day tattoos, you know. So wild.

Amazing. And some of them are not using topicals either. No, we're not. They're just jumping in there and like I use Bactine, dude. That's it, dude. And let me tell you, all of them can take it. I don't think I've had one person. Do you remember like your mentors like mine told me that's not possible?

Mine just told me so many things were not possible. It's already healing the next day. You get infected. you I mean yes um and he's right you it is healing the next day and you could get it infected. So there is a a way of doing it. It's just you got to be very careful. You got to you know not touch the other stuff back or at least that's the way I do it. I got friends that do all the outlines and like get that client in the in that mindset, you know, cuz that's a that's an art form, too, dude.

Like convincing like, dude, you can get this. Like, dude, you know how many times they con they try to convince me to stop? I bet. Yeah. Yeah. I'll pay you right now. Just stop, bro. Like, hey, no problem, bro.

It's fine. I Dude, it's not a big deal. I'll just come back and finish it next time. Yeah. You're like, get your ass in the jar. We're [ __ ] doing Yeah, dude. Yeah. Yeah.

I had them I get them all the time. " Nah, you're not doing it. Yeah. And that's it. And they just sit there for You got to coach them through it. You got to be tough with them, which I'm not that great at, you know? I'm such a [ __ ] with I'm such a pushover. You're a nice guy.

I feel bad. Yeah. But now the the more I do them, the more I'm like, "Dude, you know what? I had a guy that was struggling way more than you are last week. He did it. I know you can do it. You know what I mean? " Are you a talker through your tattoos?

Do you you connect with your clients a lot more or I used to and recently I've learned that I think that that they don't get into that zone that I need them to be to last six hours for a tattoo and then do it again the next day. So you'll get them kind of headphoned up or whatever movie. So recently what I've been doing is we put a podcast on. So people are talking, we're both listening to it whatever they want to listen to podcast wise, you know, if they feel like they want to comment and then they can. Yeah, we can comment and talk about what's what we're listening to, but let's not talk about Ink Master for six hours cuz it's just like it's not I can't get into it, you know? So yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what you don't headphone or anything. I do headphones sometimes. Like if they got music in the shop that I go and I you know I don't like it or whatever some Yeah, I'll put some headphones. What kind of music do you like to vibe to when you're tattooing? Dude, I suck. I I suck with music. It's terrible for me. I get so bored of it.

It's crazy. I like to listen to podcast. No [ __ ] I like to listen to people talk whatever it is, dude. I'll talk to to I'll listen to two chicks going on about boyfriends for hours. No problem. I just want to hear uh talking. Plus, I feel like it's better for my client, you know? I put some certain songs, they get bored of it.

I can see it. Yeah. Well, and if they're not vibing with it, it takes two people to be in the same space. So, that that's cool. That Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I like that. Well, [ __ ] man. What else you got going on?

You going to So, you're going to keep traveling? You're going to be here in Vegas for a little bit? Keep traveling. Going to be here in Vegas. Um, I got like four flights while I'm here. So, I got to go to Texas, then I go to Florida, then I go to Chicago, and I can't even remember the last one, but you got to check your schedule. Yeah, I've been flying everywhere. And yeah, I'm going to be here.

It's It's been great. I got this the seminar coming up that I'm doing in Eden. And my actually my new seminar, we we filmed a whole online seminar course kind of thing. Dude, this I went all out with this thing. Like I I I looked for a producer. We looked for a like a team, like a video team. We rented a studio, like a movie studio. No [ __ ] dude.

It was sick. It was like the best. We had this whole production. We filmed this whole course on tattooing. It's It's so cool. Where do you find that? Well, it's coming out in in summer. This summer is coming up.

So, it still hasn't come out, but I'm really excited. I mean, they're editing it right now and they're almost done with it and something you'll be able to find through your website and yeah, you're going to be able to find it through the website and, you know, online and we're going to have a couple clips in YouTube and a couple stuff like that, but yeah, we got I I think it looks really cool. We got Sounds like it. It's there's not too many people putting that much time and energy into. No, we went all out. " You know, studio pieces all this [ __ ] in together, right? No problem. And so, dude, we did that for a whole day.

" I was like, it was the shittiest thing. " So, we're like, "We need a producer. " And we just rented those guys out and or we hired them. And um they filmed it and it looks amazing. We should have done it that way. the first time. That's right, man. Live and learn.

You kind of you don't know until you [ __ ] try. So, no, we did it well and it was it's awesome, Bill. I mean, I'm really excited about it. So, that's that's I'm excited. So, this summer that that'll be coming out and then we'll be able to like reach out to you social media. I'm sure you'll be promoting it and it's going to be an online course so people can just go online. They can sign up and all the videos are going to be there organized and all this stuff and we'll keep adding to that stuff. So, okay.

It's it's been cool, dude. I think that's cool for you, man. I think that's like a good healthy space, especially if you enjoy it and you enjoy sharing and you're very likable, dude. Oh, yeah, dude. I I've been fooling around with talented, too. It's fun to like you got a good combination and uh I would love to see you keep doing that and like work with you on that someday, too. No, I I'm excited, dude. Like, things are looking up.

Uh I'm I'm having the time of my life. Sounds like you got a great support like your wife and you guys have a great healthy relationship. That's awesome. My wife's the best. She's She does. She does everything, you know. I do tattoos. That's it.

I do the art. She does all the planning, all the stuff, you know, like she, you know, she was the one talking to you guys when to to get all this, you know, lined up, you know. So, dude, the right partner in crime, dude, is like the most healthy thing that you can do. Oh my god. " But I'm like, "Dude, you don't have it doesn't have to be a wife. It could be your best friend. It could be a person you don't know that you hired, but you you can't do this yourself. Not everything.

You can't do it by yourself. You got to you got to be a specialist in social media. You got to do websites. You got to like you got to do so many different things. And if it's just you doing it, then I'm telling you right now, it something's you're going to like lack on burn out, man. Yeah. Or you're going to burn out. Yeah.

and just not like follow through appropriately on all these different aspects of things like no website and merch and stuff. com um and yeah I got all stuff like there we got got merch and stuff. I I slacking on merch. I got to do more. We should do some collabs or something like you know we still have we did that collab with your sticker and we've been uh getting more into screen printing and have screen printers to help. I'm telling you, like Maverick is one of those companies that, you know, I stick with companies that I like. You know, I've I've been sponsored in the past by companies that don't even know that they're sponsoring me. You know what I mean?

Like I've I've been sponsored by two different two different um um how do you call this? Like tattoo bandages, you know, like those transparent bandages. Yeah. Yeah. Arms or armor, whatever they are. But I've been sponsored by two of them at the same time. They don't even know they're sponsoring me, you know? Like, it's crazy.

Like, they're not really into it. " Yeah. You know what I mean? So, you know, that's why I stick with World Famous, for example. You know, World Famous, I've been with them for the past I don't know how long, but at least 10 years I've been with World Famous. It's my favorite inks. Yeah. My favorite inks, not just because they sponsor me.

They were my favorite inks. And then I I I hit them up for a sponsorship. You know what I mean? Like that's the stuff I used. And they were the nicest people ever, dude. They always hook me up. They're always sending me like uh free stuff and stuff to try out. and they were just so nice.

Always so nice. Recently got sold. Okay. So, now they got a new ownership. Uh there's a lot of people nervous about it. I've talked to the new owners a little bit recently and they seem really nice as well. So, they seem cool. They seem like they're going to keep up like the same things.

I don't know. Hopefully. Um but yeah, I I like sticking with companies like that, you know. Um you guys are the same way, you know. We appreciate it, man. always to me it's not worth doing it if you're not going to do it authentically and just basically just this whole thing started just for me reaching out to my friends you know and then I was fortunate enough to their friends introduce me and vice versa and well I feel like I I I don't know it's almost like I'm gambling on you a little bit you know what I mean because I feel like yeah there's other companies that contact me they're big and stuff and they're like more [ __ ] they're like I got needles too I got all this [ __ ] I'm like it's cool. I got my my guys cuz I I trust that you guys are going to eventually be I'm telling you like the way you guys are going, you got to be the next best thing.

You know what I mean? And everybody's going to know about you guys. I'm hoping. You know, I think we're just Yeah, man. We're h we're happy as hell and we're just incredibly grateful for like most importantly just anybody that even pays attention to us. Like of course, dude, I kind of set out in the very beginning was like I know tattooers. I know we all use all different kinds of [ __ ] If I could just get one little Yeah. smidg in space of your toolbox.

I'll be super grateful. " I'm always Maverick. And I love your needles. Like I said, I used another needle the other day. Uh I used 23s, you know? I used 23 mags, like regular ones. I love them from Maverick. And I ran out.

I used somebody else's 23s. Terrible. Couldn't even tattoo with these things. So, I'm just already used to your your needles. I love them, you know. They're good needles. Yeah. " Never had a problem.

But I've had problems with big companies before cuz um it I mean, it h it's bound to happen at some point in time, you know. I mean, I'm sure, but I've never had a problem. You guys are great. You're you guys always in stock. Yeah. Which is a big deal. It is a huge deal. You know what?

It's funny you say that cuz my wife and I like spoke in the very be excuse me beginning is be in stock like if we can just be regular. So product management and ordering and all that stuff is a whole all the logistics of that and time. Yes. Yeah. It's it's a lot in my I I before I came with you I went with you guys I was sponsored by another company. I'm not going to name but they were constantly out of stock. Yeah. No stock makes it hard to use.

I was like well I'm hard to be in love with you if you're never around. Yes. And then that's how I I got into you guys because of a friend because of uh Randy I think got me into you guys. So So that's how that's how it is. I I I like that. I try to support tattoo artist own companies as much as I can. Sometimes I really can. Kind of impossible too at times.

Yeah. Yeah. Certain things I'm like when it comes to like like inks and stuff like that, I try to keep up with the big companies, you know, like or at least my I've been using my stuff for years, world famous. So but yeah, but I've been trying new stuff and there's just so many new things out there. There is. Yeah, it's kind of overwhelming at times, but yeah, our goal is just to keep keep trucking along, slowly grow grow correctly. Yeah. And maintain our relationships with everybody.

It's just fun as [ __ ] to do anyway. Well, I use stencil stuff forever, you know? I use stencil stuff for the past uh I don't know, like all my life. That's all I use stencil stuff. " Yeah. From Mom's. " Or Sorry, Moms. Sorry, Mom.

That's his That's the brand called Sorry Mom. Dude, his stuff is amazing. So much better than the stuff I was using before, you know. And that's his brand. That's his brand. I didn't know that. I was always sketched out. " Yeah.

Yeah. But no, Mike Mike does all his stuff like super profession. Yeah. Like he's got these companies that do them and like it's super legit, you know, and I got to see it firsthand, so I know it's legit. Oh [ __ ] I have to reach out to him. Like we're starting to do work on programs where we start we're starting to sell other tattooer owned products so we can all help each other out and stuff, you know? No, his stuff is great. And I'm always on the fence, especially when a friend goes like, "Try my stuff.

" And then, you know, yeah, we're in our relationship. " You know, like or I don't want to use it. Well, you won't ever hurt my feelings if you ever have any problems with anything. Dude, have a lot more respect than helpful. I just My feelings got hurt when I when I got to tell you something. So, I'm like, I don't want to try your stuff. I don't know, man. My stuff works good.

Oh, that's fun. But Mike Mike's stuff is is working great. And that's why I'm like lately I've been trying all these different things. I'm like, "Wow, this Yeah. " Yeah, that's great. Well, dude, I don't want to keep you all day, man. I know you get your day off and I just thank you so much for coming down, dude. And it was like it means a lot.

And like these one-on-one conversations just help us out, learn about each other. It's just so fun, you know? I love it, dude. I would come here every time to nerd out and, you know, just talk about tattooing. I can do it all day long. So, thank you. excited. Appreciate it, man.

Thanks for tuning in, guys. I appreciate it. And uh real quick, so like what's your Instagram or what's the best place to find you? So, so my Instagram is Gian Carllet. Just my name, G I A N K A R L E. And uh you guys can look me up. Pretty much all my social media is just Gian Carllet. YouTube, I just opened up a YouTube page.

Um I got a bunch of followers there there and I'm showing a bunch of videos on how I tattoo and my process. So you guys can go and check that out. Um, and yeah, I mean I got Instagram, Gian Carllet, Facebook, all these things. The the my website is Gian Carllet, too. So you're good. You got it all the way across the board. So we'll use those to reach out to you to also um keep up on your uh seminars, too. Which I'm real pumped about that.

I want to learn more. My uh I forgot my YouTube is not called Gian Carlo. It's the one thing I changed. That one's called Almost Inkmaster. Okay. the second time. Second runner up. Yeah.

Yeah. Go check that out. Yeah. All right, guys. Thanks so much and peace out. Have a good one.