B to Z
Mental health and wellness
B to Z
Art on the Edge of Rebellion with Spike Moore
Have you ever found yourself mesmerized by the intricate dance of a tattoo needle, or wondered about the stories etched in ink on someone's skin? Spike Moore, a maestro of tattooing and a shop owner with a wealth of knowledge, joins us to unravel the rich tapestry behind the art form that's become a symbol of identity for many. Step into Spike's world where Japanese back pieces win awards and where 'adult tattoos' are a testament to an individual's lifetime journey, each design resonating with an unspoken narrative that lasts beyond the buzz of the tattoo gun.
In a culture where tattoos once screamed rebellion, we trace the evolution from underground badges of honor to mainstream expressions of the self. Through the tales of Midwest ink enthusiasts from the 80s and 90s, to my own rite of passage within the buzzing walls of a local tattoo shop, we reminisce about the days when being a 'shop rat' meant more than just hanging around. Spike and I dissect the delicate balance of customer service, where the dance between an artist's vision and a client's dream can either harmonize in beauty or clash in disappointment, and the ever-present challenge of cultural appropriation within the inked lines.
Lean in as we close our session on a note of inspiration, discussing the power of mentorship and the profound effect of paying it forward. Spike, with gracious acknowledgment of those who've paved his path, speaks to the soul of the tattoo community—its collective effort to uplift and evolve. From the significance of supporting fellow artists to the sustainable practices that will shape the future of tattooing, we share a commitment to not just bear witness to change but to actively participate in it. Join us, not just for a conversation about tattoos, but for an exploration of a subculture that continues to redefine itself with every generation.
Good afternoon, good afternoon. Good afternoon, we're on BZ Podcast. I'm excited, are you?
Speaker 2:excited AB. I am very excited. We're out here in Temecula, california, 78 degrees at Captain Tattoo. It's our first field trip for the podcast. It's very exciting. I got one of my buddies, spike Moore, tattooer for over 20 years, shop owner and also owns a supply company. He's currently the owner and tattooing at Captain Tattoo in Temecula and he's the CEO of his supply company Barely yeah, with that great intro, is there anything else you'd like to throw in there?
Speaker 1:No, no, I'm good. I think that's enough.
Speaker 3:The rest will speak for itself, I'm sure, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So how are you doing today, man?
Speaker 3:Good Good, just getting back from a convention. As usual, it's convention season, so yeah, how was it in Arizona this time? No, this one was El.
Speaker 2:Centro, El Centro, okay yeah.
Speaker 3:Imperial Valley Good tacos Right on.
Speaker 1:How's that Nice Mexican people? It's 100 degrees all the time.
Speaker 3:It was good. Yeah, it's a small show, but it's quality, quality over quantity, would you say each convention has a different vibe. Absolutely, yeah, okay, much like each tattoo shop has its own vibe. Yeah, some are cool some are not cool, some are you know business, some are homie. Hangs like remember music yeah, no one made money in music. Everyone went there to do cocaine and hang out and fucking wait for NoFX to play.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went to one music. That was my first convention and I remember the game, the rapper, he was mad dogging me.
Speaker 1:He was mad dogging me, yeah yeah, I was like you look like something popular, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm with Spooky. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know Spooky look crazy. So you know I'm in good company, I'm around my brothers and stuff he's dogging. I'm like, yeah, he doesn't know. I have people jumping out of booths ready to defend me and shit. Anyways, Did you win any awards out?
Speaker 1:there, I won one, yes.
Speaker 3:Okay, what category was that Large color Nice?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were talking about it a little bit earlier. That was a big back piece. Oh yeah, back piece. Yeah, yeah, japanese, yes, correct, yeah, what would you say? What's your strong point? What's your art that you fuck with the most?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean honestly, when people ask what.
Speaker 2:I do, I tell them my tattoo yeah.
Speaker 3:You know I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. But if I had to say, my focus would be on tattoos that look like tattoos, so like American traditional, Japanese traditional, anything that's just kind of bold, strong, you know, colorful usually. I mean I do black and gray too, but I'm more known for color.
Speaker 3:I see you rolling out the back pieces lately yeah, try and try to build a legacy, you know, I mean at some point in time. You know, all these little tattoos are cool and they pay the bills, but they don't. You know, they don't cement you as like a who's who tattoo or whatever. You know, just trying to do stuff that's a bigger working more collectors, try to attract more collectors. You know, if people don't see you doing it, they don't know you can do it. It's like your portfolio. So I'm just trying to build a bigger portfolio of bigger pieces, now that I'm at that point where, like, I kind of understand how to design them, how to tattoo them, how to shepherd people through the experience, because, I mean, you're scabby and itchy and broke for a year.
Speaker 3:You know that experience, because I mean, you're scabby and itchy and broke for a year. Oh yeah, you know that's a back piece. You know that's, that's literally what it is like.
Speaker 2:Every month you're going to be healing a session, maybe two, you know if you're ambitious, and if you're super ambitious, three you know.
Speaker 3:Because once you get the outline on, you can bounce around a lot. You can start on the right shoulder, you can work to the freaking butt cheek on the left side. You know you can bounce around. So I mean you can do three sessions in a month.
Speaker 2:It's doable um, so what made japanese your niche like? Why did you choose that to be your style?
Speaker 3:um, I chose that, an american traditional, just because they're classic, they're the the oldest, they're the least trendy, they're the ones that in 20, 30 years you're still stoked on your tattoo. You know when it comes up to you in the gym and like oh man, I remember when those were cool. You know like no one says that about those styles because they predate electricity, they predate all tattooing. Basically, they are the roots, the foundation of tattooing so it's a heritage, it all came through there.
Speaker 3:Um, and you know, honestly, at this point in my career I'm trying to give people adult tattoos, not trendy not oh cool, you know, but like that's probably going to end up being considered a trendy tattoo, I want something that kind of lasts the rest of their life, because that's how long your tattoo stuck with you. So it's super important to make sure that you give people adult tattoos, you know I mean, and for some people that is a hello kitty tattoo.
Speaker 3:Some people are just going to be hello kitty lovers their whole fucking life. You know like, uh, you know, good autumn, I hope life works out well for you. But uh, you know, uh, for the most part I just try to do stuff that's timeless. You know, uh, we still look at old italian art, you know, as being the pinnacle, or, you know, being the foundation of everything. You know why can't you have something in tattooing that's kind of looked at the same? You know, so kind, of the renaissance of the tattoo.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean the roots of the art form. You know it's a sacred art form. I know it's been whored out nowadays and it's here and it's there and it's on freaking shampoo and bed sheets and shower curtains and fucking hair gel and whatever.
Speaker 3:But like you know that that'll be gone as soon as there's no more money left in tattooing when the well dries up and the rest of us, uh, that are tattooing for the right reasons, are still here and all the kids leave on to the next trend. You know, oh, I'm gonna go to smoke shop, or you know, whatever the next thing is. You know, oh, ai, I support this. Ai, I told it everything I know about art or whatever. Uh, you know, we'll still be here doing it.
Speaker 3:You know, because those of us who love it love it for the right reasons it's kind of like skateboarding right like the og skate yeah, before p-rod made everything p-rod and everybody tried to tray, flip like him and wear nikes like him and yeah, and everybody lost style because they were all just trying to imitate one dude's style yeah yeah, basically yeah or punk rock or surfing or any of those things that have kind of become super fucking popular. They're at the olympics now. Real people don't give a shit about that, dude, I.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of your interests as far as hip hop and the style of hip hop, history and then tattooing are all tailored to that core heritage, to the value of what it is that you really like, and that's one thing that I just kind of put together right now. Like he likes backpack hip hop, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Core, where they're spitting bars and stuff like that Because I was trying to figure, a way to bring hip-hop into this Well, the lyrical content is the important part, the beat is the second part. I know there was a point there in the late 90s, early 2000s where the producers got more popular than the rappers. Mm-hmm, you know, you know, dj kevin, that's all you needed. In the beginning of the song you could spit garbage, you could be like. This is why I'm hot for 20 minutes afterwards and people were like yeah, that jam is fire. Like no, it's not, the beat is cool.
Speaker 2:You know, the lyrics are dog shit, like my kid could write that, speaking to the core of what it is that he's interested in. You know what I mean. Um, he's always core value with the things he goes hard. You know what I mean. So is that what's interested in? You know what I mean. He's always core value with the things he goes hard. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So was that what got you into? It? Was the history of tattooing, no, or did you just want to make money? Outlaw shit?
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm from the Midwest.
Speaker 3:So people didn't have tattoos.
Speaker 2:Now they show Minnesota. Right yeah, minnesota.
Speaker 3:Wisconsin is where I was born and raised, so you know, the first person I ever met that had a tattoo was this crazy-ass old lesbian lady named Vera, and she kind of looked more like a dude than a chick. It was funny. But like she's the only person I ever knew that had a tattoo, for the first probably 15 years of my life 20 years of my life I'd never met anybody else with a tattoo.
Speaker 1:She was the only person I ever saw with a tattoo, so it's like a social prior or a little bit people. Yeah, it's the bible yeah, it's the bible belt for a reason.
Speaker 3:So, um, yeah, no, I mean, it was kind of the if you wanted to stick a middle finger up to the world that was the way to do it get a tattoo, yeah that was the way to drop out and be like I don't give a shit about anything anyone. Like fuck you, fuck the world. Like you know, I'm a punk rocker for real. Like get a tattoo, you know out here in california people have always had tattoos, you know.
Speaker 3:I mean, that attitude was probably prevalent in like the 40s and 50s out here. You know it was probably the same. People kind of hid their tattoos if they had them. Only a certain group of people or class of people had them. You know, if you got one you were one of those like fuck the world people.
Speaker 2:Uh you know. But that changed pretty quickly out here, way faster than the midwest midwest is always 20, 30 years behind.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's a little faster now. Instagram, tiktok, all these things kind of making it obvious as to what the new thing is, but back you know, 90s, 80s, 90s that was not the case. We were far behind you know.
Speaker 1:So what came first? Were you getting a tattoo or getting involved in tattooing? Getting a tattoo, getting a tattoo, that's what, that's what.
Speaker 3:That's what yeah, so I grew up looking at trans world and thrasher and, like you know, seeing the punk rock, you know.
Speaker 3:And then mtv came out, you know, and like there was everybody that was cool had a tattoo, that's right you know, all the cool rockers, all the cool like skaters, all the people that kind of like, had their own thing going on, had their own style. They were tattooed, you know, maybe not heavily, you know, I mean there was only. I mean it was like a couple of guitarists and bands back then that even had full sleeves. You know like it was something to have a sleeve. When we'd see somebody with a sleeve in the midwest it was like whoa Cross the street, don't look him in the eye, like he might be a bad motherfucker, right? You know like, don't fuck with that guy. He's somebody Like he's a real one. You know, like, nowadays, what does your sleeve mean? Grandmas come up and ask oh, where'd you get that done, my son?
Speaker 1:oh, my god, it's, it's not the coach you are but, where does that transition for you now, now that you're creating the legacy? Was it starting the shop? So what?
Speaker 3:happened is I. I got my first tattoo at a shop uh, it was a satellite shop of don nolan, who I later found out some super famous, super influential tattooer. At the time I had no fucking clue. I was clueless. I was just like tattoos are cool, when I turn 18 I want to get one. Come to find out. I waited until I was 20 to get my first tattoo, but you know I was busy doing other shit, I was poor and you know I was in between getting kicked out of my house and back in and you know, life was kind of weird at that time in my life so I didn't get one right away, uh.
Speaker 3:But when I was 20 I went got my first tattoo and I just thought man, this is the coolest fucking experience ever. Like this is, this is wow, like dude.
Speaker 1:This is everything I wanted it to be the shop's scary, it's dangerous.
Speaker 3:The art is cool. Uh, the people are cooler, you know, like they were gods they were wizards you walk into a tattoo shop in the 90s in the midwest, dude, like you, you'd say the wrong thing. They might chase your ass out of there with a gun, knife, baseball bat or fists like or fist Like you know. It was a real thing, it was a real place. Like things were heavy back then. There weren't shops. I had to drive 50 miles to find a shop.
Speaker 2:If you could fucking believe that you can't walk 50 feet without hitting one. Now, they're like herpes. You're not going to California. Yeah, they're like herpes.
Speaker 3:They're popping, you know, but it's a completely different world I grew up in, you know tattoo wise, so I got a tattoo two weeks, three weeks later, a month later, and I went back for another one yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, once I got over the like. Okay, you know, because I was scared of needles going into it, like I think a lot of people are you know right, yeah it's a huge phobia you know, uh, once I got over, like oh they're.
Speaker 3:You know it sucks, but it's not that bad Like you can deal with it. There's worse things in life. I was hooked man. I was hanging out in the shop all the time. You know, I got three tattoos in my first year.
Speaker 2:You know which back then was kind of a big deal. Yeah, banned them right out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, most people kind of get one and you know it was garbage, but I didn't really think about it, I just kind of kept hanging out. I went to a different shop. There was a friend of mine said hey man, this guy tattooed me. He's in our town, in Red Wing. Oh okay, crazy cool. I didn't even know there was a shop there. You know, you didn't have Instagram.
Speaker 1:You didn't advertise yeah Shops, kind of just popped up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was word of mouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, speak easy type.
Speaker 3:Yeah, real underground, real word of mouth.
Speaker 1:You weren't on the front newspaper like hey new tattoo.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just opened up. Yeah, right yeah.
Speaker 3:You kind of kept it on the low. So when I found out about that one I went there. I got his pricing. I liked his attitude. He was a little less scary than the shop I'd gone to before. The guy tattooed me His name was Crazy Dwayne, yeah.
Speaker 1:Kind of find out years later.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, very out of the park Tattooers don't get nicknames for no reason. That's right they fit. You know like what was that shit? Cat Williams said If someone calls you a, crackhead. You're, yeah, crazy away for sure, but yeah, so I started hanging out with this guy, Kevin, and I mean we just became shop rats, we, you know people don't really realize anymore, but there used to be.
Speaker 3:there used to be a couple of different groups of people. There was like groupies, and then there was hangarounds and like I was just a hangaround, you know, I just hung out like, oh man, you need McDonald's, I'll go get lunch. Cool my tattoo, you know. Maybe you know who knows like just try to work your way in, you know any way you could. Oh, I'll go run that errand. Oh, I'll stay at the shop real quick while you go run an errand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know so who gave you that chance then? Who gave you the chance kevin? That was yeah, yeah, so so later he pulled you later.
Speaker 3:He was like hey, if you know anybody that wants to be a tattooer I really need the help and at first, honestly, I didn't even think of myself. I thought of somebody else. I thought of other people.
Speaker 2:And after a while I was just like, why not?
Speaker 3:me Like I draw, I paint, I mean I've been, I've been drawn on the wall since I was old enough to hold a crayon, you know like. So I was like fuck it, you know. And I said, hey, man, I'd like to. He's well, you know, we'll see. Because at the time I worked at a strip club, so I'd get off at four in the morning and I have to be to work at 10. Yeah, for my apprenticeship I'd usually roll it around noon, much to his chagrin. It was tough. I mean, in the first little bit it really kind of, you know, worked it up to the point where I could get it. I became a piercer so I could make money because by this, point I already had college bills.
Speaker 3:I lived on my own, I had a car note, I had bills like real bills. So I needed a way to make money while learning how to tattoo, because back then it wasn't two weeks in and you're doing freaking sleeves already.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no way. I had to wait two years before I was allowed to tattoo.
Speaker 3:So I paid my dues. I scrubbed tubes, I made needles, I made ink and this, that everything, this, that everything real traditional apprenticeship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3:So you know I wasn't allowed to do shit forever. You know, I wasn't even allowed to touch machines for the first like year. It was crazy, uh, you know, and it just slowly worked, you know, and uh, well, I mean I. What attracted me to it really was just the, the punk rock, the outlaw the, so just screw you. Counterculture attitude that tattooing used to have.
Speaker 1:Now today, has that changed at all? Oh, absolutely, Now that you own your shop.
Speaker 3:Well, no, no, no. That's still what I love about it.
Speaker 1:The culture has changed, the culture has almost changed.
Speaker 3:The culture is totally, you know, we're used to soccer moms and you know all this soft. You can't play Slayers, rain and Blood all day anymore.
Speaker 2:You all this soft you can't play slayers.
Speaker 1:Rain and blood all day anymore.
Speaker 3:You know you can't have a motorcycle in pieces in the front lobby and cocaine and hookers hanging, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it looked down a little bit, yeah that doesn't fly anymore.
Speaker 3:You know, uh, nobody's really looking for that kind of a tattoo shop anymore. So, uh, you know, I still like the some of the ethos from that.
Speaker 2:Obviously they weren't exactly the friendliest, I mean customer service is important, no matter what you do. At the end of the day, what? People don't understand your job is to serve the customer.
Speaker 3:as a tattooer, I think people get this twisted quite a bit nowadays. You know they're like well they don't want to take my advice and it's like was your advice any good? You know like, who are you? You know what? What pedigree do you have to be giving a customer advice? You know, a lot of times these kids don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
Speaker 3:You know at the end of the day. Honestly, I look at us and we're like an art server. Some people bring you food. Oh, I'm your server. Today, I'm your host. You know I'm going to the soup du jour. Is this, you know? Whatever At the end, of the day.
Speaker 2:I I've always struggled with your opinion upon that. For us, I've always struggled with that. There is a huge service aspect to our job.
Speaker 3:Without the customer, who are we?
Speaker 2:Right, and without the thing that you need, we have no job. You know what I mean. So he's 100% right. As much as you know, I hate that opinion of our job, but he's 100% right. You know, without that need, which is just just a tattoo, it could be a butterfly, it could be, because, whatever the fuck it is that day. But you're right, we are here to give you a service.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know at the end of the day, that's what it is. I mean, there's a lot of stuff between a and b. You know, I'm not saying it's the straightest of paths or roads, but uh, at the end of the day, your job is to give somebody a tattoo.
Speaker 2:You know if they want a bad tattoo that's on them.
Speaker 3:You know, I mean, I used to fight with that. I used to struggle with this, that trying to talk people into out of things Like, at the end of the day, you know what, if they're determined to get a bad tattoo, guess what? It's your job to do a bad tattoo or it's your job to tell them to kick rocks and guess what? They're going to go down the street, especially nowadays. Back in the day you could get away with telling people to screw themselves and you know, go good educated, go 50 miles, find the other shop that's 50 miles away from us. Have them tell you it's a fucking dumb idea and then maybe you'll come back, not anymore. Now they go 50 feet down the street. Joey freaking, been tattooing two weeks. Guy does their tattoo, does it even worse than you can do it?
Speaker 2:because even if they, want a bad tattoo, you can technically do it good.
Speaker 3:You can do the lines clean, you can do the shading clean, or the lack thereof, it'll heal in a week. You know it'll do all the things a good tattoo is supposed to do. It'll still just be a bad tattoo, you know. Maybe from a technical ass point uh maybe they want it facing backwards. Maybe they want it in a place where in 20 years it's going to look like crap from aging.
Speaker 2:And that's a game, right there he's giving you guys. That was game right there he's giving you If you're just starting, that was game Rewind that you could do a shitty tattoo very well and it'll look badass.
Speaker 1:But anyways, keep going, I'm sorry, but I do see the difference now, because in one of our first episodes we brought that up Brandon did. Brandon said he usually pushes those ones away or he talks about something totally different, right, whereas you're more. So okay, we'll give it to you. Yeah, but this is my opinion on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and you know, I was told, you know, forewarned is forearmed. I had a civics teacher preach that in seventh grade and it stuck with me.
Speaker 3:Hated him, didn't like his class at all, he was kind of a douche, but that stuck with me. You know, if you tell somebody, hey, this is a bad idea, it's going to age terribly, it's going to fall out, whatever you know, you tell them once, tell them maybe twice Sometimes. You know they don't catch it the first time. It kind of goes over their head. They're nervous, they're not paying attention.
Speaker 2:You know they're bullhead in the head.
Speaker 3:They got the wheel, they're driving the bus right off the cliff Like, hey, you're going off the cliff. Hey, going off the cliff. All right, I told you, I warned you. I mean, that's what I'm here to do. I mean, I hate to say it, it's not about that, I don't want it to be about that. You know, I'd tattoo for free if I won the lottery. For sure, absolutely. I mean, I'd only tattoo when I'd want to tattoo, but I'd still tattoo.
Speaker 2:I would never give it up as far as tattooing what you want to tattoo too. I remember being in a shop with a lot of artists and I was tripping on one dude, mike. He just kept doing gangster shit. Everything was dope as fuck and I was like bro, who the fuck are you getting these people from? Like, where are they coming from? He's like no, like I just changed the, the idea, I just changed the design and that tailored what kind of tattoos people were, you know, bringing in, you know, like, so, when people were reaching out for him, it was all within this specific genre, if you just give them what the fuck they want.
Speaker 2:Yes, sometimes it is that you know. But if you just give them what they want, then you are limiting yourself. I did it for years, for years, just kind of, you know, just being a walk-in artist and not necessarily being invested in the art like I should be or refining it and putting my own stamp on it right.
Speaker 1:What would you show people is what they ask for right, the only thing you can do, what you show them so I've noticed that here, because I see a lot of that as American, traditional, neo-traditional. So so people come in here and they, they want what's on the walls, right?
Speaker 3:sometimes I mean still people come in here and they want what's on the walls right. Sometimes I mean still people come in for other stuff.
Speaker 1:We do it, we just don't promote.
Speaker 3:You know we don't what people don't understand is like my. Instagram is not real busy and it's because I do everything, you know. I mean, maybe I do a black and gray piece. Is it as awesome as Tommy Montoya's? No, but you know.
Speaker 2:Does that speak? Speak to longevity within tattooing. You have almost double my experience and sometimes I'm like man, like how am I going to do this for another, like how do you keep that longevity, how do you stay relevant?
Speaker 3:well, that's it you got to do, whatever the new trend is, as much as you might hate it, as much as you know it's trendy and you don't want to give your clients trendy stuff work. Hot told me a long time ago that aaron k him aside once and said hey man, it's a young man's game. You know, get it while you can. You know younger kids are more. You know I mean, look at it now. Instagram when Instagram came out, the young kids were into it. Tiktok came out, the young kids were into it. The people my age and tattooing are like, oh, I don't need that crap. Now they're all oh, the algorithm and this, and that they're all trying to figure it out.
Speaker 3:you know like because they realize if you don't stay with what's popular.
Speaker 1:That's your free advertisement right there. Yeah, there's a lot of pros, but there is a lot of. You got to learn how to use it Well, that's life. Yin and yang there's always two sides to every coin there has to be. You know, there's no one-sided coin in life how do you, how do you promote so outside of tattooing? Uh, you got your family life, uh how do you have more like it?
Speaker 3:well, how does that?
Speaker 1:how do you promote the longevity in that direction?
Speaker 3:so longevity honestly boils down to just be willing to tattoo. You know, a lot of people I know are like, oh, I don't do the pinterest tattoos and it's like, okay, well, there goes half your business Right now. Let's be honest, that's about half of what people want, you know. Let's say what's the average. About 30% of Americans have one tattoo. 20-ish to 50-ish or so have multiple, you know. So look at it that way. Then go, how many percent of those people have like some little trendy thing? You know they'd show it on your phone. Oh, look at this, I got this little idea I want to do. You know, I mean, granted, does it fulfill the art side of your life? Like, oh, I want to desire to build a legacy, and I'll say, no, it doesn't, but it fills your coffers, you know. And those people can turn into good clients. I've had plenty of people get like a little. I mean, I've turned Friday the 13th clients into leg sleeves. It's totally doable.
Speaker 3:You have to be willing to take the time and the investment and show people like look man, I can do this little $20 banger for you, but here's what I could do, here's what you could have, here's who you could be. I feel like I've met a lot of people who have awesome tattoos. I've been like, oh man, that tattoo is really cool. Who did it? And they're kind of upset. They're like, oh so, and so down the street did it.
Speaker 1:Whatever you know, I mean not to bring up any names or whatever, but I've met a lot of people who have awesome tattoos and they fucking hate them really it's not what they wanted.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the artist took it, said okay, you want a wolf? Okay, cool, well, I'm gonna do my style wolf. I'm not gonna listen to anything you have to say, because all I do is me. You know, and, and I feel like there's a lot of that in tattooing, there's a lot of this entitled art ego. I mean they kind of 100. I've never met an artist that didn't have a fucking ego. I mean, that's that's.
Speaker 2:It's based on that there's got to be a line, too, where it becomes positive in like some interest interest line, as we can call it like for sure.
Speaker 3:You know, now I'm interested because, I put this much into it right well, and you're always free to turn it down and send it down the street or to one of your other guys, which, when you're an owner, is great when you're not an owner, you're just working for a dude, you know you're.
Speaker 3:You either want to make the money or you don't you know, you're either willing to say, hey look, I'll compromise what I normally like to do, you know, to make the money or I won't. You know, I've worked in shops that do both. I've worked in shops where people just take whatever walks through the door. Man, they can't do lettering to save their soul.
Speaker 3:But don't do that name on you, because yeah you know, and then I've worked at shops where like, hey, we got a guy that specializes in lettering. You're going to get a really awesome tattoo out of this guy. When you want a realistic flower, I'm the dude that does those. You'll come back and hopefully you know everybody shares with each other. I've worked in that kind of environment as well, too and I mean both are successful environments.
Speaker 3:There's nothing against either one. I mean as an artist who cares about the end result more so than anything, because at the end of the day, the tattoo is the thing it's not me, it's not my ego, it's not my trophies, it's not my shop, it's not anything. It's is the tattoo good, that's, that's it, you know bottom line. That's the most important part so somebody who cares about that?
Speaker 3:you know, I like to be in a shop where people kind of share with each other. Hey, we got an anime guy. Hey, we got somebody that's black and gray. Hey, we got somebody does realism. Hell, you wanted it. You want a skull, an eagle and a sword. Fuck yeah, dude, all day I got you.
Speaker 2:You know, like I'm your guy is there anything in your current shop today that you feel like you're trying to add that you don't have right now as far as a style?
Speaker 3:not really. No, I think we're pretty well versed in covering everything. I mean there might be some kind of like new thing on the horizon. I don't know about that.
Speaker 2:We like a trash polka or steven does trash polka does he? Yeah, yeah, we got gang gets to do realism.
Speaker 3:She does the best realism I saw huge glitch realism.
Speaker 2:I heard the other day, I read something about Glitch Realism. It's realism and it's that glitch where it creates a weird hue with your eyes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, new to me.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Cool, I'm down for it. I'm sure we got somebody that can figure it out.
Speaker 2:I'm not trying to do that shit. It sucks to look at when you put those colors in there in that fashion.
Speaker 3:So here's my thing Realism, all that stuff, pop culture.
Speaker 2:I don't like it.
Speaker 3:I get why people do it, but to me like, oh, I want to, I want grandma on my arm. Like, get a T-shirt with grandma on it, wear it every day.
Speaker 2:If you love grandma that much.
Speaker 3:The last thing your girl wants to see when she's getting you naked is grandma staring back at her naked is grandma staring back at her. Last thing she wants to see is your kids looking at her especially if someone else, yeah you know, the last thing you want to see when you're pulling a girl skirt up is her grandma, grandpa, dad or anybody else staring at you like what are you doing with that boner sonny?
Speaker 3:yeah like don't do it, it's to me. I mean, I get why people do it, I totally get it. You know, I have people in my life I love enough that given the right circumstance maybe I would take the plunge. But, to me. That's just not what a tattoo is. You know, iron man. You know I got Iron man tattooed on me. Cool. What are you going to do when Disney reboots that shit in 20 years? It just doesn't. Oh, you got the old Iron man Right.
Speaker 1:It's such a personal.
Speaker 2:I got an iron man on me. You know that I was like man.
Speaker 1:Okay, I was more into a nickname I had that was kind of like a nickname I had, good good, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:A timeless piece of art, yeah, yeah, so what?
Speaker 3:are going to do when you find out Iron man has a fucking kiddie porn dungeon?
Speaker 2:Oh shit, he's been to the island.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know what I'm saying though, like everybody says oh, my kids are safe. Well, you know, hitler's parents probably thought he was a real nice guy too, until he wasn't. You know what I mean. Like Jeffrey Dahlberg, oh, he's our great little baby. You know, I could get his name tattooed on me or his face. And then what?
Speaker 1:Then what you know like. So what do?
Speaker 2:you say you must think you're a parent of the century. You don't like portraits at all. Are you learning something?
Speaker 3:right now, huh Are you learning something about him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's new to me. I'm okay with people doing it yeah, exactly, that's spike's daughter.
Speaker 2:She's been chilling in that episode super quiet.
Speaker 1:We got a little route. We'll keep you down, sorry.
Speaker 3:Sorry, we'll keep you down, my bad so, uh, you know, I just, I I get why people do them. I think that it's amazing that people can do them to the quality they can do them. It's fucking unreal. It looks like a photo, you know. Uh, I just don't agree with the reason for getting it. I think it's better served as as a poster. Like Iron man, get that t-shirt, dude. They make a million different t-shirts, iron man. They got that special edition Nikes in that same color, everything. You know what I mean. But, like, don't put it in your skin. It's not something you should carry to the grave with you. I think things need to be more important than that, or maybe they don't you know, or maybe they don't.
Speaker 2:So how do you feel about cultural tattoos then? Like, with that said, if you are not within the culture, should you be getting the tattoo right? That's a. That's a. That's a rough one, right? So you can't celebrate other cultures because if you do japanese, isn't that human on human culture a caucasian dude. So what isn't that?
Speaker 3:the same fucking thing, you know no because you're not a japanese dude you're not giving it to them for the same reason, maybe you're not putting the signature in there you know it's obviously an american japanese tattoo. It's not a japanese, I'm not trying to be horyoshi 3, horyoshi 2. I'm just copying what they, what they did. You know, I'm paying homage to it, I'm paying honor to it as a tradition, as a cultural thing. You tattooed in Hawaii.
Speaker 2:I'm going to push this a little bit more. You tattooed in Hawaii.
Speaker 3:I have a Polynesian tattoo, okay.
Speaker 2:You come in somebody's on vacation and they come into your shop and they're like hey brother.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you give them the white version. You give them the Howie version With the turtle. You give them the shit that says you're from a certain part of the island, you're uh, uh, your amakua is a certain thing. You don't give them none of that. You give them. You give them the sticker. You give them the sticker they put on the back of their car to say I went to hawaii once, I had a vacation, I party is there beef for people who do the tattoos, polynesian tattoos is there like a hatred from the polynesian side?
Speaker 3:of things to people they used to give us. When I worked there, the local brattas that I worked with would always like give me the white dudes that were on vacation.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, yeah, like, hold on this one, you own guns, yeah, oh this holly boy he wants to get.
Speaker 1:You've given us a lot of instances where you were able to put the ego aside is why you mentioned earlier uh, if you want to be an artist and bang out tattoos you gotta put the ego aside, was there?
Speaker 3:ever times where you couldn't put that ego aside all the time, yeah, at the beginning of my career, oh, yeah, yeah, I wanted to change everything. I wanted to do my own version.
Speaker 3:I wanted to change the game I wanted to make tattoos that looked more like my paintings, because I feel like I've always been a painter who tattoos, not a tattooer who paints. Yeah, um, but yeah, you know, yeah, definitely, it took 20 years to get over it. It took 20 years plus to figure out. Like you know, hey, this isn't about you, this is about your clients. You know, like it's the same thing as like bringing back to tribal tattoos the coming, some of the oldest origins.
Speaker 3:It was a rite of passage, it was something that you endured with a person A lot of times in cultures. The tattooer and the tattooee would fast for days, they would not leave a hut, they would sit there and meditate and think about the process that was about to happen. Now it's like hey, man, I got a hundred bucks, I want to party, I want to look cool, I want to cool the gym tomorrow. You know it's a totally different thing. But if you go back and you want to honor those older kind of reasons for getting tattooed, you know yeah, you start thinking about it in a different light, in a more serious light.
Speaker 3:You know and you learn to put your ego aside because it's not about you it's about their rite of passage, it's about their coming into manhood or womanhood or whatever they're trying to memorialize, or maybe they just want a little fucking cool gym tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I love the way you said that, because if you are willing to, that's probably one of the best things. If you are willing to put the time in to get to know your artist and and to build that it does become, uh a lifelong relationship.
Speaker 3:I'm friends with a lot of my clients, still to this day. Yeah, absolutely yeah. Yeah, it's sacred. People don't understand that person is going to take that with you your bad day, your fight with your girl, your fight with your man, your daughter, whatever, none of that matters, dude.
Speaker 2:What matters?
Speaker 3:is execute the tattoo. But also, the execution of the tattoo is only half of the game. Like people get it twisted, they put on their headphones and they ignore them and they just do their thing, because that's how I get in the zone. It's like, bro, you're ignoring the person, you're ignoring their experience, you're ignoring their suffering. You're ignoring half of what the experience is. You know your job is to entertain them. You know I mean it's. They could have went to the beach today. Instead, they could have went to the concert, they could have went and saw the new Iron man or whatever.
Speaker 3:The hot new movie is Not to bring that up, but you know they could have did something else. Instead they chose you for their day's entertainment. You know partially.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 3:So you better have some jokes. You better ask them some questions. You know, act like you care. Act like you care about the people who are paying your bills. You know, at the end of the day, you see all these kids and they're tagging Bishop and Kingpin and Taxol and Bounty and Starbucks and all these companies. They want to sponsor them. You know who your sponsors are your fucking clients, the people that pay your actual bills. Bishop don't pay your bills. I don't care how sponsored you are by them, they ain't paying for shit. Dude, they might give you a wholesale discount. Yeah, trust me, I get wholesale. They don't give their sponsor artists wholesale. They pretend to give them wholesale.
Speaker 1:That's got to come from experience too.
Speaker 3:They, they pretend to give them wholesale. That's that. Guy comes from experience too. It's they put in the hoe, in wholesale. Yeah, they be hoeing these people out.
Speaker 2:You do your advertising for me.
Speaker 3:You do this, you do that. You use our products.
Speaker 2:Don't use anybody else's stuff being a supplier um with your supply company. I know you have artists that you work with. How do you help them? How to, as a supply company? How do you help a tattoo artist?
Speaker 3:so basically right now we're super small. We don't really do sponsorships. What we have are kind of like partnerships. So we ask that those people, kind of like you know, promote us in certain situations usually conventions. For that we give them free, we give them in caps, we give them all the basic stuff they need to tattoo with at that show. We send them a box. All you got to do is throw your box in your suitcase. You're ready to go, you got your, all your disposables, all your prevention, you know all that stuff. All you really need are your gloves, ink and your needles and your machines, or mushing if you're a dildo user.
Speaker 2:So uh, right, yeah, so I do have a few profile questions.
Speaker 1:I do have a few profile questions.
Speaker 2:I do have a few profile questions that I'm going to do with all the tattoo artists and owners. So coils or wand.
Speaker 3:I mean both. A warrior understands all weapons of war. An artist understands all the tools of art. Now, does that mean that you should or shouldn't? I mean it's personal preference, I mean whatever gets the job done. At the end of the day, the quality of the tattoo is what matters. Now, if you want to take it deeper, like I do, and you want to support tattooing, then you want to buy stuff made by tattooers. Right Too short said. Spend your money in the ghetto.
Speaker 2:Right, keep your money in the ghetto. That's how the ghetto grows up.
Speaker 3:That's how you become, that's how you move on. You know you don't move on by giving McDonald's your money. You know you go to the local burger joint the guy who's struggling and you spend your money there. So you know, when you buy all these you know Chinese things you're supporting China. You know I, I got nothing against the Chinese people, the Chinese government, I could do without. I don't agree with how they run their things and unfortunately over there they're intrinsically linked. There's no separating the two, as much as you want to say hey, my money is not going to support communism, it absolutely is. It's supporting all the things they do, the Uyghurs, all these, it's a whole.
Speaker 3:It's another howl hour podcast about all that crap. But you really are spending your money on that. You know you're spending your money on stuff that doesn't last. It ends up in a landfill. You know, if you, if you've got anything with a lithium battery in it, you're supporting, uh, people in the congo being slave labored for pennies on the dollar by china. It's terrible. It's horrible when you look at it. You know, when you really dig deep, you won't like what you find. No, that's right. You know, when you look at a coil machine made by a tattooer. You know you might not like the tattooer, you know.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day.
Speaker 3:That's as bad as it can be. Well, I don't like him, I don't like his politics. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:Cartridge or on bar.
Speaker 3:Both, I mean. Once again, you should be familiar with all the tools you should. You should be familiar with all, all the tools numbing cream or no numbing cream?
Speaker 3:I mean, there's a time and a place for it. Um, you know, if you're getting your first tattoo on your bicep, get the fuck out of here, absolutely not. You know, if you're a collector and you're covered and your butt cheeks are coming up and they're just too sensitive and you can't sit still, or the back of your knee, or you know, your stomach, or, like your inner crotch area on your pay, or something you're trying to fit you know, then, sure, why not? I don't think it's terrible. I mean, I get. People are totally against it. You should experience it, no matter what. You know I've never used it. Will I ever?
Speaker 2:I don't know I don't think so.
Speaker 3:I think I'm gonna try and tough it out.
Speaker 2:I always call you and I'm like hey, man, how's your shop doing? I I temperature check is what I call it. I try and call around other shops and see how everybody's doing, to see what the industry is doing, to try and tell where it's going to go, what's going, how it's going to shift. I call upon my friends me and Spike talk often when is the industry at in your mindset, right?
Speaker 3:now for today, and where do you think that it's headed? I think the future is kind of uncertain to a certain extent. The extreme popularity can't last forever. Uh like anything, everything goes up. What goes up must come down what goes down must go up at some point in time. I mean, it's the yin yang thing. There's a lot of taoism and all these other principles. You can apply to things when you look at life long term, when you play the long game.
Speaker 3:But I think the extreme popularity of it isn't done yet, but I think we're close to the precipice. I think we're about to have a recession of tattooing popularity Maybe not necessarily financially which we kind of are in one right now. I've been through a couple before. I went through 9-11 and I tattooed through the 08 housing crisis as well, One of which was pretty bad. The other one, yeah I was lucky enough to be in a place where it didn't hit the economy didn't change there the economy actually got better because of the war.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, in 08 I was by a barracks and there was just kids coming and going. Uh, right now it's tough. I mean everybody's getting gimmicky. I mean I saw tommy montoya talking about it on the story today, about how everybody lost sight of what the the reason for the season. You know. Uh, you know we joked around in his next post about free menudo for every tattoo we're kind of there you know, we're kind of in a point where kids are freaking out, old-timers are freaking out, everybody's freaking out.
Speaker 3:You know like uh, we've never had more tattooers. And I mean, I know the statistics and I've seen the thing where they say the demand still isn't being met. I mean, we're here, we're open seven days a week because we're here, like, come get a tattoo. There's no lack of tattooers trying to tattoo right now, so I'm not sure I agree with that. Maybe we don't meet the demand of the super trendy client who wants, like, the trendiest, newest thing. We don't do magic ink and shit. You know we don't fuck with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Blonde and dark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we put real tattoo ink in people and why don't you do tiny tattoos in these types of we do?
Speaker 3:I don't yeah. We got artists here that do it yeah.
Speaker 2:And the reason that people hate on these tattoos and why it's taboo within the culture is because they don't heal well. If done right they do and it's still a risky yeah, Ben Gurion's stuff looks great, it's like a finger.
Speaker 3:He does a little Jesus portrait there's still like there's still like maybe a little bit, yeah, but you can still tell it's Jesus. It'll look like a blob.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and his work is fire, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean the top, the top, top, top. It's like Nico. Not everybody does realism well, but Nico to it. You know, I mean in 20 years a sunburned it out and you know his area.
Speaker 1:Will it look good? Probably not, but that's on the client as much as it is on the artist at that point but once again, in my opinion you shouldn't even get that anyways.
Speaker 3:Like, why are you doing that? Like, get a poster, get a, get a painting, make him paint that shit, he can paint it. He can paint it just as nice, and you know what you can give the painting to your kid, it'll be worth something.
Speaker 2:I did have a question. You know I've watched you for years with this journey. You watch me for years with this journey. At what point do you feel like you've solidified yourself within the game? And what does that look like as for a tattooer? Because for me, like it just seems like we just work until we can't work anymore. You know what I mean? Like that's kind of it. Yeah, like so, at what point do we make it and this is a question for my, you know, for me in my career, you know, at what point do you consider somebody has made it within this industry?
Speaker 3:it depends on what your definition of made it is made it like. You have a total respect from your peers and everywhere you go, people love you and when you post something on instagram, people from europe are liking it and all these like who's, who, tattooers like it. You know, that's some people's version of making it. Oh, I got 20 000 followers and everybody loves me. Um, is it love from your clients? Uh, is it being able to be good enough and busy enough and charge enough so that you can spend more time with your family because you don't have to work as hard? Is it having a fuck ton of money in the bank? You know, like oliver peck, fuck off money style, where you can kind of just do whatever you want to do? Like everybody's version of success and making it is different.
Speaker 3:I think you have to define your own. Uh, it depends on where you want to put all your eggs. Do you want to put all your eggs in the basket of, like, my friends and my family and time and home? Do you want to put all your eggs in like being famous, blowing up, getting all the props from your constituents? Is it a little bit of all of those things? You know it's, you define your own version of success. I think you've made it once you've put a decade and two decades in, you're kind of you're in. You're a tattooer. You can put on a good tattoo by then. You should know how to treat a client. You know, you've kind of made it from there. You're free to control your own destiny. You're not stuck at the whims of walk-ins necessarily so much like you know the chain's going to come off, uh at 10 years.
Speaker 3:They come off a little bit more at 20 and I think you're truly like you it. They call it escape velocity. You can't be canceled. Air quotes at 30 years I think at 30 years is really the Japanese. Look at 30 years for an apprenticeship. You're fully out of your apprenticeship at 30 years.
Speaker 2:So you study under.
Speaker 3:Horiyoshi 3.
Speaker 2:And the first 10 years you copy him verbatim.
Speaker 3:You're supposed to just make your shit try to look like his as much as possible. The next 10 years you spend kind of free to change the backgrounds. Or maybe you do your claws and scales a little differently, maybe you do the beards and the horns a little differently and you start kind of developing your own thing. And you do that for 10 years. And then, once you do that, then you're free for the next 10 years to like really get, get past all that, do really do your own thing and really create. And then when you hit that 10 year mark at 30 you know then you're at, you're at, you're done, you're, you've made it, you know there's a lot of different versions of making it, though I think we all kind of define our own, you know success is what you make it.
Speaker 3:Happiness is what you make it. Some people are happy with their nose to the grindstone all day. You know they can't sit still. They just want to be drawing tat and they want to be in the shop all day some people don't want to be at the shop at all. They fucking hate it. They'd rather work four hours a day and say books closed and do one tat a day and you're kind of accepting of all forms of life and tattooing which?
Speaker 2:Which forms are you not acceptable of?
Speaker 3:Just the ones where you don't give a shit about it. You know the selfish kids, the kids that are in it just for themselves, just for the props, just for the money, just for the cool guy they go to the bar. Yeah, I tattoo. It's like dude. You can tell it's written across your fucking forehead and we hate that shit.
Speaker 2:I don't like that.
Speaker 3:I just I think you're, it's like Too Short used to say he always called the game of spit and lyrics. He always compared it to a hoe on the street. You know, here, take my bitch. He used to sing. You know, like tattooing, I kind of treat the same way, like she's a good, she's a great lady. She'll treat you real well. You gotta treat her well too, though. It's a two way street. You can't just take, take, take.
Speaker 3:You've got to give something back you know, that's what the old-timers teach you if you want to keep this thing really moving forward, you got to give something back to tattooing. You can't just take and that's anything, you know. You try to plant a garden. You can't just take, take, take. You got to go in there. You got a water, you got a weed, you got to nurture, you got to make sure things are growing right. You know life is that way. You know it's not just tattooing. I mean, you can apply this to anything you're doing. You can be a surfer, a skater, you can be a person who works a nine to five. You get what you give. You know, like, if you want to, you want to make things happen, you have to nurture those things. You have to be a constant gardener. You have to put something into it. You can't just be a taker. You know people who try to take, take, take, take, take end up at freaking starbucks outside going hey man, you got any spare change?
Speaker 3:because they don't give nothing back to society sometimes that's you know not their fault. They're mentally ill or disabled or you know any number of reasons but the ones that are selfish and just want to fucking do drugs all day and not do anything just not take care of their kids?
Speaker 2:their family, their community yeah, they're just being selfish. You know, speaking of from a society aspect too, I see that you've kind of always taken a part in, in injecting yourself in the community that you're working within. I remember when you were tattooing at empire redlands you were on the art association association over there. I know you're dealing with a lot of community-based businesses out here in Temecula as well as far as doing fundraisers and stuff like that. Is that more from the heart or is that marketing? Why that route?
Speaker 3:Okay. So as someone who grew up with nothing dirt poor welfare I had a job at 10, first job, first taxpaying job at 10 years old. I just feel like once you get to a point where you have I mean I have abundance in my life. Let's be honest. I mean, you know I'm in debt and this and that and the other from a financial standpoint, but from a life standpoint I have abundance. I have lots of things to give.
Speaker 3:You know, if you just hoard water, it goes stale. If you keep it from flowing, it's of no use to anyone. It's much like knowledge. If you just hoard it and you don't give it to anyone, what good is it? Is it valuable? It's not valuable unless you give it, unless you let it flow. So it's really a firm. You give it unless you let it flow. So, um, it's really a from a heart to think. You know what like you'd be surprised how awesome it feels to give someone something to to be. You know, I've been on the receiving end of that. I've had to take charity before. You know when we were, you know when I was super young, growing up, we were a charity case, you know, and I understood what it was for those people to give something to us in our time of need and I feel, like now that I have the opportunity, the shoe's on the other foot.
Speaker 3:I think you know if you want something from a community, you need to be a benefit to that community A hundred percent. You know you get what you give, it's just like tattooing. If you give the time and the effort and the respect respect it deserves, you will get something out of it. Community is much the same man if you just keep bugging the community. Hey guys, come in, come in.
Speaker 3:We're slow hey, give me your money give us your money, give us your money at a certain point in time, you know people are going to burn out. They're going to think, oh, these people are just greedy, what do they do for us? You know you need to be a benefit to your community. It's important that. That's how life works, that's how communities work, that's how the world works, that's humanity has always relied on us being kind to each other. Now, if it's kind to each other for whatever reasons I mean, I'm not going to get into all that Obviously, people are kind only to certain people, for certain reasons or whatever. You know everybody's got their their flags in their yard and their their things to back. But at the end of the day, none of that, really matters.
Speaker 3:You know, like what matters is what you do for people. You know the Romans are right you die twice. You die when you physically die and you die when someone stops talking about you. If you do enough shit, you can be talked about for a long, long time. You know, honestly, it's easier to kill a million people when you get talked about forever than it is to help a million people and get talked about forever.
Speaker 3:If it bleeds, it leads right. That's the news. But you know, I feel like from a karmic standpoint it's better to just be good. You know, if you can, why not give? You know, if you got an abundance of peaches on your tree, keeping them all to yourself, what good does that do? You can only eat so goddamn many peaches.
Speaker 2:Even if you preserve them, you can only eat so much shit before it goes bad. Why don't you share? If you have the, if you have a opportunity to impact and influence the community around you, you definitely should. As tattooers, we do charge and it is. You know this is not something that's cheap and you know that that is a form of us giving back is is, you know, inserting ourselves into the community and offering things where you guys can come down and have these experiences. That's where he's talking about experience, rather over over the, the design of the thing you know he's offering something other than a tattoo you can bring a whole.
Speaker 3:In addition, yeah, in addition to which?
Speaker 2:lasts forever.
Speaker 3:You know, name something that can do that, you know look at what tattooers have done you, you know I mean. Almost every shop does a toy drive now.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine if all the tattoo shops didn't do that. Right.
Speaker 3:You know, and look, it started with one or two shops doing it, you know, and now, look, everybody does it. You know, there's that suicide prevention one that everybody kind of jumps in on. Now there's a sex trafficking one that that's real popular you know there's a lot of causes tattooers get behind and we we have a huge platform.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've always explained to tattooers they don't really understand it necessarily anymore because they're not being trained by people who actually have any real pedigree. But at the end of the day, we're the kings of the losers. As a dropout kid, you don't need a high school diploma, you don't need shit. Like how many things can you do in that? Like if that's your life? If you're kind of like I don't like to wake up early, I swear a lot, I don't have a high school education. How can you be successful in America? You can be a comedian. You can be an actor. You can be an actor, you know. You can be a sports star, I mean, granted, you should be more like Kobe, the slacker dude who's just talented and kind of gets by on talent, but I mean you know there's a realm there. You can be a rock star, musician, rapper, you know.
Speaker 2:Let me cut you off real quick. Let me cut you off real quick, since you're talking about bringing people on and what it is that you could be. Um, what about?
Speaker 3:your apprentices.
Speaker 2:You feel me and I say you know that sounds horrible. I say apprentices because you know everybody's like well, you got two. No, he had two or two different times. Clarify that for the assholes out there um, I don't care, fuck them right. Assholes always stink it's a it's a big deal to bring somebody on right. Um, what has it changed in you by apprenticing people? What does it do for the shop owner?
Speaker 3:okay, let me get back to that in just a second hold. That thought um so yeah, you know, I mean no matter what realm you take as kind of a dropout. You can be a biker gang dude. You know. There's a lot of ways to make it in the world.
Speaker 3:You know as a dropout kind of just you know outside of normal society, not nine to five, not suit and tie, not going to church on sundays, no matter what church it is or whatever. Um, but the coolest one all of them is tattooing, and here's why you might be mick jagger, but when you want to look cool, guess whose chair you got to sit in mine. Guess what? You got to shut up and you got to pay me. Right, you know like, uh, you're some social media jake paul, guess what? Shut up, pay me. Like, sit in my chair, do what I tell you and pay me. You know, that's why we're the coolest of all the all, the all those groups of slackers drops out drop cultural influence yeah, oh, you might be johnny dev, but guess what?
Speaker 3:you still got to pay me. That's right, you know, at the end of the day, uh, you know. So that, why to me? Why it's so important that that you know we give? A shit about what we do, because it is an important role that we play.
Speaker 3:You know like it's kind of the coolest thing, like we are the rock stars to rock stars. You know there's a story of Johnny Depp and Jonathan Shaw walking down, uh, hollywood Boulevard and somebody comes over oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And Johnny Depp kind of like started shying away, like I don't want to talk to this dude.
Speaker 2:And they came over and they were like oh, my God, you're Jonathan Shaw Dude.
Speaker 3:I've seen your tattoos. You're fucking awesome. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and wanted to talk. It's a funny ass story. I've actually heard it personally from the man's mouth himself.
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 3:You know, and that's what tattooing can be. That's how powerful and cool tattooing really can be. You know, if it was ancient times and we were in any other culture, there would be kings and rulers, and then there's witch doctors and tattooers. We're kind of like the next down in the rung of hierarchy. That's how popular we would be. I had a kaputa in Hawaii. Tell me about that. So there was kahunas and kaputas and they had two different kind of roles. Kaputa is the medicine man. They do the hexes, they do the remove hexes, they do the. Oh, you don't feel good here, drink this, blah, blah, blah. And he remove hexes, they do the. Oh, you don't feel good here, drink this, blah, blah, blah. And he explained to me that out of their society there's a lot of rules. If you step on the shadow of an elite which is a ruler, you could be put to death for that. You could be seen as trying to steal their soul or something to that effect yeah, don't quote me on that.
Speaker 3:I'm only as versed as a white person. How late could be in? The kind he explained to he explained to me that, like him and and a tattooer, the only two people that could spill the blood of a King and live everyone else would be murdered.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know when you think about that and you really think about that and you apply that to yourself now as a tattooer, that should hit hard. That should hit home. Oh yeah, onto the apprentice thing. It changes a lot. I mean, to teach someone anything, you learn more. You learn while teaching, because now you have to figure out what you learn and how you do it. Obviously, there's multiple ways to do it, so you can't teach all the ways. You can only teach your way, because that's the way you know, right. So you have to understand that. Hey, you're going to need to search to other people as well to get some information, because there's more than one way to skin a cat. There's a lot of ways to tattoo. Some people hang their needles out super far, some people don't. Blah, blah, blah. No need to get into it now because this isn't an apprenticeship, uh. But uh, you learn a lot, you, you, you have to rethink things you have to figure out.
Speaker 3:It's easy to do it. It's hard to explain how and why to do it. That's what you learn. You learn how to put that into words and into action, not only for yourself, but for someone else. Um, you also have to learn how people learn. Are they visual learners? Do they learn best by reading? Do they learn a little bit of both? Do you have to be stern with them? Do you have to threaten them to?
Speaker 3:get them motivated, or maybe you just got to gently handle them with kid gloves and be like hey, you know. So you have to figure out A how to be a good educator, how to discern the information you have down into a format that's palatable, and you also have to learn how to teach different people, because different people learn differently. It's the mistake that school has made the entire time is they try to just here's the hammer, here's the nail, it's pretty hard huh, it's the hardest thing you'll ever do as a person.
Speaker 3:Pretty fucking hard. Yeah, as they're trying to. Well, because then you know their legacy and your legacy are intertwined, you know, I mean, it's like having a child, it's the same as having. They're cool then. Good, good on you. Oh, you did good. If they're a piece of shit, oh man, they must be a bad dad or a bad mom yeah yeah, exactly, you know, um, and tattooing does keep a ledger.
Speaker 3:You know the people who matter, the people who who really give a shit. You know they pay attention to these kind of things. They may not say nothing they may lay back in the cut. Watch you just fuck up and teach 20 people and you know whore out tattooing and you know but, but, but but people like me you know, we pay attention, we watch, we see we see what your apprentices are doing.
Speaker 3:We see the fucking. Two years later they've got a private studio and they're doing $20 tattoos all week and $60 an hour. And you know, we see all that shit. You know, I'm just not trying to be part of that. It took me 22 years before I even said yes to anybody. The first person I took on is a lady named suzy. She was already tattooing. I mean, she was already like pretty damn good. I was blown away at the stuff she was able to do with zero help, zero training just what you can see on youtube and an amazon tattoo machines. She had all the talent, uh. And the other person I've decided to take on is a kid named tanner and he was already a tattooer, he just wasn't doing it.
Speaker 2:You know I mean you, you know that the attitude, the background, yeah, the drive the ambition you know, he had a young, fresh guy, yeah, he had all of it.
Speaker 3:He just wasn't actually tattooing every day yet he was already there I mean I, I saw a mirror. When I saw him I was like, oh, that's me yeah, he be talking that shit too, you know like that was me.
Speaker 3:I was that kid. I just needed somebody to give me the opportunity, hold my hand and teach me, you know. So yeah, and I feel like we're at a point now where all the people who are worth a shit as a tattooer don't want to work for somebody. You know, everybody wants to be the boss now, everybody, you know. Uh, everybody wants to be the boss. Now, everybody's fucking rick ross on the boss. Like you know, nobody dudes with 20 years don't want to work for nobody and when they do, they shit and bitch and complain and they moan and they don't want to do pinterest tattoos. And I feel like a lot of owners have kind of given up on trying to find good tattooers and assemble a good team, and I agree decided to make a good team.
Speaker 3:Find people who want to do it. Find them. Teach them the right reasons. Like my, apprentices know how to make needles. They made needles. They know how to make clip cords. They know how to put machines together from scratch. I mean, they don't know how to cut the frames, but I mean, how far do we really want to go? I eventually teach them that if they want to learn, we can sit down with a hacksaw and a freaking drill press and you know we can. We can make this happen. You know they're going to learn how to make ink. They're going to learn everything.
Speaker 2:They're going to learn how to tattoo off an acetate.
Speaker 3:They're going to learn how to carve an acetate, you know. They're going to know who cliff raven was. They're going to know who greg irons was. They're going to know who ed hardy is, and not just because of the clothing and the fucking this and that. They know who sailor jerry is, and not just because he makes rum air quotes. Uh, you know, uh, it's a big deal to teach someone. It's super important, it, it? It takes away a lot of your time to be a tattooer which I don't think people understand man yeah, my goodness it's adding a whole nother job into your already non-existent of time.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm lucky, I I have a wife.
Speaker 3:That that is. I mean. None of this happens without her. You know, I mean I, I can. I get all the accolades. Everybody in tattooing is like oh, spike and captain and working class man, none of it happens without my wife.
Speaker 3:You know that that's our ace of the whole as businesses is. I have a partner in it who is extremely knowledgeable in a lot of things that most tattooers aren't. You know, some tattooers might have the ability but they don't have the time because you've got to be a tattooer full time. You know, I get to have her help with putting together events, help her help with all the business side of things making sure we're legal, legit T's are crossed, i's are dotted, you know. Uh, she keeps me in line, I'm the balloon, she's the string. You know, she kind of keeps me in check and holds me accountable. Uh, you know, and I don't think a lot of shops have that, a lot of owners don't have that. You know it's a huge advantage to have.
Speaker 3:I enjoy her and she doesn't get enough credit for the hard work she does behind the scenes. You know she's kind of the wizard of Oz. Don't look behind the curtain, you know. I mean I wish people would, because they'd see how hard she works. In addition, you know I can't take credit for any of this outright because I didn't do any of it. I can take credit for my tattoos, sure, because I do them. You know she helps. I got questions. I show her. Hey, what do you think? You know, because she looks at it from a client's perspective.
Speaker 3:You know I don't always see that a lot of tattooers don't always see that it's hard, you get, you get caught up and you, just you get caught doing. You you know I just want to make it tratty and this and that you know she'll be like why'd you? Do the hair like that. Oh crap, I don't know. You know women look at things that way, so you know it's nice to have her around. She's definitely our ace in the hole.
Speaker 2:Nothing happens without her, so yeah, shout out to Vandy, I still want that interview. I still want that interview.
Speaker 1:So we're gonna we're gonna round this up. We, uh, we appreciate you. Yeah, you taking, take the time out of your day. You're a busy man.
Speaker 3:We'll have to do a second one. Is that all right? I feel like there's a lot more to dig. Yeah, that's what I mean there's a lot more to dig.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I hate cutting you off right now, but I'm going to throw a couple quotes at you. Yeah, yeah, and just give a little bit of feedback, sure, and then we'll get some shout-outs from you. Uh, get your instagram. So we, uh, we put that on the on the show, yep, and then, uh, so. So here's our, here's our first quote, because I saw a van gogh book sitting there. Oh yeah, if you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced yeah, um, not too many people know, a few people do, but I'm in the process of writing a book of poetry.
Speaker 3:It's something I've always wanted to do is publish a book. Uh, one of the things I put in there is there's nothing I can't do, only things I haven't put my mind to. That's one of my, one of my writings and I feel it's very true.
Speaker 3:I feel like people limit themselves, uh too often, oh, I can't, I can't, I can't. You know, like the joke, be a Mexican, yeah, be an American, you know. Like, be a can-do person, man, you can do anything. I mean, obviously you can't be Neo and you can't just like go wow, fly off into the fucking sky, but you can figure out how to make a jet pack. You know motherfuckers have to make a jet pack. You know my voters have. Oh yeah, there's nothing you can't do, only things you haven't put your mind in your real, true, honest effort to. And I mean that doesn't mean you're going to succeed. But once again, what's your definition of success?
Speaker 1:you have to find that as well I feel like that segues. We brought up some italian uh artists, uh leonardo da vinci, yeah uh, painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, picture's worth a thousand words, isn't it?
Speaker 1:So they say Any last minute shout outs oh.
Speaker 3:I just shout out to the crew here at Captain Tattoo Obviously we couldn't do it without them. It's not a me thing, it's a we thing. The wife, I mean all the, all the credit. None of this happens without her.
Speaker 2:I know she likes to you know, try to downplay it sometimes and upplay it at other times, but honestly without her nothing nothing good happens in my life.
Speaker 3:None of this happens. You know, it would not be the same business, uh, neither would the supply company without her. Uh, you know she's a, she's a great partner in life and in business. And, uh, I don't know, I mean just everyone that ever gave me a chance. You know, uh, shout out to to kevin for fucking saying, hey, I'll teach you how to tattoo, I'll teach you what I know. Shout out to slick. Rest in peace. Who? Who continued that? Uh, jamie mack, who took me on and and gave me a lot of motivation and quite a bit of knowledge, and and fire, uh, and, and everybody else. Jim took me in after that, warcott, everybody, everybody along my journey, that's just. You know, showed me something, helped me, opened a door for me. You know, I hope to pay that back, uh, to the next generation of people. You know, like it was given to me, it's my job now to turn around and give it to other people, help them, help them come up. You know, absolutely, again, we appreciate you.
Speaker 1:Spike, that's uh at. Spike more yes on instagram yep and at working class tattoo supply. And the shop page is at captain underscore tat t-a-t number two correct. Again, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3:Thank you, we'll have to do another one. Yes, sir, let's continue this. Thank you, spike bye. Thank you.
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