You need to get that
perspective from other people.
Yeah, and actually that’s also what’s
so beautiful about travelling. You get
a new perspective, you see people
doing things differently, and you can
apply those things to your own work.
You grow and learn. My brother is in
his first year of tattooing and I said to
him, 'If you give up on trying to make
a better rose tattoo, then you’re
failing. You can always make
something a little bit better or a little
bit different.' You have to keep
working at it. You mustn't think, 'Oh,
this is good enough' or, 'This is great.'
Things can always be better.
Tell us about your recent Open
Road Tattoo Tour.
Justin Weatherholtz, Frankie
Caraccioli, Brian Thurow and myself
had met through Kings Avenue
Tattoo. We’re good friends, and I was
asked if I wanted to go on this road
trip with them. I didn’t have a whole
lot of information about it! It just kept
on building and we ended up with an
RV and a whole heap of shops that
we were gonna visit. It was really
amazing, a really fun trip. Everyone
got along and was respectful of each
other. We tattooed a lot and visited a
lot of cities in a short amount of time.
It was great, we got to see old friends
and meet new ones. It’s a humbling
experience to see how many talented
people are out there and then work
with them also. We acquired more
people along the way, like Austin
Maples, Adam Warmerdam, Marc
Nava and Zac Scheinbaum.