Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 889 - Owen Paulls - From The Warped Tour Stage to The Tattoo Studio and Beyond

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 889 - Owen Paulls - From The Warped Tour Stage to The Tattoo Studio and Beyond · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  I had people starting hit me up saying, Hey, I got a tattoo
• 0:03
  booked, but I don't really like the design the artist has done.
• 0:05
  Can you do me a tattoo design? And so I'll be designing
• 0:08
  sleeves, I'll be designing other little things.
• 0:11
  And then they take it to their artists.
• 0:12
  But then after a few months, I was like, well, hello, I want to
• 0:15
  be the one to to tattoo this. Like if they're going to take a
• 0:18
  vision and then try and replicate it, why not just learn
• 0:22
  how to do the, the tattoo side of it?
• 0:24
  Bit naive at thinking it would be super easy, but here we are
• 0:27
  10 years later and and yeah, I'm able to to say that I do it for
• 0:32
  a living. So it really came from doing
• 0:34
  merch and doing band stuff, and then was kind of a natural
• 0:36
  progression as the band slowed down to make up the difference
• 0:39
  with tattooing. What's up
• 0:47
  everybodyitskefi@ghostcultmag.com Pumped up on a Monday.
• 0:52
  I am talking to tattoo artist and former rocker Owen Pauls.
• 0:56
  How are you doing, Sir? I'm good.
• 0:58
  How are you? I'm really great.
• 1:00
  I'm really excited to chat with you.
• 1:02
  Shout out to Bob Bradley for putting us together.
• 1:04
  He's one of my favorite people to work with in publicity.
• 1:07
  So you're in great? Yeah, he's marvelous.
• 1:08
  You're in great hands. This is our first time meeting.
• 1:11
  I think some people will know you from your previous band life
• 1:14
  and toured the world and played with all the great pop punk
• 1:17
  bands and did Warp tour, I think a bunch of summers in a row and
• 1:20
  I might have seen you. It's all kind of a becoming a
• 1:23
  blur now. Anything older than.
• 1:26
  Oh, I'm, I'm devastated, man. No, no, we we're on one of the
• 1:30
  smaller stages, so don't even worry about it.
• 1:32
  But I, but I made it a point like, you know, warped towards
• 1:34
  such a mish mosh of stages and bands that I really tried to
• 1:38
  like as a journalist. I tried to hit everybody like
• 1:41
  everything that I could. If I wasn't interviewing
• 1:43
  someone, I was in front of the stage.
• 1:45
  So I did clock a lot of bands. I used to have a list.
• 1:49
  I used to have a little notepad and a pen doing my almost famous
• 1:53
  Lester Bangs thing and taking notes and, you know, and then
• 1:57
  here we are like, you know, years and years later.
• 2:00
  Warped. His return when you were young
• 2:01
  is next weekend. So there's a lot of stuff that I
• 2:04
  think I can pick your brain about.
• 2:05
  But first and foremost, obviously you're from the UK.
• 2:08
  You live in the US in I think the Seattle area.
• 2:11
  And tell us how you got how did you get here?
• 2:14
  You started in music. How did you get interested in
• 2:16
  tattooing and art and and when did it really become, you know,
• 2:20
  a new career for? You I was doing a lot of because
• 2:23
  we were like a DIY punk band, you know, like that whole gritty
• 2:28
  Rep where you come from, punk side of stuff from back in the
• 2:31
  day. So all of our album artwork, our
• 2:34
  T-shirts, our patches that were still like, remember when people
• 2:37
  were selling patches like patch sheets and stuff?
• 2:39
  So all of those designs will come from either from me or like
• 2:43
  me and the bassist were sat there doing it all together.
• 2:45
  And so it gave me a little bit of an edge in graphic design
• 2:49
  before I even started. And then from there we were
• 2:52
  ripping off like a lot of American traditional like tattoo
• 2:56
  designs anyway, because that was super popular at the time.
• 2:59
  So we were like, well, cool. Or like a dagger and a rose on a
• 3:02
  T-shirt cool. We know this is going to be,
• 3:04
  this is going to look great. It's going to go with our band.
• 3:06
  So after designing a few little bits and bobs like that, I have
• 3:09
  people starting hit me up saying, Hey, I got a tattoo
• 3:12
  booked, but I don't really like the design.
• 3:14
  The artist is done. Can you do me a tattoo design?
• 3:16
  And so I'll be designing sleeves, I'll be designing other
• 3:19
  little things and then they take it to their artists.
• 3:22
  But then after a few months, I was like, well, hello, I want to
• 3:25
  be the one to to tattoo this. Like if they're going to take a
• 3:28
  vision and then try and replicate it, why not just learn
• 3:31
  how to do the, the tattoo side of it?
• 3:33
  Bit naive at thinking it would be super easy, but here we are
• 3:36
  10 years later and yeah, I'm able to to say that I do it for
• 3:41
  a living. So it really came from doing
• 3:43
  merch and doing band stuff, and then was kind of a natural
• 3:46
  progression as the band slowed down to make up the difference
• 3:49
  with tattooing. Right on, and the band is the
• 3:52
  exposed in case anyone wants to go back there.
• 3:55
  All the music's on Spotify. Go back about, yeah, like 10
• 3:58
  years. 10 years. Yeah, yeah.
• 4:00
  No, I jammed out a bunch of it today and I was like, yeah, this
• 4:03
  shit sounds great. And I would be, you know, I
• 4:05
  would be, I think punk in general, like because of the
• 4:09
  commercial of punk kind of doesn't get the same level of
• 4:12
  respect that used to have. It kind of maybe it's coming
• 4:14
  back around now because your legacy punk bands are still out
• 4:18
  there and doing stuff. But you know, like Scott always
• 4:20
  got shit on by other punks like hardcore punk hate ska, you
• 4:26
  know? But like, Scott was really one
• 4:27
  of the like the the founding pillars of punk rock and like
• 4:31
  like very important musical movement.
• 4:33
  Yeah, we had such a big Jamaican population move over to the UK
• 4:37
  in the 60s and the 70s and with that came so much like new
• 4:42
  musical expression for people. So it was only fair that that
• 4:46
  got involved in the the grassroots sort of side of stuff
• 4:49
  and the punk movement. And then everything got adopted.
• 4:51
  But we had umm, think we had big D and the kids table on the
• 4:54
  other day at work. So that that's like an old walk
• 4:57
  to a scar van. And I'm always playing, umm,
• 5:00
  Westbound train in there as well.
• 5:01
  I know that's a little bit all on the reggae side and I, but
• 5:03
  even still like that sort of style of and Catch 22 and all of
• 5:07
  those bands still live in my heart as like I grew up
• 5:11
  listening to all of those guys. So yeah, that's it.
• 5:13
  It will always mean something, especially to have that scar
• 5:15
  representation. Fantastic and Warped, of course,
• 5:18
  put a lot of those bands on the map.
• 5:19
  And then there was kind of a new American scar and they kind of,
• 5:22
  you know, transmogrified to a bunch of things.
• 5:25
  And then, you know, Felde from Goldfinger produced like 100 sky
• 5:29
  bands that wanted to sound like the Goldfinger records that
• 5:33
  sounded pristine that he worked on.
• 5:34
  And, you know, so much cool shit to talk about.
• 5:37
  But like, yeah, you live the life.
• 5:38
  You toured the world. I'm super of the records we cut
• 5:42
  as well. Like even though they are a
• 5:44
  little dated now, I still stand by it.
• 5:46
  It's like I could pop that on as a fan of just the music and and
• 5:50
  be happy listening to that last record we did.
• 5:52
  Right on, I know tattooing is so intensive as a career.
• 5:56
  Do you still get on the drums at all or no?
• 5:58
  Oh yeah, I got, I got kit 2 kits set up at my house right now.
• 6:01
  So I, I try and do maybe like 1 audition every other month so
• 6:06
  that I have time to, to learn like a whole band set or
• 6:09
  whatever. And I'm still looking for a band
• 6:12
  that clicks the same way as the exposed used to click because
• 6:15
  we're all off doing our own things now.
• 6:17
  Like the bassist, singer lives in Melbourne, has a really
• 6:20
  successful shoe company, guitarist is running like umm,
• 6:24
  an animal training sanctuary with him and his wife and also
• 6:28
  does like his own sort of Chuck Reagan's sounding acousticy
• 6:32
  stuff. My other guitarist still lives
• 6:34
  in the UK. So yeah, it would be impossible
• 6:36
  for us to get back together. But in terms of finding new
• 6:39
  groups, it's definitely like on my radar.
• 6:41
  I'm just looking for that sort of friendship level that we all
• 6:45
  had back then in a new project before I sign on.
• 6:48
  Well, as I say ad nauseam on this channel, to the point where
• 6:51
  my fans are probably gonna start revolting, I love to say it's
• 6:54
  the music business. Not the music friendship, but
• 6:56
  the friendship's important. People you want to make music
• 6:59
  with, people you can relate to, people who have the same goals.
• 7:02
  It's so hard to get people on the same page.
• 7:04
  But maybe we missed Our Calling. We should have did a Like Warp
• 7:08
  tour. Where are they now?
• 7:09
  And track down all your bandmates and talk about animal
• 7:11
  sanctuaries and shoe companies. I mean, you know what, I'm sure
• 7:14
  they'd be stoked to come on and, and have a little chit chat.
• 7:17
  I'll get them all around the house one day and we'll, we'll
• 7:19
  call you up and we'll, we'll do that.
• 7:21
  But. We'll do a Brady Bunch screen
• 7:23
  and like, yeah, recap. We'll recap the history.
• 7:27
  But you know, you did it. You did it hard.
• 7:29
  I love that press photo of you. Such a young guy in that photo,
• 7:33
  did you? Did you also do backing vocals?
• 7:35
  I saw a microphone. In front, yeah, we did.
• 7:36
  We did a little bit because as a as a four piece on a stage that
• 7:40
  size, it's like it's almost impossible to try and fill it
• 7:44
  all out with punk music and no like backings tracks or
• 7:48
  keyboards or like an extra guitarist or whatever.
• 7:50
  So we all tried to get involved as much as we could, but I
• 7:53
  wouldn't say they were backing vocals as much as like just
• 7:57
  little bits of shouting, you know?
• 8:00
  Nobody's got to do the whoa whoa woes, man every.
• 8:02
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The whoa is the easiest bit.
• 8:05
  Give me vocals when I'm not playing and I'm OK.
• 8:08
  That's it. Yeah, that's it.
• 8:09
  Or like, it is dramatic point, you know, So, oh, go ahead.
• 8:14
  I was just going to say, just to circle back quickly to the music
• 8:17
  business side of stuff like like you were saying, I do think that
• 8:21
  that's more of a, an American centric way of running your band
• 8:25
  for sure. Because every European band that
• 8:28
  I've been part of has been very like close knit and a lot of
• 8:32
  American bands that I've come across or played with or even
• 8:35
  just toured with in general, they might have the same members
• 8:39
  for a couple of years and then they switch one person out and
• 8:42
  they switch out another person or go a different direction or
• 8:44
  whatever. So I really do see the the
• 8:47
  business side of stuff being taken a lot more seriously here
• 8:51
  in America than it is in Europe. And maybe Europeans just get
• 8:54
  lucky now and again that somebody manages to find their
• 8:57
  sound and then promotes it over here.
• 8:59
  But it's a tough one. Yeah, I'm not surprised.
• 9:01
  And also we just might be, you know, we're, you know, such a
• 9:06
  huge country and it's so, you know, some people are like,
• 9:08
  well, this isn't working. Let's get another guy, you know,
• 9:10
  or a gal or them. Yeah.
• 9:12
  But so like, it's always so hard to do, so hard to keep people
• 9:14
  together. But I did want to jump back and
• 9:17
  talk a little bit more about the that tattoo industry and your
• 9:21
  career. So, you know, graphic design
• 9:24
  and, and freehand are some they're, they're more aligned
• 9:28
  now, you know, So were you a sketcher and a drawer and a
• 9:31
  painter, but or did you just sort of adopt it and learn how
• 9:34
  to do it? I have gone the sort of long way
• 9:36
  around doing all of that stuff. So for years and years and
• 9:39
  years, I was happy just kind of copying a photo onto the skin,
• 9:43
  try my best to replicate that photo.
• 9:45
  But over the years of tattooing and seeing how stuff comes back
• 9:48
  healed and seeing what sort of identity you want to have behind
• 9:52
  your work, you realize that copying the photo exactly the
• 9:56
  same as the screen or exactly the same as the print out isn't
• 9:59
  always the most professional choice.
• 10:01
  So it's almost better to have an art knowledge behind you to be
• 10:04
  able to dictate how that image actually gets to the tattoo
• 10:09
  stage instead of just being a printer.
• 10:12
  So what I did when I started in LA in 2018, I think everyone
• 10:19
  around me was an amazing oil painter and everybody was like
• 10:22
  already crushing it with their sketching and they're painting
• 10:25
  outside of tattooing and just being a great like artist.
• 10:28
  And that's when I really decided to knuckle down and actually
• 10:31
  teach myself, OK, well, let's become a tattoo artist rather
• 10:35
  than just a tattoo were. And then I think that super
• 10:37
  helped me not only like gain my own style, but realize how far
• 10:43
  behind I was in the actual sort of art knowledge side of things
• 10:48
  and then make up the difference. Like I was kind of blessed for
• 10:50
  Covic. Like, obviously no one was
• 10:52
  thankful for Covic happening, but though that year of, of
• 10:56
  pretty much staying indoors and just getting to work on
• 10:59
  paintings and level up my my technical skills in the art
• 11:02
  world, like that's so beneficial for me.
• 11:04
  That really gave me a nice springboard into it.
• 11:06
  Yeah, of course. Yeah, the the pandemic was at
• 11:09
  least good for introverts and people working on their craft
• 11:12
  because we had times. Yeah, without an absolutely
• 11:16
  mental, like totally. Surely, and you know, for the
• 11:19
  people who felt like, oh, I can't do anything at this time
• 11:22
  of the world because I don't know what's going to happen,
• 11:24
  That anxiety, I get it. I totally get it.
• 11:27
  A lot of people told me like I couldn't do any work.
• 11:30
  Not only couldn't I work, I couldn't be creative because the
• 11:33
  uncertain was like that, but. Yes.
• 11:35
  You don't know when your paycheck is coming?
• 11:37
  Then it's super, super hard to like, sit down and sit behind an
• 11:41
  easel or sit behind a computer and write something not ever
• 11:45
  knowing if anyone's even going to enjoy that later.
• 11:47
  Right on. My grandparents lived through
• 11:49
  two or three of those, my parents through one.
• 11:51
  I've had one. I suspect there will be another,
• 11:53
  at least in my lifetime. So brace yourselves, fuckers.
• 11:56
  It's all smooth sailing from now, like everyone's just gonna
• 11:59
  have a happy content life and everyone's gonna get along and
• 12:02
  there's gonna be the end of all wars.
• 12:03
  And we're all gonna listen to punk rock and get tattoos.
• 12:06
  What else? Yeah.
• 12:08
  You know, there are some great artists in the world that do
• 12:10
  color, and a lot of my friends are tatted up, including my
• 12:14
  partner. And there's like wonderful
• 12:17
  visual colorists in the world that do color work.
• 12:20
  But I do think that there's a little bit of a sort of a old
• 12:23
  school original intent to black and white work, especially line
• 12:27
  work, that there's just something pure and beautiful
• 12:30
  about it on anybody's skin that works, whereas certain colors
• 12:34
  won't work on everybody. Just everybody's different
• 12:38
  textures and tones and and issues.
• 12:41
  I have mine. I'm mostly pink and not as white
• 12:45
  as I see. And you know, but I love black
• 12:48
  and white line work. And you know, obviously you've
• 12:51
  built like a real following. Is there something about it that
• 12:54
  like spoke to you? Obviously everybody kind of
• 12:57
  apprentices and does whatever, but like obviously this is the
• 13:00
  direction you've been in for a long time.
• 13:02
  I, I wanted to do color at first, but for years and years
• 13:05
  and years, I was like, well, if I just get good enough at one
• 13:08
  thing, then I can have that in my bank and Start learning how
• 13:13
  to apply it into the color world instead.
• 13:15
  But the two are very, very different techniques and they
• 13:19
  also require different equipment to, to be able to, to do it
• 13:22
  properly. So color tattooing is a lot more
• 13:25
  deliberate and a lot more get in, get out, don't irritate the
• 13:29
  skin too much and just throw it all together.
• 13:32
  So it's the style of painting that it's like is called Ala
• 13:35
  prima. So it's basically just every The
• 13:37
  thing is where you just throw it all together.
• 13:39
  There's no building, there's no layering.
• 13:41
  It's just, it is what it is. Whereas black and grey, it
• 13:44
  almost seems a little easier. But the hours make it just as
• 13:49
  complicated as the colour stuff. So you can build, you can
• 13:52
  slowly, slowly build stuff up from a really light tone to a
• 13:56
  dark tone. The skin isn't as irritated and
• 13:59
  the customers can sit for a little longer because they're
• 14:01
  not being hurt as much. So I mean, both have the the
• 14:04
  pluses and minuses. But when I got to LA, there
• 14:07
  wasn't a lot of people doing the European style of, of black and
• 14:11
  grey tattooing that's this sort of full saturation model.
• 14:14
  So no more skin showing through. Everyone was doing these kind of
• 14:19
  very open skin zone black and grey pieces where it was so
• 14:23
  highly contrasted. And it took me years to work out
• 14:26
  why. But it's basically that until
• 14:29
  modern times, until probably the last five years, our equipment
• 14:33
  wasn't able to make that a permanent procedure in
• 14:37
  somebody's skin for the rest of their life.
• 14:39
  Like things would get faded in the sun and people were leaving
• 14:42
  out big gaps of skin and having a really high contrast tattoo in
• 14:46
  that sort of LA gangster style because that's what healed and
• 14:50
  that's what lasted. And that's what like, he comes
• 14:53
  back healed and, you know, it's good to go.
• 14:55
  But now that our equipment has caught up and our needles are so
• 14:58
  well made and our machines are so good at delivering that ink,
• 15:02
  you can go full saturation in the European style somewhere hot
• 15:05
  like California and not really have to worry about it.
• 15:08
  So when I got there and no one else was doing that, I was like,
• 15:11
  well damn, like I've got a niche right here, pre made for me with
• 15:15
  a skill set that I already know how to do.
• 15:16
  Let's plug this for a while. Do the most obvious good thing
• 15:20
  for you. Occam's razor, right?
• 15:21
  Do the easiest. Well, yeah.
• 15:23
  It's always fun to have a challenge though, isn't it?
• 15:26
  That's it. I'm never one to just taking the
• 15:28
  the cop out route, but I do think by having my paintings and
• 15:33
  color and my tattoos in black and Gray I've I've definitely
• 15:36
  made my life a little bit easier.
• 15:38
  Right on now, do people seek you out for specific things?
• 15:41
  Do they come in with the thing in mind?
• 15:43
  Do they just let you have a go and see what you come up with
• 15:46
  first? How collaborative do people want
• 15:50
  to be with? You I've got a bit of a mix, I
• 15:52
  think. I think my animation and like
• 15:54
  Disney clients sort of come to me with, hey, this character
• 15:58
  maybe, and then I can pitch them.
• 16:00
  Well, how about we do a mash up with this character and this
• 16:02
  character or we put them in a different outfit or something to
• 16:05
  make it a bit more original. They kind of let me go and do my
• 16:08
  own thing. If it's somebody that's a tattoo
• 16:10
  collector, 9 times out of 10 they just want a piece by you
• 16:14
  that's got your style and your signature on it.
• 16:17
  So those are the guys that just let me ham.
• 16:19
  I'll just do whatever I want. And then you have clients love
• 16:22
  it, your bread and butter clients that keep you going all
• 16:26
  year round. And they're the more local
• 16:29
  people to wherever you're working.
• 16:31
  So here in Washington, I've got a lot of nature tattoos.
• 16:34
  I've got a lot of portrait tattoos, a lot of memorial
• 16:36
  tattoos. It's not necessarily stuff that
• 16:39
  I'll always post, but those are the guys that are keeping me in
• 16:43
  the industry and paying my rent and paying my bills.
• 16:46
  And so hats off to those guys for keeping me busy.
• 16:48
  Right on. I've been fortunate enough to
• 16:51
  interview a a few legendary tattoo artist before yourself,
• 16:55
  Paul Booth, and come to mind. Not too shabby.
• 16:59
  Maybe some maybe some names people have heard of, but also,
• 17:02
  like you just said something that reminded me of both my
• 17:04
  chats with them, which is, you know, people want your signature
• 17:09
  style. So they're they're willing to
• 17:12
  give you free rein, which is super nice creatively.
• 17:15
  At the same time, you also choose can choose to be
• 17:18
  particular. If somebody comes in with not a
• 17:20
  good idea, you can steer them to a good a better idea.
• 17:24
  Has someone come in with something like truly awful and
• 17:26
  insisted you do it and you maybe had to refuse or, you know, sort
• 17:30
  of, you know, deflect them? I've I've learned now that the
• 17:34
  nicest like it's, it's so much better to be to treat everything
• 17:38
  with super my nurse and respect. Like if somebody comes to me
• 17:42
  with a design that's really like out of my wheelhouse, and maybe
• 17:45
  it's a design that I think could be done by somebody else.
• 17:49
  I can be super, super kind about it because they they've
• 17:51
  obviously spent months deciding on what they want.
• 17:54
  And sometimes they might message me just because they know that I
• 17:57
  can be a good tattooer. They might not understand our
• 18:01
  industry enough to know that, Oh, he's a portrait artist.
• 18:04
  He might not want to take on this name on the wrist or tiny
• 18:08
  little heart tattoo or something like that.
• 18:10
  So I've started just listening to people, letting them say
• 18:15
  their piece, letting them say this feel about it and then
• 18:18
  gently nudging if they want it in my style.
• 18:21
  But if they don't, then I'll I'll happily recommend them
• 18:24
  somebody else and and send them to the right person for that
• 18:27
  right job, because I just don't think that it's worth me
• 18:31
  charging what I would need to charge for that tiny mini tattoo
• 18:35
  and bumping somebody off my diary that wants my exact style.
• 18:39
  It's nicer to be like cool to be kind sort of thing by turning
• 18:42
  them down rather than they end up with sort of hodgepodge of he
• 18:46
  gave it a go, but it didn't quite hit the mark style tattoo.
• 18:50
  And there's so many of us now that you've got, there's 20 out,
• 18:53
  so 20 other guys that I could recommend for a name on the
• 18:55
  wrist other than me. And they're going to be half the
• 18:58
  price of me, so why not? I love that for you and I
• 19:00
  appreciate that about you. I think that's super classy and
• 19:03
  and probably good business also at the end of the day.
• 19:05
  Everything like we, if you've got food in your fridge and your
• 19:09
  rent's paid and you have an OK car that gets you from A to B,
• 19:14
  that's you're already doing better than 90% of the planet.
• 19:17
  So being greedy and taking on everything just to get a little
• 19:20
  more in your bank account, it's like, what's the point?
• 19:23
  Life's too short for that stuff. Right on.
• 19:25
  Is there over now you've been doing this over a very long
• 19:28
  period of time. Is there sort of a physical wear
• 19:30
  and tear on you that you have to be mindful of?
• 19:32
  Do you do bodywork or any special, you know, stretching or
• 19:37
  or or routines to keep limber enough to not overtatch your
• 19:41
  body over long sessions? I should say yes, the answer is,
• 19:46
  but I've been, I've been told by several people that there are a
• 19:50
  few exercises that we can do. But I think nowadays with our
• 19:53
  equipment being so good and everything being so lightweight,
• 19:57
  you haven't really got to worry about like carpal tunnel or
• 19:59
  anything like that anymore. You haven't really got to worry
• 20:01
  about anything like muscle or bone related except for possibly
• 20:06
  the spine, but I think. That's where I've got a bit of
• 20:08
  an advantage in it because I was playing drums for, I don't know,
• 20:12
  15 years before I started tattooing.
• 20:15
  And so I'm used to sitting in this weird little goblin pose
• 20:19
  just doing my work because that's that's how I used to play
• 20:22
  drums anyway. So if anything, and I know like
• 20:25
  a doctor or whatever would tell me I'm wrong on this, but when I
• 20:28
  sit up super straight to tattoo, not only am I like furthering my
• 20:32
  distance from the actual piece that so I have to squint and see
• 20:36
  like pretty up close, but it hurts.
• 20:39
  It hurts way more to like compress my back into this like
• 20:42
  upright mode than it does to staying in my little goblin
• 20:45
  pose. So I just revert back to that
• 20:47
  man. Right on we're we're all slowly
• 20:49
  becoming Gollum as we either drum or.
• 20:53
  The dude's got it locked in, man.
• 20:54
  He's got his own property. He's got whole mountain.
• 20:57
  He's got food right there for him, fresh drinking water.
• 21:01
  That dude's got it on like he knows what he's doing.
• 21:03
  Lost the precious though, shouldn't have dropped it in the
• 21:05
  water in the first place. He didn't.
• 21:07
  He found it in the. We found it in the water.
• 21:09
  That's right. I'm getting too old to remember
• 21:12
  my Tolkien. My dad would be a shame.
• 21:14
  I literally blitzed all three of them back-to-back the other
• 21:17
  night just because I was nice. The Rings Day.
• 21:20
  Yeah, of course. It's autumn.
• 21:22
  It's movies time. It's time for high drama,
• 21:27
  conversely, about fans and yourself.
• 21:29
  Since you are now, you know, established in the world and and
• 21:33
  doing what you do, are you particular about who inks you?
• 21:36
  Not really. I mean, I'm more looking at
• 21:39
  little travel stamps for myself now, so I'm a big Bailey.
• 21:42
  I can sit for maybe one or two hours, but anything past that
• 21:45
  and I'm getting antsy. And I know what goes into a
• 21:48
  tattoo now. So there's no hiding.
• 21:50
  There's no telling me, oh, this bit's not going to be that bad.
• 21:53
  Like if it's on the side of the knee, I know it's going to be
• 21:55
  pretty bad because I do it every day.
• 21:57
  So now I just kind of collect little travel stamps from people
• 22:01
  that I hang out with. Or if I've got a really good
• 22:03
  guest spot or if I've had a really good time somewhere, I'm
• 22:06
  like, well, yeah, like I can get a little stamp on me from that
• 22:08
  person in their style. It only takes them like two or
• 22:12
  three hours and compared to a whole day.
• 22:14
  And then I get to leave with a nice little memory on me.
• 22:16
  Nice work. And I imagine you travel a lot
• 22:19
  for conventions and guest appearances and things, and
• 22:22
  that's an opportunity also for you to sort of, you know, absorb
• 22:25
  culture and travel again, just like when you were in a band and
• 22:28
  also get work done on yourself. For sure, and it all depends as
• 22:31
  well on how much time I've got because if I'm doing a show, I'm
• 22:35
  usually flying in on Thursday and leaving on the Monday to get
• 22:37
  back to Seattle. So it usually does mean that I'm
• 22:41
  kind of pushed for time on those ones and paying for an extra.
• 22:44
  You know, like hotels have got so crazy recently with their
• 22:47
  pricing that paying for an extra day on those or I'm really like
• 22:51
  budget conscious. So I'm trying to keep my flights
• 22:54
  under a certain budget and then like travel on the travel days
• 22:58
  that are the cheapest and all that sort.
• 22:59
  Of stuff Right on. I appreciate that also.
• 23:01
  We are all, we all need to be mindful of everything these
• 23:04
  days. If someone wants to book you and
• 23:07
  we'll list everything, all your socials, all your links in the
• 23:09
  description. How far out are you really
• 23:12
  booked for just general work from someone for a?
• 23:14
  General work or single pieces, I can probably get you in around
• 23:18
  January sort of time. So I usually run about a three
• 23:21
  month wait on stuff for sleeves and stuff like that or for large
• 23:24
  back pieces and stuff. I usually tell people, hey, like
• 23:27
  let's have a little consultation and then we can get some dates
• 23:30
  like actually blocked in the diary instead of just random
• 23:34
  ones. And then that way they can work
• 23:35
  on a nice schedule. We can get it done in a in a
• 23:39
  certain amount of time, usually like within a year for big
• 23:42
  projects. So yeah, I reckon about January,
• 23:44
  February time stuff starts opening up.
• 23:46
  Right on. That's I feel like that's closer
• 23:49
  to a standard for a well known artist.
• 23:52
  Out of curiosity, if people travel to Seattle to see you and
• 23:55
  it's planned and everything else, is it is it cool?
• 23:59
  I, because I'm unaware, do you, is it OK to get a tattoo and
• 24:02
  then travel immediately? Should they plan a few days to
• 24:04
  just heal before they're, you know, sitting on an airplane?
• 24:09
  I reckon do it at the end of your trip that's going to give
• 24:11
  you the best healing chances because if you want to come out
• 24:14
  here and like Washington's great for nature and hikes and all
• 24:17
  that sort of stuff. So anybody that wants to come
• 24:20
  out, I say to them, right, do everything that you want to do
• 24:22
  tourist wise when you first get here and then we'll spend a day
• 24:26
  or two tattooing and then go immediately to the airport so
• 24:29
  that you can get home as soon as possible and start healing
• 24:32
  properly. Right on.
• 24:32
  I'll keep that in mind. And what are some of the biggest
• 24:36
  misconceptions about getting tattooed by you that people have
• 24:40
  come into you with? They have their own cockamamie
• 24:43
  ideas about what you do and how you do it.
• 24:45
  And then they're totally like, oh, I didn't expect this at all.
• 24:48
  Do you get that or do you get mostly educated customers who
• 24:50
  are ready to roll? Potentially, potentially they
• 24:55
  might think that. I don't want to say that it
• 24:57
  depends on the, it depends on the person.
• 24:59
  So people that are a little bit more experienced with black and
• 25:02
  grey realism kind of know how much they're going to get done
• 25:05
  in a day and kind of know already what's going to be the
• 25:10
  painful spots and what isn't. I have some people that maybe
• 25:13
  they haven't got tattooed in 10 or 15 years and they're not sure
• 25:16
  and they've only seen fully completed designs on the
• 25:19
  Internet or whatever. Sometimes they can then not
• 25:23
  expect too much, but they'll say like, oh cool, in two days we
• 25:26
  can get a whole sleeve done, right?
• 25:27
  And I have to sort of say to them, well, in a different style
• 25:30
  potentially, but in my style, like now we're really going to
• 25:33
  tackle like one subject matter per day and chip away over time.
• 25:38
  And so, so I think it helps them sort of have an appreciation for
• 25:42
  people that have full body suits because then they start looking
• 25:44
  around being like, wow, that that dude getting his whole
• 25:47
  armpit done. Yeah, he sat through something
• 25:49
  like by the time they get to their sleeve, they definitely
• 25:52
  appreciate the the process more. Right on.
• 25:54
  I just saw some new photos of Matt from Trivium doing yoga.
• 26:01
  But like I, I don't know if these are cell phone pictures,
• 26:04
  but he is literally all and he has this, you know, he's
• 26:07
  Japanese American, he's got a lot of Japanese themed art all
• 26:11
  over his body. And he'd started it quite a
• 26:13
  while ago and now it's, it's, it's his whole body now back in
• 26:18
  front. It's kind of amazing.
• 26:19
  It's so much work and dedication and I imagine because he's got
• 26:23
  Trivium, we've got it's. I can't pronounce his name
• 26:26
  exactly. Their new drummer is called
• 26:28
  Grayson New Synum. New gratum, yeah.
• 26:32
  Anyway. He's great.
• 26:34
  Amazing. So and like he's like not even
• 26:36
  tattooed at all. So in comparison to those two,
• 26:39
  like you've got to wonder like when they get the time off to
• 26:42
  get tattooed or not get tattooed.
• 26:43
  But I imagine he's got somebody coming on the road to meet them
• 26:48
  at shot at shows. But would I advise getting a
• 26:51
  tattoo and immediately getting sweaty on the stage?
• 26:53
  Probably not. But it's it's up to him.
• 26:55
  It's clearly it's healed well and it looks good.
• 26:58
  So yeah. Yeah, just just throwing out
• 27:00
  again the most obvious guy. Grayson is probably too busy
• 27:02
  drumming to get tattoo many tattoos he's been I.
• 27:05
  Really want to go to his Whiplash concert.
• 27:09
  Scott, I think he's only got 2 nights though, and they're both
• 27:11
  in Chicago, so I've got a way out whether or not I want to fly
• 27:14
  out to Chicago just for one concert.
• 27:16
  But you know, it's going to be amazing.
• 27:17
  That dude is just an absolute powerhouse.
• 27:19
  Right on who? While we're on it, who are some
• 27:21
  of your favorite drummers from your youth then now?
• 27:26
  Bruce Wackerman up there for sure.
• 27:30
  Garibaldi from Tower of Power from back in the day.
• 27:34
  You know what, I really used to like John Auto.
• 27:37
  I had this one Orange County Drums DVD that came for free
• 27:41
  with like the magazine or Modern Drummer or something like that.
• 27:44
  And there was a Little John Auto segment on it that was just
• 27:48
  insane, you know. And I went to one clinic by Carl
• 27:52
  Palmer when I was a really young kid, like must have been about
• 27:54
  10 years old from Emerson Lake and Palmer.
• 27:57
  And I remember being like, I didn't know you could drum like
• 28:00
  that. Like I didn't know the stuff
• 28:02
  that they were creating. And so nowadays I really don't
• 28:07
  like, I'm not really that interested in rock drummers
• 28:09
  anymore. I'm listening to way more like
• 28:11
  Latin stuff, way more jazz stuff, way more like world music
• 28:14
  stuff. There's a guy called Isaac Jamba
• 28:17
  who's, I don't know why he isn't blowing up as much as he should
• 28:21
  do in my opinion, but he's amazing.
• 28:23
  And like, I keep on waiting for them being a drum clinic near me
• 28:27
  that he's going to teach because I would go to that in a
• 28:29
  heartbeat. It's all like Latin Brazilian
• 28:32
  jazz, really fast rhythms. The dude is just, yeah, an
• 28:36
  animal. Sick.
• 28:38
  I love Carl Palmer actually is probably one of the best drum
• 28:41
  solos I've ever seen in a concert in my entire life.
• 28:44
  Was Carl Palmer back in the day and he's still out there doing
• 28:48
  it and he's got kind of like an ELP Legacy tour going.
• 28:51
  The other guys are past unfortunately.
• 28:52
  But and I love, I love that you drop John Otto.
• 28:55
  I feel like people hated Limp Bizkit so much and now they're
• 28:57
  cutting the other pendulum swing the other way where people love
• 29:01
  them and people, people are going to watch this interview
• 29:03
  and be like John Otto. They're going to do the.
• 29:05
  Look into the bathrooms bridge. Yeah, exactly.
• 29:10
  He had so many. You want you want any drummer to
• 29:13
  have like success after the band breaks up just name drop them
• 29:17
  and get them to do 8 bars in one song once.
• 29:21
  But. Yeah, that's it.
• 29:22
  That's it. What else do you have going on
• 29:24
  the rest of the year? As we wrap this up, I want to
• 29:25
  give you back your day. Oh, no, no, you're good.
• 29:28
  I got Switzerland in a couple of days, so I fly out there to give
• 29:32
  a talk on that. And I'm also doing some of the
• 29:37
  judging, I think, with that competition.
• 29:39
  So that's always fun. You get to sit behind the table
• 29:41
  and see a conveyor belt of the best pieces from the show just
• 29:45
  come by you. It's, it's awesome.
• 29:47
  So that's super fun. What else have I got coming up?
• 29:49
  I've got an art show next year. So currently I'm putting
• 29:52
  together maybe we've got 10 more to do 10 more paintings so that
• 29:56
  I have a big collection of my works.
• 29:57
  And then a friend of mine's tattoo studio in LA is going to
• 30:00
  host me for a gallery show and then get everyone invited down
• 30:03
  to that. So that's building up a lot of a
• 30:05
  lot of free time there as well. I have snare concept coming out
• 30:10
  with HHG drums, umm, they make amazing snares and like, just
• 30:15
  like really like almost like renaissance looking hardware on
• 30:19
  all their stuff. So they asked me to, to work on
• 30:22
  this Tron project with them. And so I think they're just
• 30:25
  about to launch that guy. Umm, other than that, painting,
• 30:28
  tattooing, hanging out, trying not to take life too seriously.
• 30:32
  There it is. That's what you got to do, Owen.
• 30:35
  Paul. So nice to meet you.
• 30:36
  And I'm overdue for a trip to Seattle.
• 30:38
  I've never been, weirdly. And so maybe I'll look you up
• 30:41
  when I come to town or if I plan something out, I'll come see you
• 30:44
  professionally. I will.
• 30:45
  Absolutely, man. Yeah.
• 30:45
  Just let me know when you come in and we'll set out some days.
• 30:48
  Sick. Thank you so much for your time
• 30:50
  today. Thanks for hanging out with
• 30:51
  Ghost Call and best of luck with everything, man.
• 30:52
  We'll follow all your stuff and share it along in the in the in
• 30:56
  the post. Thanks so much.