El Paso has always been an inked up city—from old school bikers, rockabilly boppers to military millennials and everyone in-between, the people of this town have always embraced tattoo culture and wear it on their sleeve—literally. Host of Spike TV’s Tattoo Rescue and legendary tattoo artist on his own, Joey Tattoo returns to El Paso and will be the emcee at this year’s Star City Tattoo Expo March 22-24th at the El Paso Convention center.
What is your first memory of tattoos?
My first memory of tattoos was when I was about 3 years old I had an uncle who was part of a motorcycle club. Not a gang, but a club. They used to come to my house on the weekends and he would take me on his motorcycle, and they were all tattooed, so I guess that would be my first memory.
What inspired you to pursue a career in this craft?
I actually fell into it by accident to be quite honest with you man. I went for a tattoo, and I actually drew the tattoo that I wanted to get. The guy who was going to tattoo me liked it so much that I actually drew 2 tattoos for him that day for customers, and he gave me 10% of that. And by talking to him he pretty much talked me into doing an apprenticeship for him. That was from 1988 to 1990.
In 1988-90 what was the tattoo culture like?
It was the culture that pretty much gave us a bad name haha. It was more a biker thing, a rebel kind of thing, not like it is today at all, nothing like it is today at all.
From your perspective, what is the tattoo culture like today?
I think the tattoo culture today is like any other business in the world right now, it’s open to everybody, it’s in the mainstream, it’s not looked down upon like it used to be. I mean there are still some people who don’t like it as much but, it’s not looked down upon anymore, it’s expressing art more than just trying to be cool or anything like that. The tattoos have come a long, long way from where they were 30 years ago.
How did you land the Tattoo Rescue gig?
I was an extra, although I never made it on TV, on another show and met the producer and he just liked my attitude, we got talking, he asked me what I did, and I told him. After I let that day, he actually went to my tattoo shop without me knowing. I guess was very impressed on how my business ran and how it looked…gave me a call and he was like, “Man I’ve never seen a tattoo shop like this. Who did it? Who built it?”—and I’m like, “I built it.” I built all my tattoo shops, it’s what I do. He was just impressed by the way all my guys acted, how they were respectful and treated him with respect, and he just liked what I did, and he just pitched me the show and it took about a year and a half after that, but you know we went through some hoops and stuff, and that’s how we landed it.
How has that experience changed you?
I knew that there was a lot of shops out there that weren’t where they should’ve been, but I probably didn’t know to the extent of what was actually out there and how many people just don’t know how to run a business. There’s a lot of artist out there but there not a lot of business people out there that can do artwork. So I think it opened my eyes to that. It also opened my eyes to a lot of the stuff in the industry, it’s opened a lot of doors for me. I’m also an emcee for a lot of tattoo conventions now, I’ve traveled all over the world doing tattoo conventions which I’ve never used to travel to far from home doing conventions. And it just opened up my eyes to what’s out there, what’s out in the world, what’s attainable through my art.
What are you up to now?
I have 3 tattoo shops, 3 kids and a wife haha, I just work everyday…not everyday, not today, thank god. But yeah man, I tattoo 5 days a week, take care of my family and my businesses. That’s pretty much it man, I’m just laying low a little bit this year trying to take it easy I’m getting older, so you know, trying to work on my retirement.
What can you say about El Paso?
I love the city! The city has a ton of culture, which is one of the reasons that I love to go there, is because you see…it’s funny because there’s so many different cultures there from very poor, to very rich, and everything in-between, and everybody there is so proud of their culture. You know what I mean? It’s really cool to go there. The Mexican culture that is very prominent there, is really cool to be seen. We’ll go to little stores and we go little tiny restaurants that nobody thinks about going to when we go there, just to check it out, to check out all the culture and the people there, and everybody’s really friendly, they are to us anyway.
Where can our audience find you and your work?
The best place to find me is my Instagram just @joeytattoo—one word.
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Joey Tattoo will be at Star City Tattoo Expo March 22-24th at the El Paso Convention Center. Go check him out!
