Punk Rock, Parenting, and Tattoos ft. Ryan Ussher

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I can go to work and do what I love, what I love and get
paid good money for it. Can be at home with the kids if that's
what you want to do. Or, you know, I can
take some time off. You can go to work and do your thing and, you
know, we'll juggle it that way. And it was sort of, we weighed
it up and she weighed it up and decided that, well, you know, we're

(00:20):
lucky enough to be able to have her with the kids rather
than having to pay a daycare or, you know, ship them
off to kindy early and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, I
mean, that's how it's worked out. I've tattooed, and
she's been utterly, completely, and amazingly supportive of
what I do since we met. And having

(00:41):
kids, it's made the life that we've wanted
to have possible, and I get to do what I love to
Chats and Tats with Erin DeLaVedova. Hello,

(01:08):
friends, lovers of tattoo art,
lovers of art in general, lovers of creativity. Anybody watching
this show, I know that's the kind of person you are. Thank you for tuning
in. Thank you for the support. Thank you for sharing, liking and giving me
all the comments and DMs. I truly do appreciate I couldn't be
here without each and every one of you. Welcome back to Chats

(01:29):
and Tats with me, your host, Aaron DeLaVedova. Today, I
am here with a very prolific tattoo artist. all
the way from Sydney, Australia. He's
the owner, co-owner of Lighthouse Tattoo. He's
a 17-year tattoo artist. His style would
be Japanese-influenced, large-scale, big stuff,

(01:50):
amazing stuff. This guy rips. So, with
all that being said, please welcome my guest today. Oh my
gosh, I hope I say this right. Your last name is fucking me up, dude.
I was watching some YouTube videos and some fucker on a YouTube video said,
Usur, I think. And I was like, oh, that's the way I got to

(02:13):
Yeah, right. Lots of people think that because it's got double S. Yeah, the double S's
Usher. It's just Usher. All right. U-S-S-H-E-R. If
you guys want to start looking them up right now, it's at Ryan U-S-S-H-E-R
on Instagram. You can see his work live while you listen. So
yeah, man, I mean, look, you're a badass tattooer and I'm

(02:34):
honored to have you here, but it's this, uh, large scale tattooing
is, uh, it's a grind, man. It's a, it's a grind. But
you know, before we get to that, I also want to tell everybody we are really doing
this San Diego style because we are having craft beer
on the show today. It's delicious. You're drinking something from Harlan
Brewing. Our friends over at Harlan were nice enough to bring us

(02:56):
some beautiful, I think they call it an IPA. It's
It's basically a fruit juice. Do you like it? I'm OK
with that. Yeah, absolutely. I'm into weird beer. That's that's my thing.
And I am drinking something from Tarantula Brewing,
their Cali Day IPA, and it's delicious. So

(03:17):
if you guys are into beer, check those guys out. They are lovers of Guru, lovers
of the show, and they were kind enough to bring us all these beers. We'll get into a couple more here
in a bit. But back to my point. I got a lot of questions for you, but
let's just start with this large scale tattoo. What is
your, like, what's your routine? Like how many days a week are
So, uh, regularly four and then irregularly

(03:39):
five. So it's sort of, I mean, the ideal pattern
is four, four days, five days, four days, five days, four days, five days.
That's heavy. That's a heavy load. That's a lot of tattooing. It is. How many
I sort of, it lands between six and seven usually, but
I'm there super early and that's tattoo time. That's

(04:00):
not tattoo time. Six and a half hours is probably in
the skin or, or drawing on or whatever it is, preparation, all
that sort of stuff. But yeah, that's normally the customer walks in, starts
at nine, walks out around four, four 30 and
early start. I like that. Yeah, I'm up early. Is the
shop open at 9am? No, we don't really... I mean... You're

(04:22):
in there at 9am. I'm in there at 7.30, 8 in the morning, because
I live around an hour or so away from the shop. That's with
traffic. Without traffic, it's much less. But I get
up really early, try to train before work, and
then I get in there early. There's only a couple of us that do that. There's a
few early birds. And I start early and finish early because I

(04:42):
have a family and I don't really see them in the morning. So I sort of
choose the afternoon to get home and be with them. Yeah. I heard training
No, I just go and sort of procrastinate my way around the gym. And, you know,
sometimes when I train with a friend, it's, it's, there's a bit less procrastination,
but, um, yeah, I just go and lift some weights and throw some

(05:05):
Smart. Because when you tattoo, as long as you've been tattooing at,
you know, those many days, that many hours, keeping the
It's, you know, Are you together? Do you have pain? Ah,
enough. Yeah, here and there, but nothing too bad. I used
to have a bit of back pain, but I don't really get that anymore. I more

(05:26):
do it for energy. Training, if I train before work, I'm
getting through the day feeling good all day. If I
don't, I notice this massive, it's like I've
almost got to hang over the whole day. I'm sitting there, you know, I feel really, you
know. If I get in there and train before work, do anything,
even if it's nothing full on, I can get through the day and feel like

(05:50):
Yeah. But it also gets me through the traffic, right? I think if there was no traffic and
I lived down the road, I would do less of it. But half the reason
is that if I wake up super early, I beat the traffic.
You know, I get to work in half an hour, 40 minutes as opposed to an hour, hour and
a half. And then you got some time to kill. So you do training before that.
Yeah, for me like, oh gosh, 15 years ago maybe.

(06:12):
So I've been tattooing for 33 years. So this is, we'll just call it, I'm
15 years in, about where you're at. Actually more like 17 years, about where you're at.
And I lost the ability to straighten my left arm.
I had to hold my arm like on my titties. Like I was grabbing my own
tits all day. It's kind of weird, but yeah. And
I think it's just that muscle up behind my ear and the shoulder blade

(06:33):
had locked up. And then I would go to the chiropractor and
it would be a little better. Then I'd go to the acupuncturist and it kept coming.
And then, this is God bless this moment, I
found yoga. And I started, it has never, I feel
great, dude. I mean, I literally, and I do weight
training now, because I'm 53 years old. You got

(06:54):
to keep that muscle mass or that's not good for you. So I mix it
with the yoga. But that yoga, man, for those tattooers out there that are
cranking at this level, I would highly, I mean, fitness on
some level, you ain't going to make it, man. You're going to have a health crisis.
And then how much time do you lose at work when you can't get in there and
Absolutely. But yoga is definitely on

(07:14):
the wish list. I did that actually for a little while. I did some yoga and
it was amazing, but I couldn't, I
just couldn't keep up the yoga and the training and
the work and the, you know, it's, I feel like yoga is the thing that
If you're working out five days a week, this is kind of modern team, two

(07:37):
Well, yeah, I mean, that'd be ideal. But see, I'm generally yo-yoing between
fat and not so fat. So I always feel like the
Probably, yeah. I just yo-yo. But I mean, you know, and
that kind of, you know, depends on how much, well, I eat basically,
and I love food. But I feel as though if I stop

(08:00):
the training and go back to the yoga, I
mean, you know, I could be wrong. If I do it correctly, I'm probably doing
I'm 42. You're 42. You know, you'll do
the yogi and when you need it, it doesn't help. So
everything in moderation, you know, you get a couple of beers once in a while. Yeah. Once
in a while. Yeah. Yeah. But on that note, because, okay, we're

(08:22):
talking about, I kind of, we're going through the health stuff. You're a guy who works
heavy. I mean, that's hard. That's as hard as it gets for tattooers, that kind
of a schedule. Yeah. I've heard about you doing fitness. You're not just
not doing nothing. No. Let's get into more diet. What are you doing for
that? Do you have any routines? Do you have anything at all?
Not really. Oh, look, I generally, I think my

(08:43):
rule of thumb, I kind of go through different phases of doing and
trying different things. My most recent one, I gave keto a
crack. That was all right. In fact, I found that quite easy
because you can eat a lot of good shit doing keto. But
Then you have a party on the weekend or a dinner or something you go out to,
you drop the ball, you drink some wine, you do this and that. It's

(09:05):
sort of unsustainable, I guess, in a lot of ways for me.
My rule of thumb is generally, I generally
fast daily, you know, do the 16 by 8 fast thing
and not so much because I'm thinking consciously of
my health, it's more just because I find it easy. And
it can be beneficial, I think it is for me. Drink

(09:27):
a few espressos, like black coffees, in the morning. Do some
training. Don't eat till lunchtime. Finish eating around
I agree. I prefer not to eat until
I'm done tattooing. Yeah, yeah. But the thing that's fucked me up
now is the trainer's like, you need to be doing 200 grams of protein
a day. And I'm like, and so I, for the first

(09:48):
time ever, I'm not, I'm eating like eggs in the morning and things like this,
because it's so hard to get 200 grams of protein a day. But when
I don't eat, man, I feel so much more sharp, my
energy is so much higher, coffee, maybe some
almonds or something small, but then get home and just, I would love to
do it that way, but I'll never get the 200 grams of protein a day. Well,

(10:13):
They say it's your body weight. OK, and I'm actually 190. But
so let's just call it it's a little less than your body weight. So 200 is a
goal, but you know, if I could get to 160, you know, that's a
lot of chicken and meat, man. You got to really try for
And that's the thing too, with fasting, I feel like, you know, for
me, I'm so regimented in my time schedule

(10:35):
of, you know, what time I'm awake, what time I'm here, what
time I get to work out. Well, you know, what time I set up. Everything has
almost to the minute. If I added eating
breakfast, I'd fuck my time up. You don't
got time for that. You got a schedule to do. No time for
Well, anyway, I just wanted to highlight the point that you

(10:57):
gotta pay attention to that. I've had these shops for 21 years and I've
seen too many tattooers who ignored that part because
they were young and when you're young, you're stronger. And next
thing you know, they got all these problems and I'm like, you know, you gotta
take care of your body for this job. This job's physical, man. Absolutely. Physical.
Well, that's cool. Um, let's, uh, let's get into a

(11:19):
little bit of you, your history. So 17 years ago,
I got a black flag symbol on
my right arm, about this one,
you would say an inch, about an inch wide. I
had 40 bucks. I was 15 years old and there was a

(11:40):
tattoo shop in a place called Manly. And there
was a guy there who I think, I think at the time he was
dying of cancer, so that was the rumor of this guy. I
was already in my head, I'm going to do tattoos for a living, this is
my thing, but I sort of hadn't figured out the means how or
done much research. It was just, I want to do that. Anyway, we're at the front
of a tattoo shop and we'd been drinking and doing dumb underage shit.

(12:04):
And I had 40 bucks and I went into the guy and asked
him if he could do this black flag. I was wearing a black flag t-shirt. Can you
do this symbol on me? I've only got 40 bucks. And yep, sit down, did
it. That was it. On your arm? On my arm, yeah. Like right here on your shoulder.
Classic. And that broke the seal. That,

(12:25):
Yes, that's been covered and lasered and covered again, yeah,
A couple different rodeos with that one. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Oh good,
Oh yeah i had a fair share lazy to both arms both
arms just the black you know one hit on you got a lot of
Yeah i like doing that i don't no one likes that

(12:46):
fucking hate that way worse way worse than anything it gets what
Yeah, if you've got a tattoo, like it's always when people
come to me and they've got stuff that they want to do and they can't do it
for whatever reason. I always think it's such
a better way to go rather than just blasting over it and getting
something slightly better, waiting the time out to get something kick ass.

(13:09):
It's always worth it. 100% man. I mean, most tattooers will
tell. Not everyone does it, you know, um, but it is, it,
you know, getting rid, like taking your skin right
back to the way it looked before you were tattooed. Yeah. That's a
And sometimes it's not even possible, but lightening a
tattoo, you don't need too much. And then the tattooer can

(13:33):
Yeah, I always say to people, as you would as well, you
know, you want to get this? Well, you could do that. But if
you lighten it up, you could do it 10 times better. And
the possibilities just open up. It's like a book that just gets bigger
One of my old bosses, when I was a young tattooer, had a,
of course the whole shop was all covered in flash. He had a section, cover-up

(13:57):
section. It was black squares, triangles, rectangles.
It was just black shapes. Yeah, right. That's correct. He
was serious, too. He'd be like, I don't know what to do. Oh, that's no
problem. Come on over here. We have a whole section. He'd do well. Do
Yeah, yeah. That's very modern. That's very in now, I

(14:19):
Because everyone's doing the- Totally. Do blacking out arms.
Yeah, yeah. I have a tattoo of her at the Pacific Beach location. She's
got a whole blackout done. Well, she already blacked out her arm. And then one of
my tattooers did finger waves on top of the black. Yeah. Dude, it
looks so cool. In black? I think
what- Yeah, because the blackout had been

(14:40):
older. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we just took new black. And
dude, it looks- It has a look to it. Yeah, totally. And
I know there's so many people out there which blacked out stuff. I'm like,
this is the next move. Yeah, yeah. We're going to see, you know, you get
used to your shit. You're like, I loved my original tattoos. Then
I wanted to cover everything up. So then I got a blackout. Been a few
years. I'm bored. Now it's going to be just going over

(15:03):
those blackout sleeves. I mean, you can kind of do anything. Totally. It's just,
you know, it's not probably going to have color, but it looked really
cool. Yeah, yeah. It can look cool. I think, yeah. You ever done a blackout? Never.
It's funny though, cause my, my, my old boss was
joking and here we are, you know, I remember when I first saw the
first blackout arm and don't judge

(15:24):
me everybody, but I was just like, that's fucking ridiculous. Like,
what do you mean? A black arm? But it's so silly.
And then I got more used to it. And then people started putting maybe a little shape
where it cut into the hand. Then I started getting like, my
mind started opening up to this avant-garde idea of
tattooing. Like, cause as an illustrator, you know, I guess part of me was

(15:45):
just like, well, it has to be a fucking drawing. A tattoo is a
drawing of something. That's just black ink. That's stupid. And
then the shapes started coming in and I think it's dope. We've
had a couple tattooers move here that do that work. I think it's super cool, especially
if they leave a little blank skin from the bottom to the
I think there's a place for it for sure. I think for a while I was considering doing

(16:07):
it with one or both of my arms when I started getting laser and
I thought this is way too painful. I'm going to just black
them out. And I thought, or I had a chat to someone
and they were like, man, just do the fucking laser, get a better tattoo. And
you know, I get the blackout thing. And I think now people are
doing really, they're doing it really well. There's ways to

(16:28):
do it really well. I wouldn't be as opposed to it as I
felt at one stage. I sort of wanted it
and I was talked out of it. And then I went down the road of like, no, I'm
so glad I didn't do that. I would never do that. And it's creeping back into
my head. Not that I would or need to do it, but. There's people
There is, there is. I mean, I use the word avant-garde tattooing,

(16:49):
but really there's just so much interesting stuff
that we as more, well, I'm more of a neotrag guy,
I guess, and we're gonna call you a classical guy or
a traditional, maybe, aesthetic, and they're just doing shapes
Splatters and you know and it's cool man it's

(17:10):
going to be you know that's basically the splatter stuff and all
this is a guy who is in australia instagram
is pasty. Pst is stuff is
wild he does he does a lot of blackout kind of stuff. Or
blackout, but he does splattering shapes and these sort of, you
know, he does a lot of movement in these sort of almost,

(17:31):
you know, ripples and then sort of they kind of get different shapes and
he does it in this way. It's so well planned out. You
look at it and go, you know, there's a lot of people who do black work and you sort of think, I
can figure out how you would do that. And there's other people
you look at and you go, I can't even begin to understand how
I would start to do that. Cause it's so well done.

(17:51):
And it's that, those sorts of things that blow
It's lots of people that do that. To me, it's just cool to see it. Tattooing,
the art of tattooing, just breaking all
the rules. I mean, that's the thing about being a tattooer. I don't know,
I think you would be included. I've heard a little bit of your history and falling

(18:12):
in love with, Put the punk rock scene and just the rebellious nature
of the art form Yeah, and that was always weird to me when I
got into tattooing because I got in for the same reason I was a young punk rock
kid. I'm like look at all these people over here. They don't give a fuck Yeah, break all
the rules. Yeah. Yeah, then you then I became a tattooer now This is 33 years ago.
And suddenly there was all these rules. Yeah, and all this judgment Yeah,

(18:33):
I'm like, wait a minute. Aren't we that don't give a fuck people? Yeah, they're like no we
do give a fuck of a fuck, that's shit and that's this.
And I'm like, we all wear Dickies pants and car numbers and
vans. I'm like, oh my God, this is, I was in the military.
I'm like, this is more militant than the fucking military. How about we
just let everyone do whatever the fuck they want? Hey, if that customer is stoked, I'm

(18:54):
stoked. You know, if they love it, that's great. I mean, now
caveat, there are bad tattoos and
that's not cool. And there's bad ideas that people try
and that's and that's i wouldn't even say it's uncool because sometimes someone's gonna
try the bad idea to kind of learn what doesn't work and then improve so
you know there's room for that experimentation. Yeah

(19:17):
to be in an industry that was supposed to be so rebellious that was so. Not
It was a little shocking to me. I think the angle for me
was more that I just saw punks with tattoos. There
was a moment when I was a little kid and I was with my parents somewhere and
there were this group of punks drinking and just being
obnoxious. They had mohawks and leather jackets. They were

(19:39):
having a lot of fun. Totally. But they just looked naughty and I was like,
I want to be in that club. I want to be the naughty guy, you know.
That was my first introduction to seeing tattoos and actually
Yeah, identifying with the vibration, I would call
it, you know, of the art form, the rebellious nature. Now,

(19:59):
that's a kind of an interesting subject, because have we lost
that? The rebellious nature of it all? Yeah,
I mean, it's just, I mean, where I live, like, so many people are heavily tattooed
Yeah, here is, I mean, Yeah look
there are certain parts of Sydney that definitely are I wouldn't say
to the extent that it is here something something about specially San

(20:23):
Diego I find you feel like you're immersed
in sort of just. fringe culture, like
people are tattooed. There's, you know, 50, 60 year old dudes getting
down the street with almost body suits, you know,
and on skateboards and just, you know, they look like
the old guys that are, not that 50 or 60 or whatever is old, but

(20:46):
Yeah be careful. But
you know people look like they they just
don't want to grow up and there's you don't get much of that at
So Sydney is, I mean, similar to, say, San Diego, it's split

(21:08):
up into a bunch of suburbs. So I live in
a part of Sydney where there's not many people covered in
tattoos, and I definitely stand out
of the crowd. in the suburb I live in and the area. There
are people with a lot of tattoos but they're few and far between. When you get
into the city and places like there's a place called Newtown and
you know the inner west of Sydney where I guess most live music

(21:31):
happens and all that stuff, that's where you see much
more of the kind of fringe culture and you know people with tattoos and
punks and you know people that are into I guess different subcultures of
music. The Northern Beaches is like rich people, surfers,
We have a similar life. Because I,

(21:53):
you know, here I am in San Diego, but I live in a little beach town called
Carlsbad, and it's kind of the same. It's almost the
same drive with traffic, 45 minutes. And I
go to and from. And then up in Carlsbad, I
like it because I'm still, I still have an edge up there. I'm
a little naughty. to those people. I go to my daughter's

(22:14):
school functions and they're cool, but they're definitely
That's where I am, yeah. There's a couple of other dads who have... some
pretty terrible tattoos and I hear through the grapevine that
someone sort of saw me and, oh, that's the dad with all the tattoos and,
you know, like I'm their immediate friend because I've
got tattoos too and, you know, you're

(22:38):
rare, you know, I'm a rarity up there and
so I become the friend with all the guys with the tattoos because Yeah,
not personally, but yeah, anyway, they see me as an equal,
Yeah, well, there is something about being tattooed. You're
automatically, you are kind of automatically part of a club and other
people that... Maybe not somebody who has a tattoo,

(23:00):
you know, their grandmother's name on their wrist. I don't
know if that's... They don't welcome you into
them intimately as fa... But anywhere else, heavily
tattooed people, yeah, it's kind of an auto, like, you're already
Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And especially in areas
where it isn't a norm, you know. When

(23:23):
you're in an area that isn't a norm, you see someone else covered in tattoos, it's immediately
like, oh. There you go, mate. Wear a similar breed,
Let's choose two more new beers. I went
with the Tarantula Brewing, their IPA, their

(23:45):
Cali Day IPA. Well, let's swap brands. Here, you
take those and I'll take these. I'm on the Harlan
Brewing now. And what am I gonna do here? Ooh, Nelson
IPA's always, I always end up liking these. All right,
I'm gonna tell the audience. I'm going with the Harland Brewing, Manou
Bay, Manou Bay, where's that? Nelson IPA, here

(24:08):
we go. Let's see if I can get this on the microphone. You
hear that? Everyone out there just smiled a
I'm going the liquid candy hazy India pale ale from
Tarantula. Wow. That sounds liquid candy. Sounds
And it should be noted that Ryan used to have a show where

(24:35):
It can be noted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so you're not just
a casual drinker, you like to experiment with the different beers?
Yeah, look, I think COVID started all that for me. As soon as... Drinking. Well,
yeah. No, that didn't start it, but... Increased
it. Yeah, it increased it. Well, it became another hobby
to buy the weirdest, craziest beers

(24:56):
I could find. Well, and drink them. But then
I think what happened was my My
wife's family, who are also into craft beer, we
planned a trip up there. And for whatever reason, we couldn't make it up. I think there was a COVID
lockdown in my area. And I'd gone and bought all these
beers. And they asked me to tell them what they were like, because I

(25:17):
sort of sent them a photo and said, this is what I'm bringing the mothership, you know, here we go.
And they said, Oh, you got to tell us what they're all like. And I
think I made a video for them reviewing just being stupid. And
I was like, oh, maybe I'll just do this for fun because I've got nothing else
to do. It's COVID and I'm at home and I've got a whole heap of beer. And
so I started reviewing the beers and I'd have my little,

(25:38):
at the time, I think she was four year old daughter next to me and
she'd drink a kombucha and we'd sort of talk and she'd say stuff to
the camera and she'd steal the show. Everyone loved her. It didn't get
such a big following, but it then became, I became a slave to
having to make a review every time I drank a beer. And so
I stopped it because eventually I was like, I almost couldn't open

(25:59):
a beer without going, Oh, I've got to make a video. And it became this sort
You're on video and you're about to have a new beer and I
want to, I really, I'm going to do mine next. Give that a little, little
swirl. And you tell me what you think about that one. I mean, it's got a

(26:22):
Little sharp, but sweet. Kind of bitter. Telling
of a couple of... Oh, there we go. It's got Mosaic, Citra and Moteca.
I know nothing about any of those, but they sound cool. I have had
beers with them in there before. And, uh, it's delicious. Drink
it, get hammered and go drive your car. No, don't do that. He

(26:44):
Well, that's, you know, if you have a Tesla, let the, it'll take you home. Uh, all
right. I'm going to go for my next, the Manu Bay from Harlan Brewing.
The Nelson IPA. Nelson's the hops,

(27:05):
Okay, now that's the kind I like. I knew I would like this one. Sharp,
bitter, but not, I'm not the hazy guy.
Yours is a little creamy looking, mine's like clear. It looks crisp. It
almost, it is. It's got a crispness to it. Quite
good, quite good. And this is, yeah, it's Freestyle
Nelson with Savin and Wamay. Never

(27:27):
heard of those. Do not know. Obviously people, we
are not, you know, we're not beer sommeliers. We're just doing our best
We can drink them. That's yeah. That's sort of that. That's that chunks.
Oh, is that supposed to happen? Probably, but everybody's
some chunks of, of. Stuff just came out of the bottom
But look, maybe I was meant to roll it first. Oh my God, look at all that stuff in there.

(27:53):
Curls in your hair. That's fun.
That's fun. It should be fun. Oh, cheers. Cheers.
Cheers. Boom. I needed these
Let me just show everybody my shirt here. where I tattooed Brian
Redband. That is a cool shirt. It's one of his shirts. This says Death

(28:18):
Squad. Cool. In Japanese or something. But yeah, I
was out there to tattoo Brian Redband. He's a comedian. He
is part of this show called the Kill Tony Show with Tony Hinchcliffe. Oh,
I've heard of Kill Tony. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a great
show. Yeah. Uh, every, I think every Monday on
YouTube, you can watch it live. Um, they let young comedians

(28:39):
come out and they give them one minute to prove themselves and
if they do well, they'll, they'll give them some sweet high fives. And if they don't, they'll
Oh, wow. Okay. Oh yeah, I've seen it. I think actually I just roast
Oh my God. That part was hard for me. Like
I just, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. This guy got shredded. One

(29:00):
I thought he was going to cry. They know that can happen. Yeah.
Oh yeah, I think that happened to him, you know, and it happened bad. And
I'm like, oh man, and you know how many people are watching this show right now, like his whole
family and everyone. It's pretty hardcore. But anyway, my
point is, uh, yeah, three days in Austin going to comedy

(29:21):
shows and, um, at the mothership, got to
hang out with Joe Rogan, which was sweet. Thank you, Joe, for VIPing
the whole thing, but a lot of late night drinking. So, I
really needed this because I'm a little shaky today. I just got back
Hair of the dog. How far is the trip from here
It's not bad. It's two and a half hours. Have

(29:45):
Never, no. Actually, in the States, I've been to New York
for two days on my way through to Toronto from
the UK one time. Apart from that, I've only been to
Isn't that the quickest place to get to from Australia?
Well, America, yeah, yeah. LA, it's, yeah, 14 hours direct

(30:08):
So to go to the East Coast, you've got another, you know, whatever. It's
a, oh yeah. Well, I would highly recommend Austin. Great tattoo
scene down there, great music scene, great comedy scene. That place is
There's a lot of places in the states I need to get
I won't get into it, but that trip is no, I haven't been to Australia, and I

(30:32):
internationally travel quite a bit. We always end up in Europe usually.
It's the furthest place. It's the furthest, man. I'm going next year,
because once I get out to Australia, I'll hit you up. Yeah, do it. Because
we're coming down. And I really want to do the Philippines. I want to do
Vietnam. I want to do Cambodia. You know, once you're over there, yeah, you
might as well go the whole way. Get all that shit. Get Japan. Yeah,
yeah. So you're in Australia, Sydney. So how far of a flight

(30:55):
is it for you to get Japan? I think it's 11 hours. Oh
my, my stupid head. I'm like, oh, it's probably, they probably do that in like a four hour flight.
I think the clock, well, New Zealand is pretty close. That's from, and
I'm talking from Sydney, New Zealand from Sydney is, I think
it's two and a half, three hours. Maybe it's three and a half. That's

(31:17):
pretty close. And then you go to like Bali, that's eight
or nine. Yeah. Bali's
quite nice. Bali's a bit of a, it's, I mean, it's beautiful. I've
been once, I've been to Thailand a few times. Thailand, I
feel is a bit more, you can immerse yourself a bit
more in the culture of the place. And you can go to

(31:38):
places that are kind of, and you can in Bali as well. You can go to places that are
a little less full on. Bali is a bit like, the
places you really want to go to tend to be packed with
people. And yeah, there
is beautiful spots in Bali. Don't get me wrong. It's a beautiful place to go. But
for us, it's like a cheaper resort holiday

(31:59):
place where the scenery is different. Nice. Interesting.
Whereas Thailand's a bit more like you, it's a bit more
about the food and the scenery and the travel and The
culture, Bali's pretty westernized
So in Australia, like for us, we
get the craving for a little tropical getaway. For us it's Hawaii

(32:24):
or Cabo, Costa Rica. French
Polynesia is not too bad. It's almost a
little longer than Hawaii. So those are our West Coast. Sure. When

(32:44):
Yeah. No, for most, for me personally, since
having kids, we haven't done a pile of travel and
the travel we have done. This is actually my youngest daughter's first
overseas trip. Oh, you brought the family? Yeah. Yeah.
You're here with the wife and kids? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Six weeks. You're a brave dude.
Let me go back here. Eight and four. Two girls. Two

(33:09):
I like it. Well, I travel a lot for work. They
rarely get to come. And especially my wife, she rarely gets
to come. And because, you know, we've obviously got kids, you know,
someone's got to be there. And I go away and I tattoo in different places and do conventions. And,
you know, she pulls at least 50% of the share, if not
more, being mum to the kids, you know. It's pretty cool

(33:31):
to be able to finally take them all on a trip and do
It's super cool. I was kind of joking, but yeah, I mean, I'm just saying when you travel
It's a lot. You know, it got me thinking, I'm on tangents now,
Only, well, we got married during COVID-2, sort of
purposely, but what is it, 2020 we were married in

(33:53):
November? I should have said how long you've been with her. With her, nine, almost
ten years. Okay, and you have an eight-year-old. So you guys got together, boom,
had a baby right away. Three months she was pregnant, yep. And
Let's talk about that a little bit. So the thing is you are a
very passionate artist, you know,
and that lifestyle is, um, how do I

(34:16):
say this? I don't know. A bit volatile. Like,
uh, I know I've been through my struggle. I know my wife has been through
struggles with married to a man that nowadays after 33 years, I'm able to, not
hit it as hard as I used to. It was really challenging for us.
I've been with her for 25 years. How is that for you guys?
Does she have a job? No. She's mom. She was a hairdresser when

(34:38):
I met her. So that's her sort of trade. And then she
was pregnant pretty quick. And so she did that. She's momming it up.
And you're working it up. I'm working. When we met she was
hairdressing when she stopped hairdressing to become mum the
idea was that you know she had enough of that anyway and
so it was sort of like by the

(34:58):
time she was able to kind of go back to work if she wanted to we
kind of weighed up. I was sort of like, well, I love my job.
If you need to go back to work for your, you know, just
to have independence, because I know, you know, being stuck with a kid at home all
day is its own battle. You know, I was absolutely
supportive of that, but monetarily and financially, it was sort

(35:19):
of like, I can go to work and do what I love, what I love and
get paid good money for it, can be at home with the kids, if
that's what you want to do. Or, you know, I
can take some time off, you can go to work and do your thing and, you
know, we'll juggle it that way. And it was sort of, we waited
up and she waited up and decided that, well, you know, we're

(35:40):
lucky enough to be able to have her with the kids rather
than having to pay a daycare or, you know, ship them
off to kindy early and all that sort of stuff. We, yeah,
I mean, that's how it's worked out. I've tattooed and
she's been utterly, completely and amazingly supportive of
what I do since we met. And having

(36:00):
kids as, you know, it's made the life that we've wanted
to have possible. And I get to do what I love, you
No, that's symbiotic and that works. Yeah. Do
you guys have like a date night? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Usually like what's your routine? We don't have a

(36:22):
Once a month? Once a month would be an average. Sometimes
But you know, what's crazy is there are people with like your, how
long you've been together with that age kids. They've had two in
eight years. And that, I mean, Hey, look, whatever,

(36:45):
man, if you can make it work. But for
me and my wife, I mean, we average one
when the kids were younger and the businesses were younger and all that. Yeah. our
average was probably still once a week. And now we're probably rocking two a
week on average. I mean, for us that, I don't know. I think
about that a lot because let's face it, staying in

(37:07):
love, staying romantically interested in
your partner and running businesses and having
the kids. I mean, a lot of people, it doesn't work out. It's
too much and it breaks down. And I guess everybody
needs their rhythm. A lot of people, maybe they don't need the date night. Maybe their thing
is just, hanging at home or whatever with the

(37:28):
kids or going to soccer games every fucking
weekend and all this. And I never was that
kind of, we were never those kind of parents, although we did support
our oldest in the dance career. So we'd done our share. But
I just always get curious when I meet another married guy who's
basically got on his plate what I've had on my plate my whole life, what the

(37:52):
Yeah, I think one thing that worked utterly
in our advantage just by luck.
is that we met, she was pregnant within three months. I've
only known her as either pregnant or a mum and so, pretty
much. And so we kind of experienced the honeymoon period during
pregnancy and then had a kid and we sort of have, we

(38:14):
still enjoy each other's company no matter what we're doing. It's not, you
know, like a weekend comes around and I'm not craving to go
out with the boys and do this and that. I'm like, you know, I look forward to hanging out
with her still. And I think that it worked in
our advantage, everything happening so fast. And while there
were times we were like, are we going to make it as a couple?

(38:34):
I think we definitely did. And the
fire was still there just throughout the whole period, because
we kind of were still getting to know each other through the whole thing. And
then once we'd sort of gotten to know each other, we had a baby and then we had to get to know each other as
parents and how we're going to figure that out. It sort of kept everything super
interesting. And, you know, I don't know, I feel like

(38:55):
that was kind of probably the glue that kept it together was
sort of the interest of each other while
we were both changing as people and maturing as
It's kind of like, um, two soldiers in a, you
There's a deep bond created. Both people know, like,

(39:19):
And there was so much, you know, we, we, when we got together, we were
both in some kind of debt and you know,
we had to basically get together and go, we've got to fucking sort
this out and get into a position where we can just wipe that
and make it work. And we managed to do it. And
I think, you know, that definitely brought us closer and, you know, we've had

(39:40):
our struggles, but we're still stoked to be together, you
Yeah. Cheers. Cheers to that. One of the hardest things you'll
ever do in this world, falling in love, building
a family, still somehow managing a career. Yeah.
I call it the Navy SEAL training camp of enlightenment. Like,
you know, people are like, you think I should have kids? And I go, well,

(40:03):
it depends. Do you really want to find, develop character? Like
find out what you're made of, find your flaws, you want to improve, you
want to go through all that, then yeah, you for sure should do it. And
if you're looking to have a good time, which is fine, but really just experience the
fruits of planet Earth and dance around, then
No. Well, and also, you know,

(40:25):
like when we, when we found out about my, My
eldest daughter, everything changed. This whole trajectory of,
you know, of betterment happened, you know, and
it wasn't like, okay, I've got to suddenly do all this stuff now.
And I mean, it probably was subconsciously, but everything improved,
you know, my bookings got my work

(40:47):
got better, I bought into Lighthouse, all
You started playing the game hard. Absolutely. Because you know, you look
But I didn't even do that in a kind of tangible sense. No, it's
Yeah, yeah, it just happened. When you have kids, this other part of your DNA activates,
and suddenly you are just focused and doing the things you

(41:13):
When you get up in the morning, Becoming part of a business,
And it's a great thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Best thing
Wow. So you're on a little US family tour. Yep.
We're doing it. It's been a while in the making. It was actually,
we planned it pre-COVID and then COVID wrecked

(41:34):
it. And we were going to do it with, it would have been our
four-year-old and a two-month-old at
You know, you, but you, you mentioned COVID. So, and this,
I have no idea cause I wasn't there, but the media I
was receiving during COVID of Australia and may,
you know, I don't trust any media to be honest. I'm like, I

(41:57):
don't know what the fuck's real or not real anymore, but it was
a little insane. They show, I saw videos
of people. I think they were taking them to like camps. No,
Oh, look. Not that I'm aware of camps, I
I mean, you were there, you... I mean, yeah, but there were various, there were various
places, like, you gotta go to this facility until

(42:20):
you don't have it anymore. And they had, like, armed guards walking
No, no armed guards, there wasn't any of that. That's... I've heard this.
from several, actually several, I won't name podcasts that
I've heard this from where people are like, oh, you've seen that stuff in Australia and
all these, you know, people with machine guns and walking around and make, that

(42:41):
never happened or not. To your knowledge. To my knowledge. Right. That never
happened. I think there might've been certain places that
people had to isolate in when
they came back from overseas. And they were looking
for, because they basically had this rule, if you came back from overseas
and you're on a flight, you had to stay in a hotel for two weeks. Originally,

(43:03):
they were footing the bill and then it got to a point where
they were like, okay, well, if you're going to come in, you need to foot the bill. And
I think at one point the hotels were so full that
they had to put them in some, it might have been like
an army barracks style facility because the hotels were full,
but it wasn't a mandatory, you know, everyone with

(43:26):
See, I love that we talked about this. I feel like today, the
only way to really get to the truth of something is to sit like this
and ask somebody. Because I mean, I swear to God, and
the algorithm probably knew I was very suspicious of
the entire thing. So it was feed me out like, oh,
he would love seeing this video. And I was lighting up on the other end

(43:51):
Yeah, yeah. There was a few, I mean, there was a couple of places like in
Melbourne, there were a few towers of people that were,
I had to isolate because they had outbreaks of COVID. There
But it wasn't to the extent the media made out or at least the
media here made out or whatever. Yeah, I've

(44:12):
heard a lot of people from the U.S. Well, I've
had a lot of people in the U.S. ask similar questions. It wasn't as
All right. Well, there we go. It's settled. Yeah. I always wanted to ask a
real, by the way, you're not just an Australian, you're a tattooer. And
I know us, you know, tattooers, we have our fingers out

(44:32):
there in the Eddie's. We get the dirty information. If
it's going down, somebody would have probably told you. That's
You talk to a lot of people. Lots of
different people. Lots of walks of life. That's how you really get the truth.
You can't believe anything coming out of these films anymore, dude. It's getting wild.

(44:53):
Uh, let's switch gears here a little bit. So, how about you
give me your take, tattooing's past, present,
You don't have to go deep, just, you
Okay. Well, I can only really articulate

(45:14):
my experience of what I've seen and
done and experienced. That's what I want. I want your perspective. My
perspective. I entered the tattoo industry, well,
my first experience of the tattoo industry, I was in high school. And
so I was doing work experience in a shop. Long story
short, I was at a high school that had a sort of work experience program. You

(45:36):
had to select a place to work one day a week in
your desired industry. It was meant to be, for me, I was meant to
be hospitality. And I said, I'm not going to work in that. I
want to be a tattooer. That's, you know, where I want to be. And I had to get my parents to write
a letter. So I went and did one day a week in a tattoo
shop, a shop that let me do that somehow, I don't

(45:56):
know. How that happened, and I was making needles and
stencils and doing all this sort of stuff. Fucking with the
flux. Yeah, so that was the very
beginning of my introduction to any kind of
tattooing situation. So then in Australia,
that was massive gang culture, like

(46:18):
I always heard that about, that I did hear, and you're confirming it,
There was a time, yeah. I mean, not anymore as well. I mean, to
the most extent. It's not really happening anymore. But
yeah, when I started or when I even got into the industry,
that was huge. That was all it was. So while there

(46:39):
were people making art and that were good at it and people who wanted to
be good at it. I think it was more of a kind
of like, you do pretty good drawings, be the tattoo artist. And, you
know, the gang, the gangs were just sort of laundering money. And that
was the front. But my experience at the time, it
was just this taboo, intimidating place

(46:59):
to be. And I was drawn to the idea of that a bit.
It was sort of like naughty. So, yeah, that was
pre social media, pre all that sort of stuff. I
then went traveling, came back to it. And when
I came back to it, it was still, you know, no social
media, no anything. I think it might have been MySpace, perhaps.

(47:20):
And then, yeah, I eventually got a
spot in a shop as a counter hand, still pre social
media, pre all that sort of stuff. So it was magazines. That was the only sort of
way you could get any kind of inspiration. And then during
my career, or right at the start of it, that's when

(47:42):
That was the tipping point. That changed everything. Even in Australia, it
was like this immediate acceptance of
And you know, hey, fuck yeah. I mean, I
Well, totally. And, you know, there was a boom and

(48:05):
Totally. And I feel pretty stoked
to have lived through... All three phases. Yeah, all
Yeah. Coming into the light. Yeah, yeah. I think you're, I mean,
I agree with everything you're saying. I feel I went through these same phases and
Absolutely. I feel, you know, and I didn't get a huge grasp

(48:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot more. Totally. I
got enough to sort of appreciate it and to
feel lucky to have been part of it prior to transitioning to
a point where I think people come in and specialize off the
bat in some sort of style because you know, you've got access
to everything on the internet and Instagram and

(48:53):
you can look at one thing and specialize in that because it's all
you're going to practice and all you're going to learn. I feel happy that I entered
the industry and had to try to be good at everything and
wasn't, you know, when I started tattooing, there was Japanese was
sort of, it was a thing. There wasn't an idea in my head that that's where I
wanted to go. It was just, you know, that's part of tattooing. I

(49:15):
want to do whatever I think is good. And whatever I thought was good was
whatever I saw in the magazines that were like, wow, this guy's doing insane
realism. Imagine doing that. I'm going to have a crack at it. Oh, I fucked that
up. And, you know, move on to the next thing. But the
whole way through that was an exciting thing.
It was exciting to get a magazine and go, I wonder what

(49:36):
I'm going to see, not just open Instagram and go, I know exactly what
I'm going to see. You know, I can just look for it. And that felt
I don't know, man. I love your face right
now. It's the face I'm making, too. Yeah, I don't know.
We're all making the whole the future of the world. Well,

(49:58):
yeah, it's getting so weird, man. Yeah, yeah. Good. I think
I think it's going to be all right. But I'm not going to
speak for you, but I'm just going to mention, you know, there's a lot of
Up to you. AI is obviously going to start playing. The
introduction of an iPad, Procreate, all that

(50:21):
Yeah, but just to interject, I love my iPad. You draw on
That's all I draw on. What's the difference between drawing on an iPad and drawing on
paper? I mean, I know there's some nuances. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're still doing what we used to do. Absolutely. It just made it quicker, more efficient.
Look, when I say the iPad introduction, I don't really mean that the iPad
changed everything. You know, for you and I, you're

(50:44):
drawing something, I draw the way I used to draw on paper. I have a pencil sketcher,
I refine it and I do a final outline and that's sort of the drawing. Same.
When I paint, I still draw on the iPad. I would draw on paper.
The iPad's far more convenient. I've got a tiny house. It's easier for me to
sit on the couch and draw than it is to pull all my papers out and reference and all this sort
of stuff. So, you know, I did the same thing when I do a painting. Pencil

(51:06):
sketch, final sketch, print it out, light box, pencil sketch, and
then brush, you know, and that goes that way. Tattooing obviously
makes stencils make the tattoo. But things like realism, the
way that Procreate changed the game for realism, I
mean I guess Photoshop would have done the same thing but I feel like
having an iPad and everything at your fingertips and dragging and dropping and doing

(51:27):
all this sort of stuff, there was a change. There was a change in the way people
did realism and it got crazy good. Agreed.
Into the future, maybe we're going to start doing six fingered, you
know, skeletons because everyone's using AI for reference. I
don't know. But there's definitely
going to be some form of AI interjection, I

(51:50):
think, into the industry. There already is. Well, yeah. Already. But
beyond, I think, maybe beyond just the
Yeah. I don't know. Good synopsis. I
couldn't agree more. Yeah, I love it. And again,
it's all good, man. I really don't think AI can fuck

(52:14):
Oh, well, look, you know, like it's not it. I
get, I get that there is a, you know, you could use
it to your advantage in ways. And look, I've,
I've used, I've typed in shit and I've come out with some stuff. Like I
did some typing on, what is that thing? Discord, the
mid journey. The mid journey. Yeah. Yeah. So I typed in some like,

(52:37):
you know, explanations of like scenes with reapers and
like medieval carved out of marble and
all this sort of stuff. And the shit it came out with was mind-blowingly
good. In a lot of ways. I
would and could. The fact that that is available pisses
me off, but it also blows my mind. So,

(52:59):
yeah. I don't know. There's the
laziness that shit is going to create is going to piss me off,
Hey man, I don't have a strong opinion here. That's
why I talk about it to people, especially other tattooers, because I'm I'm
just watching and absorbing and having emotions, and

(53:20):
I don't know what to do with it all. You know, I have contemplated it
a lot, and not just in the context of tattooing, the world, of
course, but, you know, for tattooing, it's
gonna change everything. It already has to some degree. You know, the
artist's ability to sit down and, you
know, it's not just futuristic drawings either, you know, because somebody the

(53:41):
other day was like, Oh aaron not everyone's gonna be tattooing like
crazy three or sixteen eyed face portrait looking
surreal video game looking tattoos and
i was like oh yeah i pulled out this little program i got a
traditional panther yeah dope as fuck Then
I hit another button, add angles, like

(54:03):
a cubist version. And I was like, oh, I mean, by the end of
this three minutes, I had like 19 rad tattooable
designs. Three minutes. I'm like, you know, well,
Aaron, see, I haven't seen that. Oh, it
does it. But I haven't, I haven't been, you just got to enter. Um, uh,
one of your keywords has to be like traditional tattoo aesthetic. And

(54:25):
then boom, everything goes from like a video game looking drawing to like
old school sailor Jerry. But like with a little different, I
can't haven't quite seen it like that before. You know, and these
things are only getting better at light speed. So, you
know, the need for an illustrator, You
still need a tattooer. You still need someone who can compose

(54:48):
on a human body. And then, of course, you still need a technician. You've
got to know how that fucking machine works. You've got to know how to put ink. You've got to be
efficient. You've got to treat your client. There's all this human shit that
still has to happen. And that will still be a gateway. If
you can't figure that out, bye-bye. We go, they stay.
I believe the creative illustration part

(55:12):
of tattooing is going to become non-necessary. Now,
But just remove that from the
Yeah. Suddenly you've got all this time to do
Yeah, that. And I don't know what that means. I don't know. I don't
have a, I honestly, I'm not personal about this. It just

(55:34):
is what it is. This stuff's happening. I'm not going to have, sit
here and, you know, but, uh, it's happening and
It's definitely interesting. But I think, you know, if you're going
to drink the Kool-Aid and go as far as,
you know, allowing something to illustrate what
you're doing and what you're going to apply to someone's skin in all

(55:58):
the other, you know, if you're still the front of house guy who says hello
to the customer and you're still applying the stuff, I think you're going to get
shittier at tattooing. Because I think there's part of the drawing process
that's applied to the tattooing process. You've got that muscle memory, you
know, like when you, When I draw something, I've kind
of roughed it up a few times and then I finalize the drawing when I

(56:18):
tattoo it, it feels like I'm redrawing the same thing that I've
drawn over and over again. It doesn't feel like I'm figuring
it out as I go. If I went out there and
pulled one of your flash pieces off the wall that I'd never seen before and made a
stencil and put it on the skin, I'd feel like I was figuring it
There's a ton of guys out there though that are girls, guys. that

(56:41):
are so good at just looking whatever's on
their iPad, and it happens on skin. They're
just map followers. I'm not
so good at that either, to be honest. Like fuck, when I tattoo, I hardly
But then you would lose the stylistic nature of your

(57:02):
Now you're getting more close to where I agree with you. A
factor here, let's call it the human soul? Totally. I
Absolutely, well yeah, you gotta make a mistake here and there that you gotta fix on
You know, how many times during a tattoo were you, you know, the

(57:25):
concept is there, you already created it, and you're going around the elbow
and you're like, that ain't working anymore. Yeah, yeah. Like we gotta, and on
the fly you just start, adjusting all the time.
And that will still be there. And hey, look, it's
not the end. It's just, I do think many, many, many
more people will have access to this industry because of when you

(57:47):
remove the illustration part, the floodgates fucking open.
Totally. Well, that's going back to, you know, the tattoo schools. You know, as
soon as you can go and pay to do a course and get taught the
tools of the trade, you don't need to be an artist anymore. You
just have to be able to copy something from a
picture. Yeah. The rest is knowing the trade, I guess. But

(58:08):
yeah, the floodgates will open, I think. And, you know, I'll
just get more pissed off. No
but you know it's a frustrating thing to watch you know people just
come in and go there's my ticket i'm just gonna do it
yeah and you go fuck it i put so much into
Yeah yeah i hear you man and uh you know we'll see

(58:30):
how the scales go here because. As i
mean it's hot as fire right now everybody is so accepting of
anything made digitally and it's very magical it's
very news very novel and i don't know how many years this takes but
i do get the sneaky suspicion. Ten years twenty
years handmade crafts are

(58:51):
gonna be like ten x in value where they are today
like they'll be these. That'll be the thing you actually pay
real money for. I could see a
shop in the future where you advertise, like,
there is no computers in here. There is no, we
actually, everything, we have paper, we're making, and then

(59:13):
suddenly you've got these super fans that are going to
get that stuff. They want that. authentic human
interaction experience, like from one soul to their soul.
So there could be a tip, a
tipping point to it all. But I do think we're not
near that right now. We're going through this static celebration.

(59:36):
It's all new, right? And even this, you
Hypothetical. Who fucking knows. I'll tell you one thing, I think,
by the way, I'm lapping you, so let's get it together. You're
an Australian, this is embarrassing for your country. You
guys are known to be fucking hardcore as fuck. Boom.

(01:00:00):
I need to rinse that. Look at that fucking thing. I
I'm going to the Mexican lager from
Harlan Brewing. I'm a big fan of Mexican
beer in general. In fact, I'm leaving for Mexico on Monday. Driving
the entire length of Baja in a
truck with my neighbor pulling a boat. Wow. Everybody

(01:00:25):
Have you know any people down there? Pull some strings. I don't want to die. I'm kidding.
I love hijacking and busing. Years
Yeah, yeah, so I did the west coast,
well, most of the west coast of Mexico surfing. That's where all the surfing is.
Yeah, and then came up, got the ferry across the Baja, then came up

(01:00:47):
Have you been to Todos Santos? No, I don't think
I have. It's a very famous monster fucking break.
Oh really? Oh man, when it goes off, it's big. What
are you going to go with there? It's hard choices, man. Don't
fuck it up. The blondie. You're going with the, yeah, we're all, we're all, we're

(01:01:09):
Funny story though. So I'm in the Coast Guard on the East side
of the Baja and I decide I've heard of this surf break. But
we couldn't bring surfboards on this little ship I was on, so we brought
boogie boards. Because the captain wouldn't let us bring fucking surfboards.
So we hitchhike, we get two days off, I'm like, we're going to
Toto Santos. So we hitchhike, me and this buddy, hitchhike,

(01:01:31):
and then get a bus, and then the bus doesn't tell
us where the stop is, and then when we finally figure out we're way
past Toto Santos, he just like pulls over and he's like, get the
fuck off the bus, we're in the middle of the desert, I'm like, Then we
hitch, another guy picks us up, brings us back to Todos Santos. Then
we get to Todos Santos and they're like, no, it's two miles up there is where the break is.
So we walk that. I mean, this is a whole thing. Yeah. Finally get

(01:01:53):
there. Yeah. I have no idea. We don't have iPhones. We don't know what the
swell is. Nothing. I come around the top
of the beach there. I'm not kidding. You do triple overhead.
It's. fucking massive. I'm
just like, oh my God, what are we gonna do with this? There's like, you
know, Volkswagen vans, a few, I'm sure these dudes are just, these guys are

(01:02:14):
gnarly. No one's even out. Yeah. And of course we, we
walk up with two boogie boards in our fins and they're from no car
and the whole beach is like, What the fuck are these guys doing here? And
we went out. We were on boogie boards, right? Yeah. We went out.
Yeah, that's all right. And then, you know, some beaches, how when they
crash and they come in and then they do a second crash on the beach.

(01:02:37):
That second crash on the sand was like head
high. So anyway, we get out there. I see a
set coming and I'm terrified. I never
kicked my little feet so hard in my life. I barely crashed that
last wave. And now we're out out and I'm, you know,
I'm safe kind of, but I'm like, we got to go back in
there somehow. So anyway, my buddy, Bob. Another

(01:03:00):
set comes through medium. He's like, I'm just taking a dude.
Boom, Bob's gone. So
now I'm out there all alone. I'm looking at it and watching, watching. There's
Bob way on the little man on the beach is waving like he's in somehow. I'm
like, Oh man, my turn. So I
ended up grabbing one, made it down the phase, big

(01:03:21):
fucking crap. I must've been on that beach for 20 minutes
trying to time that landing. Got in okay, didn't
break my neck. So we went out, we both caught one wave, got
to the beach, grabbed our little boogie boards and walked past all the pro surfers
Yeah, that's terrifying, man. I've been out a few times when

(01:03:42):
the waves have been way too big for me. And
that point where you paddle out and there's a set in
front of you breaking just so it's going to break from me to you
away, or it's going to land and you're like, I'm fucked. I'm
fucked. Completely fucked. And then you spend the next hour like in
the washing machine trying to paddle through all the whitewash and all the

(01:04:07):
It's scary. Yeah, it's very scary. Well,
yeah, so you spend some time down in Baja and Baja is beautiful and awesome
and it really, you know, knock on wood, it
is indeed, the people down there are the most friendly people I've ever met and
I'm really looking forward to this trip. It'll be fun. I've never seen,
I've always gone to this place on the Baja or whatever.

(01:04:29):
We're going to drive the whole distance, so it'll be fun to see it. Yeah. The whole
Have you been to Sayulita? You would have been there, right? Just north of,
Oh yeah, Sayulita. Sayulita. Oh yeah, totally been there twice. Okay.
That's beautiful. Yeah. We went there and this is
20 years ago on our trip down. And I remember saying

(01:04:50):
to my mates, I went, I am going to move here one day.
I swear to you, I'm, this is where I'm going to end up and live. I haven't been since.
You meet a lot of guys you could tell made that decision there. Yeah, absolutely. Man,
that place is amazing. I mean, again, I saw it
Last time I was there was probably five years ago. It's still quaint

(01:05:15):
Yeah. It was pretty busy when I was there. Yeah. When, when we were there,
there was a few, like it was a bit touristy, but
it was almost like it had maybe not just been discovered, but it
was not, we weren't sort of like, we weren't the only,
you know, well Australians or Americans there,
It's a little different now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's cool that you've done that

(01:05:38):
much time in Baja. I love, I love that place and it's
cool to live so close to it here in San Diego. Most San Diegans,
you talk to them about Baja nowadays and they were just like, they
feel like you're going to like a war zone. Like, yeah, you would, you
Kind of like, yeah, I'm going down there. Yeah. Well,

(01:05:58):
Is it that sketchy? Again, I don't think so. I mean, you
know, the news, we hear about everything now, instantly.
I mean, you know, to be fair, there were
Oh, from Australia. Yes. So everyone's on high alert
right now. Yeah. There were a couple of tattooers actually. There was one girl who's
guested with us who was, I think they were quite close

(01:06:21):
friends with her. And, um, she instantly put the
But hey, to be fair, they were killed by drug
addicts. Okay. They weren't killed by the cartel. Right.
They were just. It could happen here. You
could be camping on a beach in California somewhere, some tweakers show

(01:06:44):
up, they want the rims off your car, and something goes bad, that's what
happened. They just wanted some way to make money, to go buy drugs. And
I did hear, I think it's pretty established, that they fought back,
I think, too, and these guys had guns, and I think it was two guys
and a girl, and they killed those guys, man, which is, Sad
as fuck and I don't think that is what

(01:07:06):
Baha is, I think there's random, it's like lightning striking,
I mean look we hear about shootings here in America and I think even coming
over here it was like, you know you have it in the back of your head that
this happens, you know. People own guns here in
Australia. They don't. I mean, they own them, but it's not
like you can't buy a gun in a shop ever. I didn't know that. You've

(01:07:28):
got to be fully licensed. They've got to be locked in
a safe that's in some part of your house that is inaccessible to
anyone but you. And I mean, I don't know if it's that far, but you
will only own a gun if it's for hunting purposes and You
know, if you're part of a, I think, rifle club or something, but
you don't... So that's a good lie, because then normal people can't

(01:07:56):
Yeah, well, yeah, sort of. But it's not like
we don't have, you know, people walking around shooting
massive people ever. It happened, it has happened, but
it's massively rare. There's gun violence in
gangs and, you know, biker war, you know, turf violence
and all that sort of stuff. But random people killing random

(01:08:20):
Well, what can I say to this? There's a part of me that
was drilled into me as a young American male
by my father. And I mean, hey, look, our right to
bear arms. It's in our constitution. And they are very
clear to tell you why. Yeah. You know, hey, look, if we don't all
have guns at some point. the government can

(01:08:40):
just tell us what to do. So we all need guns. I
own guns. My family owns a lot of guns. I
only have a couple of guns. Just, you know, I'm not a, not crazy about it,
but that law still makes sense
to me. I think I do support it, but it's
challenging to hear you say that because, you know, I guess there's probably

(01:09:01):
stats on this, but there's a lot more gun violence in America than there is
Well, and they used to be in Australia. I mean, I don't know if there was as much as
America, but I know that there
was a point where guns were basically taken off
everyone, because it used to be similar. The laws used to be similar.
And they were taken off everyone and mass incinerations of these

(01:09:24):
guns and all this stuff. And then since then, the gun violence kind
of went down, down, down, down, down. And then now it's rare.
But do you worry a little that that might be like a setup for
what they got planned next? I'm going down the
rabbit hole, everybody. I'm going Alex Jones on this episode.

(01:09:45):
Hey, look, I'm down for anything that makes place a
I think here it's massively, it's so part
of, you know, this country that, and it has been obviously
forever. It would be hard to turn that around and for everyone

(01:10:10):
It's my right. Oh, they're
going to fight for that right. Cool, man,
cool. Well, look, this has been fun. I've been told the
attention span of most people nowadays is a
little bit on the shorter side. I could do this for another three hours,
personally. Sure. But let's wrap it up. Cool. I

(01:10:31):
do want to know a couple more things. Okay. Maybe there's something, maybe
there's nothing. What's next for you? I don't know. I
mean, you got your shit together. I can feel the vibe. What's
Oh man, don't ask me that, I don't know. Can you plan personally?
Yeah. It's the Australian dream, you know? Buy
a nice house and settle down, no. I mean that's part of it, it's hard.

(01:10:54):
Sydney is a, as I'm sure and as I've heard it is here, it's
an expensive place and it's forever getting more and more
expensive and the idea of I don't know you can't
I mean look tattooing I love tattooing I want to tattoo till I die it's
the idea of ever retiring from doing tattoos scares
the shit out of me but in terms of you know where I want to
take my life and my family and all that sort of stuff who at the

(01:11:17):
end of the day that's kind of what it's about For me? I
don't know, I don't know, I don't know. It's sort of hard to say what
the ten year plan is because it's unwritten. At the moment it's
in the air. Life is expensive, life is hard, things are
The plan is to keep grinding. Keep grinding, keep pushing.
Keep pushing your own personal art. Yeah. Keep pushing

(01:11:38):
the shops. Absolutely. Keep growing your brand. Yeah, look
that's, yeah. You prosper, the people that are with you in your
shops, they prosper. Totally. And with enough luck, everyone's
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, on an artistic level, yeah. I mean,
pushing is number one. And the shops, I
mean, we've got a great crew of guys and girls, all

(01:12:01):
of which do incredible work. You know, the idea of our shops as
a whole is to kind of, you
know, make all of us better. And
we have this idea to bring people on and help them,
have them help us and inspire each other to create
something better than it was. And, you

(01:12:24):
know, that's forever the goal artistically with
Lighthouse. We're kind of, you know, that's what we're about. We
want to make people, we all want to be better, you
It's beautiful i mean that mantra that statement man
everybody carry that to work everyday what a great world to be

(01:12:45):
you know let's all get together and inspire each other and help
each other well that's that's the grass you know that's the grass roots of the
You know that's what we hope for it'll happen. Yeah,
I mean it does and it is and you know people do get better they come on
and we all kind of get together and we you know help each other out and
everyone's open and we all want to share and everyone's you know asking

(01:13:08):
advice to each other and how does this look and we
all do it and it's It's a good collective. And
I feel like that, if we can keep pushing that, everyone's going to get better and
I think the only thing you got to add to that is you, you need a very
Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And hopefully, you know, a

(01:13:29):
new AI manager will start creating all the designs for us and
Oh my God. You're joking a little, but an AI
Probably not. Imagine walking in and you open your computer screen and there's
a little beautiful human that isn't real, that

(01:13:51):
has got all the books sorted out for everybody. It's got
all the accounting done. It's just
all happening. And you just talk to it and it just handles
it. Imagine that. Five years, dude. It's
coming. It's coming. And it's going to bring a lot of benefits.

(01:14:13):
I don't want to get into the dark side on this episode. It's been too full of
light to do that. Very cool. Where can people find you? Just
throw out some handles. Is it Insta, websites?
Yeah, look, Instagram is the most updated and regular thing to
find me. It's at Ryan Usher, R-Y-A-N-U-S-S-H-E-R. That's
the most regularly updated platform that I use.

(01:14:35):
Website, ushertattoos.com, but I
mean, that's, you know, I feel like websites are almost obsolete
these days. I mean, but you use them, but I never
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I have a contact form of a website. People click my link

(01:15:01):
If somebody wants to get tattooed by you, I mean, can
The wait time is, it's pretty long at
the moment. I think it's 2026, maybe almost
About two years, around, about. But there
are, openings here and there, especially for like, you know, I

(01:15:24):
don't just do large scale tattoos. So, so smaller stuff
I can generally fit in somewhere in between it
all. And, and obviously there are cancellations and all
that sort of stuff too. So it isn't necessarily always
Yeah. Big projects. Maybe they, you know, you got to get them
going. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. I get that. Well,

(01:15:46):
good for you, man. You're busy. You're killing it. Your work's beautiful.
Much respect to you and what you've created at Lighthouse. I appreciate
it. And of course, thank you so much for making time for
I really appreciate that. It's been unreal. Cheers, man.
Cheers, man. I said man, but I should have said mate. Mate, yeah. Cheers,

(01:16:07):
It's like a... I
I do. Yeah, well, we feel the other way because we see you all on movies, you know, so
it's, you know, you grow up. It's not true. You guys are cooler. Oh, I realize
awesome awesome alright everybody hey look thanks for tuning in

(01:16:29):
by the way i don't know if anyone noticed all this
fantastic beer we've been drinking today has been drank out
of a sullen art collective pint glass
if you guys love art like the art that this man does the
art i do and you want to see it on your favorite apparel,
t-shirts, hoodies, hats, check them out, sullenclothing.com. Ryan

(01:16:53):
and Jeremy, huge supporters of the tattoo industry, and I
say that a lot, but you guys need to realize, like, these guys actually give
a shit about this industry. They care deeply. They're
great human beings. Please check them out, and keep
the likes, subscriptions, love coming, and

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