Since we're driven by metal and fascinated with tattoos, we figured it was high time to reach out to heavy metal tattoo genius Paul Booth and ask him to toss us a guest blog. Well, it turns out Booth is as prolific with a pen as he is with a tattoo needle. He sent us numerous anecdotes about his misadventures with metal legends, all of which are well worth the ink (get it, ink?) they're printed on. So, we decided to give Booth a weekly outlet for tattoo tales that'll continue until he runs out of stories or suffers repetitive stress injury from writing and can no longer tattoo rock stars. Here's the first edition of Paul Booth's Thrashin' Ink.
I met Sepultura drummer Igor Cavalera at a tattoo convention out in either Arizona or California. I can’t recall which, but I remember the meeting clear as day. Igor had a mutual friend introduce us because he felt weird coming up and approaching me. The funny thing was I was a huge Sepultura fan and, had I known he was there, I probably would’ve bugged the s--- out of him.
But he ended up finding me first, and I made some time at the convention to tattoo him. I’d have to say that Igor was the first “rock star” I tattooed. He invited me out to Arizona, and I ended up staying at his place and tattooing his brother Max and family. Huge fun and great people. They invited me out on the Sepultura/Pantera/Biohazard tour in ’94. That was where I learned to live on a tour bus. It was cool as f--- and it was hell at the same time -- a tremendous experience, no doubt about it!
Since then, I've toured a lot with Ozzfest and other festivals and I've done a lot of tour jumping as well. I really enjoyed the lifestyle and did a lot of tattooing to earn my keep. It was always party central, I suppose, so it was difficult to tattoo in that environment. I will only tattoo sober, and I always seemed to manage.
One time when Biohazard were onstage, a manager and one of the techs of somebody I don’t remember came in and said I was needed out by the stage. I had no idea why, but I walked up and Biohazard frontman Evan Seinfeld came to the side of the stage, grabbed me, and dragged me out in front of 10,000 people, introducing me as his tattoo artist. Needless to say, I was pretty freaked since I’m not really good in front of that many people. I hadn’t been that nervous in a while; I mean, these guys were there to hear music, not see my fat ass, but it was still a great time and I will always appreciate what Evan did.
I ended up meeting a lot of bands on that tour, constantly setting up plans to tattoo in different places from tour to tour. That was cool for a while, but I don’t think it could do it now. I'm getting too old for that s---! But when I was tattooing Evan and the boys in the dressing room area, I learned one valuable lesson. Do all tattooing during the daytime, not at night, because once these guys play a show, forget it. The dressing room is packed with people and it’s just not a great place to tattoo. The one night when I was tattooing Evan some drunk chick wandered over, stumbled and she fell over my entire tattoo setup, knocking it all down. I had to clean everything up, but, that’s how I learned my lesson. Note to self: no more night tattooing on tours.
Now here's some cool video of Paul at play:
Comments