THE LAST OF THE TATTOO PIRATES-
GILL "THE DRILL" MONTIE
By Bobby Lynn Shehorn

Tattooers Bob Roberts, Jack Rudy, Brian Everett, Deano Cook and Chris Treviño have collected his ink. Actors Johnny Depp, Roseanne and Tom Arnold are on his client list. Musicians Eddie Van Halen, Trisha Yearwood, Sean "Puffy" Combs and Tupac Shakur sport his designs. Athletes Brian Downing, Rick Fox and Shaquille O'Neal have scored from him. As an actor, he's been in the movies Army of One and Blood In, Blood Out-Bound by Honor. He has appeared on TV in Roseanne, Empty Nest, Tales from the Crypt and Jay Leno. He's appeared in the videos of Aerosmith and Poison. And this is only a fraction of his credits. He's the legendary Gill "The Drill" Montie.

From his home in Beaumont, Texas, Gill explains the secret to this success: "I have certain bragging rights that I use to the best of my ability. I can't tell you everything. The stuff I can't tell you, if you heard it, you couldn't sleep at night. But, when I tell someone, 'I won't say a word,' I won't. I have a client list that will blow your mind. I don't have it because I'm the world's greatest tattoo artist, but because I'm one of the world's greatest secret-keepers."

Gill Montie was born in Traverse City, Michigan in 1954. A poor kid in the only white family in an all-black neighborhood, Gill, along with his parents, whom he refers to as "child-abusing drunkards," moved from an old housing project in Detroit called Herman Gardens to a ghetto in Chicago, when he was 12.

"All my life I thought I was black, but everyone didn't quite see it that way," says Gill. "I got beat up a lot. I couldn't relate. I didn't understand white people at the time. I don't know if I still do. I didn't understand that pampering, wasting food, that whole part of life." A few years later, the family moved to Southern California, where Gill had his first tattoo experience.

"Because I had moved around so much, there was nothing permanent in my stinking life. No toys, no clothes, no nothin'. I was living in North Hollywood, California, around 1970, in another housing project. There was a motel right by the place where we lived called the Shangra Lodge, where some motorcycle thugs lived. These guys had tattoos. This was the time of the movie Easy Rider. I hung around these guys. They were basically hard-core and that's what I was drifting towards. The thing that was amazing was that they had these tattoos and they had 'em every day. They could not be taken away. They could not lose 'em. Your Mom can't grab you and tell you, 'Here, get on this bus. You've got to get out of here' and leave everything in your miserable life that you have accumulated. It was permanent. That just amazed me that I could literally have something that couldn't be taken away from me or lost. I would ask these cats about these tattoos and there were always fascinating stories. One day, me and a buddy from North Hollywood High cut school. We went home and put on the album "The Best of the Guess Who," and with some India ink, needles and thread, we poked some tattoos on each other. I never turned around since. It became the most logical thing a guy could ever possibly imagine. Radar on M.A.S.H. wanted to get tattooed and Hawkeye asked him, 'Why do you get these tattoos?' And he says, 'This Marine told me that they make you look tough, they make you feel great and the women won't leave you alone.' I found that to be true. So, it's been Tattoosville for Gill the Drill from that point on."

On his 17th birthday, Montie left the madness and joined the Marine Corps. While stationed at Camp Lejuen, North Carolina, he collected his first shop tattoo from Diamond Tooth Smitty. "I went up to Fayetteville. Then I realized that the guy who puts on these tattoos was bigger than life. What a scoundrel. I did my service and tour, Vietnam, a while in the Philippines and collected more tattoos, but all the time it was the tattooers, these pirates, that intrigued me more than anything."

An unavoidable altercation with an aggressive jarhead landed the loser in the hospital and landed Gill in a federal institution. After his release and discharge, he returned to California, with tattooing still in his blood.

"My mom was a maid in a motel in the Malibu area, back when there was nothing there but a motel and a gas station. In my school there was a Jimmy and Joey Amatuzzo, who I kind of befriended. They were hardcore Italian guys, which I related to. I didn't see them for years, while I was away in the service. In 1974, I'm at a drive-in and there's this pickup truck with these guys staring at me. I go over to see what the trip is and it's the Amatuzzo brothers. Well, their sister was with this guy named Doc Dog, who was getting ready to open the first tattoo shop in the San Fernando Valley at Van Nuys and Victory. Prior to that, you either had to drive out to Fifth and Main and see Tennessee Dave, or go out to the Pike to get a tattoo. And here's this jailbird, me, who never served an apprenticeship and didn't know a lot about tattooing, opening a tattoo shop in this prime real estate. Needless to say, guys like Bob Shaw, Col. Todd, Capt. Jim and those old tattoo pirates weren't too tickled about this. Dog needed some troops. I had a low-rider car by then, but when I learned about his new tattoo shop and that this guy was a biker and stuff like that, I ditched the low-rider and got a motorcycle. I approached Dog and asked, 'Can I come work for you? I want to be a tattoo guy.' He goes, 'What will you gimme?' So, he took my motorcycle. There were guys there like Howie the Hand, who was Sailor Barney's son. A pretty rough outfit was working there. It wasn't important if you tattooed or not, but you'd better be able to fight. That was 1974, when I started working in a tattoo shop.

"I stayed there a year, cutting stencils and fetching hot dogs. One of the guys, Charlie Green, who still owns the shop, didn't like me very much, and I didn't like him. We were just too different, but he and Dog were partners. Charlie gave me grief and it just wasn't worth it to be there. My girl got pregnant and I had a boy, Shane, so we moved up to Lakeview, Oregon. I had no tattoo equipment, so I was tattooing by hand and was a janitor at the high school by day. Up there, I wanted to go straight; I didn't want to be a tattooer. I wanted to work my way up the ranks at the high school and maybe be the principal. I wanted to be a good dad, because I was a physically abused, mentally abused, poor child and I didn't want this to happen to my kids. Well, lo and behold, I get a phone call and heard that my mother, who was living in Reno, got mugged by some guy and stuffed under the car. When I heard that I told my family, 'I've got to go up there and deal with the guy who did it.' He had three prior arrests, but no convictions, for bugging elderly, white women. He lived in a poor, black neighborhood. I had to wait to get my hands on this fellow without being caught. It took me about three weeks, and then I had to leave there right away.

"I went up to Talent, Oregon, and Mike LeCure, who taught me an awful lot, had two tattoo shops up there. He had me all set up. He opened up a tattoo shop inside a radiator store. At this point, I was poking in tattoos, being a scab vendor. My daughter Sheila was born there. We stayed a year. During all this time, Doctor Dog, had sold his part of the Van Nuys shop to Charlie, moved to Nevada, and opened up the first tattoo shop in Las Vegas at 414 Hoover. I went down there to work with him. We held Vegas for years."

Gill Montie was not satisfied with the steady action in Las Vegas. Once again he put on his traveling shoes, not only to learn more about tattooing, but also to learn more about the people doing it.

"I wanted to be around other tattooers, because those are the guys, man. Even back then I wanted to be around the old-school tattooers. I wanted to learn. I remember a guy, Carolina Slim, who lived in North Carolina. He's from the early Paul Rogers days, early carney days. I wanted to learn some stuff from him. He still worked out of the bucket, and had a shop in the back of his house. I had to sit out on his back porch all afternoon, before he let me in."

For 14 years, Montie traveled the American tattoo world to military bases, carnivals and bike rallies. During this period in 1985, tattooer Crazy Ace Daniels spied a drilling truck with "Gill the Drill" painted on the side and tagged Montie with his legendary moniker. For years, Gill ran Daytona Beach Underground with Wondo, where tattooing was illegal. They were annually arrested during Bike Week. He worked for a while in Ft. Meyers at Ancient Art with J.D. Crowe and at Southern Fried Tattoos in Ormond Beach, Florida. He finally returned to Southern California to work with Jack Rudy at Tattooland in San Diego in 1989.

"On my way back to the West Coast, I stopped in Vegas. Doc was still sitting in the room, like he never left. He had sat there for the 14 years. I basically told him, 'Dude, come on man, there's a whole tattoo thing going on. There's a world out there.' It kind of got him fired up again. He rented a free-standing building across the street and started up the new Las Vegas Tattoo Company. I remember he had a grand-reopening party. You see, I was always voted Most Likely Not to Succeed, and now they were advertising on the radio: 'Las Vegas Tattoo Company. Grand reopening featuring Gill the Drill Montie.' And I told Doc, 'If you would have told me last year that you'd be spending your money advertising my name, I'd have laughed in your face.' He got the jump start and the business kicked off. I just sparked a little fire under him."

After his hitch in San Diego, Montie made a bold move. In 1990, he opened a shop at 8861 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, between the Whiskey and Tower Records, right in the heat of the action. Tagging it Tattoo Mania, Montie became a household name in the international entertainment community and "The Drill" walked the walk as he talked the talk, tattooing the Tinseltown elite.

"It wasn't one of those stuffy shops playing classical music and with everyone holding tea cups with their pinkies stuck out. It was like a family. We rocked and we had a good time."

In 1991, with partners Fred Saunders and Randy Adams, Montie started the legendary tattoo party Inkslingers Ball. As California's premier, gala event in the international tattoo community, Inkslingers has been held in memorable venues like Johnny Depp's Viper Room, the Troubador and the Palladium.

After doing a guest spot at Todd Hlavaty's Fine Line Tattoo in Mesquite, Texas in 1998, Gill returned to the state as fast as he could. Leaving the glamour of La La Land, he sold Tattoo Mania and, a year later, landed a gig in the Deep Ellum section of downtown Dallas. Working there for a short time, he took a job at Diamond Glenn's River City Tattoo on Sixth Street in Austin. After a year in the live music capital of the World, Gill decided it was time to revive Tattoo Mania and open a shop in a smaller Texas town. His move to Park Street in the downtown district of Beaumont helped to revitalize that abandoned urban area. In bayou country, 60 miles north of Houston near the Louisiana border, downtown Beaumont is growing like wildfire, with new entertainment events, restaurants, clubs and other businesses.

In 2004, Gill was diagnosed with throat cancer. His medical condition concerned many of his friends in the tattoo industry, especially the National Tattoo Association and Bill Tinney. Several fundraisers followed. The annual National Tattoo Association Convention in March 2006 in Cincinnati auctioned off a limited edition set of 27 design sheets by 30 world-renowned tattooers called 'Friends of Gill Montie,' with proceeds going to Gill's medical expenses. Along with individual contributions, he received relief from the Col. Todd Hardship Fund of the National Tattoo Association. In December 2005, Houston's Live Fast Hot Rod Tattoo Convention and Kustom Culture Art Show held an auction for Gill's benefit. Montie emotionally stated his thanks for this continuing care and support:

"They basically have kept me alive," he acknowledges. "They've come to my aid. What the tattoo community has done for me is just amazing. These people came and they gave and they gave and they gave. They're the greatest group of people there is. Please tell them thank you from the bottom of my heart."

To add insult to injury, Hurricane Rita hit the Texas coast in the aftermath of Katrina in 2005. Gill and the Tattoo Mania crew hastily packed up their equipment and memorabilia, boarded up the shop and evacuated Beaumont. Eighty miles inland, the Montie family was welcomed in Conroe, Texas, by Beau Vernon and Shaper's Quest. Although there was minimal damage to the Beaumont shop, they were out of electricity for a month.

Tattoo guru, accomplished artist, promoter extraordinaire and experienced entrepreneur, Gill "The Drill" continues to be an inspiration, not only for the younger tattooers like Pete Meiners, his protégé of seven years, but also to all the older cats who have experienced this hard-core, tough guy, whose kind and caring heart is as big as Texas.

"There's a lot of emphasis put on these young guys and their art, and that's okay," says Gill. "A cool picture is good, but I think learning about the characters is the thing. The emphasis should be more on the tattooers. I'm the tattooers' tattooer. I try to teach the new tattoo guys to give respect to the old-timers, the tattoo pirates, like Smiling Paul and Carl Foster, who recently passed away. May they rest in peace. I'm probably nuttier that a friggin' fruitcake, but some people care too little. They lack that moral fiber. You set up the tattoo machine, you lay in a tattoo, you get your money and you go have a beer. The ritual, that experience, is as important as the tattoo. To me, putting a tattoo on somebody is a great honor."

GILL MONTIE'S TATTOO MANIA
601 Park St.
Beaumont, Texas 77701
(409) 838-2345
www.Gillmontie.com