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TATTOO
ROAD TRIP—
I used to drive the hour or so out to Lancaster just to hear Mike Pike talk. And not just because he's got more stories than ten other tattooists his age, but because he sounds like his pipes are coated with rust and velvet. Foggy and blown-out at the same time. Every guy wants to have his voice. But more than that, his Psycho City tattoo shop on the edge of a busy street in God-forsaken Lancaster, California, is always hopping with people: talky customers, hotrods, old-timers, pretty girls and guys with cigarette packs rolled up in the sleeves of their T-shirts. It's hot out there in the desert. But, inside, the shop is cool. And not just temperature-wise. I've know Mike for a decade or so. He and Jojo Ackermann are like family. My son Noah used to work at Psycho City. He'd drive in from Van Nuys four or five times a week and got his chops working alongside Mike, Jojo Ackermann and the rest of the Psycho City crew. Noah first met Mike and Jojo at a convention put on by Sammy Ramirez in Guadalajara a few years back. Noah went with me to experience Mexico and, since Noah wasn't prepared to tattoo there, Mike handed him some equipment and invited him to share the booth with him and Jojo. That's the way Mike is, immediately helpful and supportive. He didn't know if Noah could tattoo, but he said he did and that was enough for Mike. He'd lean over and watch Noah work, giving him tips and telling him how great his work was. It was the beginning of a solid friendship between the two of them. And Noah couldn't have had a better, more patient, more encouraging teacher. That's the way Mike is. You can tell by the type of people that hang out on chairs in the back parking lot. Nice people. Funny people. In fact, when I did a chapter on Mike in my book Tattoo Road Trip—Southern California a few years ago, Mike had twice, no, three times the number of customers coming to be photographed than any other shop in the entire SoCal area. Plus, one of his clients was a cool Thai gentleman with a full bodysuit and a restaurant down the block. So, Mike had two entire eight-by-ten tables piled high with fantastic ethnic food and plenty of cold drinks for everyone to enjoy. Just another example of how big Mike's heart is and how people gravitate toward his disposition and, of course, his immense talent.
The first tattoo Mike Pike ever saw was a tattoo on his mother's back. It was done by a tattooist named Doc Dog. It was a crescent moon done at the Van Nuys Tattoo Emporium when Mike's dad, J.R., was working over there. "She has other tattoos, too," says Mike, "but when I think of the first tattoo I ever saw, that was the one. I grew up seeing it every day and thought everyone had tattoos. I thought that people I saw on the street, even though you couldn't see them, had tattoos under their clothes, because I was raised in that environment. "I drew from an early age, because my father was an artist. My mom drew and she always made stuff, macramé, that sort of thing. She was an artist for sure, but my father definitely was. Both my mom and dad tattooed me when I was a kid. The first tattoo I ever got was when I was seven or eight years old, because I remember—I had already had it for a year—I remember getting thrown out of school for it and the child protective custody people came over and said, 'Hey, what are you doing with this kid?' It was nuts. "I did my first backpiece when I was fourteen years old. It was on this old biker guy. A dragon. The guy's name was Jerry and it was a real cool tattoo. I was already working at the original shop that my parents had, when I was born, the Magic Castle in Santa Clarita on San Fernando Road. When we moved up to the Antelope Valley, my dad opened a shop called Tattoo Alley, and I started tattooing there in 1984. I was thirteen or fourteen years old. I remember going to school, but I couldn't tell you much about that. "In those days we had just started wearing gloves to tattoo people with. We had an autoclave and all that. I remember the first time we went out to buy latex gloves to wear, it was like, 'Do we wear these on both hands? Or do you just wear them on one?' That was a long time ago. "Nowadays, I'm tattooing in a bubble, because there's diseases but, back then, you didn't know any better. But I think that the sterile chain of events is the best thing to ever happen to tattooing. Out of everything that's going on today?there's this influx of tattooers that are tattooing in swap meets and mini-malls and this and that. I even see those guys?maybe because they see everyone else doing it?they may not know what they're doing, but they see everyone else covering everything with plastic bags and stuff so they're copying it. I hope people keep it up because there's definitely a lot of bad diseases that you don't want to get. "The first time I ever wore a mask I was tattooing in Brazil, Mexico, all over South America. Everybody wears a mask there, because tuberculosis runs rampant. I wouldn't have any objections if OSHA made everyone wear masks and eye protection when they tattoo. I was thinking recently of ordering some. When you put your face that close to someone's skin that you're tattooing them for five hours?I don't care how clean you're tattooing?you're breathing some funk and it's getting in your eyes. There's no way of getting around it. Everybody talks shit about it, but I've been saying it for awhile. You watch, people are going to be wearing them. If you think about it, it's important. We can protect the customer with all the universal precautions, but the real person who is in danger is the tattooer. Your face is in there and tattoo machines splatter. "I was tattooing at Tattoo Alley in Palmdale from 1984 to 1989, and then we opened up another tattoo shop out in Hesperia. It was also called Tattoo Alley. And then, for a few years, I traveled between both shops and tattooed. Then I opened the tattoo shop I work in now, Psycho City, in 1992. I've worked in this same station for sixteen years. In fact, I think me and Jojo Ackermann have a record of working in the same tattoo parlor in the same ten-by-ten room for sixteen years together. Sometimes I look over and I'm like, I don't tattoo with Jo anymore, and he does the same. It's weird. "To me, the biggest breakthrough in the tattoo industry is a good thing and bad thing all in one, and it's called the pre-made tattoo needle. Back in the day, you had to be an artist and a craftsman, because you had to build your tattoo machines, you had to build your needles and mix your pigments. Nowadays, you can just call up and order the stuff. I see the craftsman stuff leaving, but I also see, with the products they have out there now, it's made the really artistic tattooers tattoo better, because machines make the needles and mix the pigments, so they have the same consistency the whole time. It's kind of a little catch 22, I think. "I just look at it as part of the learning curve in tattooing that not everyone knows how to tune a machine, mix their own pigment or make inks. When all the pre-made stuff first came out, everybody was like, 'That stuff sucks,' but now the same guys who were putting it down are the first people to use it. Like Starbrite yellow; I think every tattooist uses Starbrite yellow. It's the brightest stuff ever. It works great. And all the tattoo needles are made in friggin' China. I get emails every day from sweatshops and stuff. It's really hard to take one or two hours a day out of your schedule to make needles, when you can pretty much buy a good needle for fifteen or twenty cents. Some of them are pretty good. I use pre-made liners. I don't make the liners anymore, but I definitely make all my shaders, because I use 'bug pins' and nobody makes a pre-made bug pin needle. My dad started using bug pins back in the '80s. They call them bug pins?entomologists, you know, the guys that take a moth, they have these long needles, they pin the moth up on a board for display. They're those needles. They're really long and we cut them down to size, but they're great for tattooing. They're really super sharp. I guess not a lot of people use them, they prefer number twelves, but they put the color in like crazy.
"I've worked with a lot of tattooers. Tons of them. There was this guy, Tattoo Tony. He was into doing the fine-line, single-needle stuff. I learned a lot of tricks from him. And watching my dad tattoo fifteen hours a day since was a little kid, I was absorbed in tattooing. I never played sports or I couldn't tell you how to play basketball. I just know stuff about tattoos. "I am definitely a traditional tattooer, one hundred percent. I'm artistically inclined. I can draw anything, but, for sure, I like to take a nine round and outline a tattoo, whip shade it with black and pack four or five colors into it. To me, they just look right from twenty feet away. I can do photorealistic, but it depends on the customer. If it's someone I know and the vibe is good and they're my customer, I'll do it on them. But, if they want something super-crazy realistic I may pass on it and send them out to Jamie Schene or Nikko Hurtado at Ignition. They specialize in doing that more modern portrait stuff, but if it's a single-needle, black-and-gray portrait, I'll bust that out. No problem. "I think the success of my shop is that I don't listen to all the bullshit and customer drama, and all the shit-talkers and the scratchers out of their garages. It's all about being true to it. Being on time. Showing up for your appointments. Getting your artwork done and, just like anything else, putting your nose to the grindstone and doing it. A real tattooer isn't a person who can say, 'I do tattoos eight hours a day,' because even when you go the grocery store you've got to talk shop?even if you're with your family?to the lady in front of you. You can't just say, 'Don't bother me, I'm not at work.' We're heavily tattooed. We've got to be cool in public, you know. You're a tattooer twenty-four hours a day, whether you're painting, building tattoo machines or hanging out with your friends. "If you are a twenty-year-old kid who wants to get into tattooing, I'd say that the number one rule is?you may not have a wife, a girlfriend or any other hardcore attachment in your life at that point and you're going to take on an apprenticeship?you've got to just become a soldier. You've got to, every day, draw and practice your art. Listen to people that have walked the path before you. Because tattooing is serious business." As I said, Mike Pike is always spot on. So, roll up your windows, turn on the air conditioner and drive out to Lancaster. It's hot out there?in more ways than one. Mike Pike
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