FEATURE ARTICLE — May 2003
FREDDY NEGRETE—A CONVERSATION WITH BABA
Freddy Negrete is a legend. That's for sure. As a seminal member of the fine-line triumvirate, along with Goodtime Charlie Cartwright and Jack Rudy, Negrete helped introduce
single-needle, black and gray tattoos to a dumfounded world back in the '70s. In the process, Negrete established an M.O. more appropriate to a rock star than a California tattoo artist. Everyone's got a different story, and
it's sometimes difficult to know where Negrete's legend starts and reality begins. But thanks to my friend and primo ex-graffiti bomber Baba from Vintage Tattoo in Highland Park, California, Skin & Ink finally got a chance
to meet the elusive icon. Tucked away in Gill Montie's old shop, Tattoo Mania on Sunset Boulevard, Negrete works by appointment only, right down the street from the Hustler Store and his old pal Mark Mahoney's Shamrock Social
Club.
—Editor
BABA: I wanted to start this from the beginning, all the way to now, and include everything like the movies, the CD, the music and everything that people don't know. I'm curious about you. There were rumors that some amazing black and gray single-needle Chicano art was showing up in East L.A., and they basically found out you were doing it. You came by, and they put a needle in your hand, and you took to it like it was nothing. Well, I'm wondering why you would go to Tattooland and not like Fat George's, considering where you were at back then.
FREDDY NEGRETE: Fat George's wasn't open yet. It was open, but it wasn't owned by Fat George, it was owned by Mike Pike.
B: You mean Mike Pike's dad?
FN: Oh, Yeah. Mike's dad. There wasn't even Tattooland yet. It was Good Time Charlie's. It used to be one of those little used-car lots. It had like a little house with an office building in the back with a fountain in the front. And a big parking lot, you know. And the house with the fountain and everything looked like a hut. We named it Tattooland. We painted it yellow.
B: What were you tripping on when they asked you to come by? Were you like cool with it?
FN: Yeah, I was really cool with it. Actually, I had gone by there once, and we would buy machines from Colonel Todd and Bob Shaw. They would always kid with us and tell us, "None of that stuff is gonna hold. It's all gonna fall out." I think somewhere along the line, somebody had tried single-needle, and it didn't work out good.
B: True. The first convention is where you guys just basically blew everyone away, right? Was it Reno?
FN: No, it was Houston in 1977.
B: Was it hard making the transition for you—from doing homemade stuff to actually working with machines and working in a shop?
FN: No, man, no problem at all. I wanted to make transitions. I saw how much better it was using multiple needles for shading and stuff. When I first went over and talked to them, it was Good Time Charlie, Keeper, Lady Blue and Jack Rudy.
B: You mean Lady Blue with the cowboy hat?
FN: Yeah. And Good Time Charlie turned Christian and quit tattooing. He started tattooing leather and doing art pieces on leather. And he sold the shop to Ed Hardy. And Ed Hardy told Jack he wanted to get somebody that knew that style of work, and Jack told him about me. I had already talked to Jack, and he did the whole arm check on me. He was all like, "Let me see your tattoos," and he was looking for marks. They sent word saying they wanted to talk to me over at the tattoo shop. So I went over there, and they gave me a job. I got happy. I was going to do a two-week apprenticeship, and Creeper went on a trip and jumped up and split. Like the next day after they hired me, he split. So the next day I started tattooing.
B: You took to it like a duck to water. You're like natural at it.
FN: I guess I've been tattooing all that time when I was busted.
B: Mike Brown was there later on, right?
FN: Well, he was always around, because he worked with Ed. It wasn't until after that I got the job at Tattooland. It seemed every time we'd go to San Francisco, he'd be around.
B: So, you said you stayed until what year?
FN: Nineteen eighty. I quit tattooing. I quit tattooing for ten years. I went to college and a bunch of other shit.
B: What did you study in college?
FN: I was an archaeology major, and my emphasis was apocalyptic literature. Then, in 1990, I went back to tattooing and went to work with Jack. At least I thought I was going to work with Jack in San Diego at the other Tattooland. The one that Winona Martin owned. That got me back in shape real quick. It was a really high-volume military shop. San Diego's a military town—Marines and Navy. They have an Air Force base, submarine base, all kinds of stuff. We were right next door to the Naval Training Center. I was in San Diego for not quite a year, because after that I got a letter from this film director. He wanted somebody to help him. He was doing a prison movie. He wanted somebody to help him with the tattoos. So I met him, and they hired me, and I took a little bit of time off from San Diego. I thought I was just going to be working a few weeks on that show, but so many things happened that he hired me for the rest of the duration. I worked on it for six months, and I became partners with Freddie Blau, the makeup artist. He's the one that invented Real Creations. He invented it for that movie Tattoo starring Bruce Dern. There was a big article on him in Skin & Ink [May 1997]. So, after that, he was the one who got me on a lot of films, about 30-something features. The last one that I just finished, redesigning stuff for Blade II. Then I quit Tattooland and went to work at Tattoo Mania in Hollywood. Because I had that side thing going, variety tattoos. And I hired Gill.
B: He was in Blood In, Blood Out, right?
FN: Yeah, I hired him.
B: So was Dan Paolucci. Wasn't he sweeping floors or something?
FN: Yeah, Dan was in it. Gill, Wando and Clay Decker. We had this other guy from New York, Temple. It was a pretty good crew. Then that whole shit fell apart, all of a sudden there was a warrant out for my arrest, you know, for probation violation. Someone called my probation office and told him something. And we had all this drama. But anyway, I went on the lamb and hid out in Isla Vista, hit a bunch of money and had all kinds of fun. The people that I was doing custom work on were people from Santa Barbara, you know. One of them is coming right now, you'll meet him, Lee Majors. They're professional people that wanted tattoos and were encouraging me to open a shop in Santa Barbara—downtown. And then, when I decided I was going to do that, I turned myself in, and my sheriff friends got me out in three months on a year. I painted all kinds of murals in there. And when I got out I went to Santa Barbara, and three weeks later we opened up that tattoo shop. We got lucky. We only had to pay 200 bucks. Can you believe that? It was on a sublease, and this guy had a motorcycle place where he was selling Ducatis and shit. And the store part went under, but he was still fixing them in there, so he rented us the front. Supposedly, he was only gonna be there for a year, but he was only there for a month. After that, I got the whole building. He let me move in for 200 bucks! I was like, "How much is this going to cost me?" He goes, "I don't know. Prorate it—200 bucks!"
B: Damn! That was a nice shop. I remember seeing pictures. My brother, Odie, actually went up to that shop. He's been up there before.
FN: I made it kind of different. I had a huge collection of artifacts. I had all kinds of stuff.
B: Was that the time you were experimenting with graffiti-style tattooing?
FN: Yeah. I thought I was doing a poor job. Plus, in Santa Barbara, they turned into such assholes over there. Pat Fish was no help. The thing with her was, she was being haunted by me because we went to high school together. I guess we were in the same freshman class. She had this candle thing, and it had both of our pictures from the yearbook. I must have hit her or kicked her or something. Finally, I just went and talked to her. I told her, "I have nothing bad to say about you to anybody."
B: You guys were obviously a threat to her. People were probably walking out of your shop with a bunch of bitchin' shit, and she felt threatened.
FN: Well, after we kind of made up a little bit, she started sending people to us. Like if they wanted black and gray or prison stuff—or what she called prison stuff.
B: That's all it's called when people come to our shop. They're like, "Hey, can you guys do prison art?" We try to school them on it and tell them what it is. One time some guy came in and said, "Hey, I got this in a joint. You know where I can get something like it? And my brother goes, "Yeah. Go commit another crime." And that pissed him off.
FN: It was the thing with Tattooland—it was like something to be all tatted with joint-style tattoos. That means you were like a badass, because you went to prison and stuff. So we were doing it, and people could come in and get joint-style tattoos without having to go to the joint.
B: We see it. They just call it collaging. They show up, and they're like, "You guys collage?" You try to explain depth and perspective to them, and, all of a sudden, you're a know-it-all. And they get all mad because you insulted them. It's kind of funny. Two weeks later they're back apologizing. So, did you always have a connection to the music world or did that show up once you went up north?
FN: That happened right here. It started here first, because I like rap music a lot, and Cece Deville from Poison used to hang out here all the time. He knew this producer with an eight-track, so he made a track for me, and we recorded a song. Then, later on, when I was doing temporary tattoos, I was doing it for this music video, and this girl Raja Nay—I ended up doing her tattoos for real. She did it for the album and stuff, but then she was like, "I've got to put them on for real." When she came to the tattoo shop, she would bring her boyfriend with her, and he was cool. Well, the third time they came up there, I found out he was a producer. So I played the demo for him, and he said we could work something out. His name was Chris Gunn, and, way back then, in 1993, we started recording. I did about 17 songs, but it was to be on a pop record and shit. Then, all of a sudden, the owner from Thump decided he didn't want any more gangster rap. He sells all that oldies shit to gangsters, you know what I mean? Anyway, that's because Kid Frost hit him, and he just had too many with him. And, at the same time, I was doing punk-style, Mexican rap lyrics. You know what I mean? And I didn't want to do that. I wanted to do rock n' roll like my friend Lynn. I was all into snot and rock n' roll. I didn't want anything to do with that other thing. My heart was set on keeping that rock 'n' roll thing. So, when we got back to Hollywood, this time, we got it going. So now we got shit on two fronts, you know. We signed with Tyson Beckford, the supermodel. He had something going for us in New York, and we joined another group. Me and my son. My son, because my son sings too, and I got him in our group. So this other deal was cool because it was a group, it's called Aggravated Assault, and Romeo, the producer, he used to play with Prince's band. He made a badass album. We are going to put four songs on that album. It comes out this summer.
B: That's cool.
FN: So, we'll have shit out right away, and then we'll go around and record with Big West and Suge Night—Big West is Suge Night's brother. Big West has two record companies. He's the one that's making the other thing happen. One group is Insanity and the other is Seventh Assault. I was always gonn' be a solo, but we made it a group out of it. It's going really good.
B: Is it surprising that a lot of your old customers are finding out you're back and doing a lot of stuff now? They come in, and they bring up your name, thinking, I don't know who you are, and that they know something. "Have you ever heard of this guy? This vato used to do all kinds of cool shit." And I would say, "Yeah, Freddy," and they say, "How you know him?" It's funny, because I'm a half-breed, so they don't think I know shit.
FN: It's funny. I'm actually a half-breed too. My mom's Jewish, so actually I'm Jewish because, when you have a Jewish mother, you're Jewish.
B: I'm half-Irish and half-Mexican. I should be an AA. I should be an alcoholic or something.
FN: I'm the Jewish-Mexican. I'm the greedy thief!
B: Do you have any plans for the future? Like your own shop again?
FN: Some kind of miracle would have to happen in order for me to own a shop again. I am going to the music thing, and I'm looking forward to that. And I'll always tattoo, you know what I mean? I'll always have my home base here. I've got to keep tattooing, or I'll be in trouble with myself and the tattoo god.
B: Have you ever apprenticed anybody?
FN: Yeah. Have you ever heard of In the Skin in Pasadena? Maya, she's the manager there. I apprenticed her. I also apprenticed these guys in San Diego that own this shop Stream Lines—Rob and Dan. You know what's funny, when I first came back I just did stuff off the wall. You know, I still don't make appointments, and I didn't want anybody asking me cuts on work. I just tattooed stuff off the wall, whatever people asked for. I had to draw it on top. I still do that, but at least, I have a few good customers to keep it interesting. I'll be willing to be challenged on any tattoo that somebody asked me for, but what I pretty much would prefer is black and gray. What I've been finding out is, I love to do black and gray. Being half-Chicano, I grew up with it. But I never really wanted to do Japanese. I never really like that style of coloring. I did graffiti. I did black and gray, shit like that, but once people started coming to me for that, I'm finding out it's a lot of fun. I'm making my own twist in it. But it was stuff that I was not even interested in doing—that's what I do now. It's actually turning out to be fun. I'm probably disrespecting every fucking Japanese rule by what I do with it, but still, when you see the Japanese stuff that Ed Hardy, Greg James and Paul Jeffries do. that shit is just amazing. I don't think I could ever do that well, as well as those guys do it. I've got to stick to what I do.