INKED: Where did you grow up?

GRIME: Grand Junction, CO. It was a small town. There wasn't a lot of stuff for kids to do, especially if you weren't a jock or a redneck. We were part of a small group of kids who were skaters and punk rockers. We caught a lot of shit for it.

What career path were you headed down before tattooing? Was Grime nearly an accountant?

I don't think I knew what I wanted to do. Since middle school I had taken every art class I could, so I guess there was part of me that enjoyed it. I never really pursued it outside of that. Skateboarding took up all of my free time. It was when I got to college that I tried to figure out what it was that really made me happy. I was always really good at math, so I'd taken higher-level math classes. In college I realized I didn't even like math. I can be good at it but so what? The things that made me happy were art-related. It was a small epiphany to realize that in order to make myself happy, I probably needed to do something creative. Then the tattoo opportunity arose, and it all kind of jelled at once.

How did you get into tattooing?

I was in Tempe, AZ going to school at Arizona State University. My buddy Chris Rupp taught me how to tattoo. It was pretty basic stuff. He wasn't that knowledgeable at the time because he was pretty much self-taught. It was a different time then, too. The information wasn't there. There was no Internet. You couldn't talk to people. Knowledge was very guarded. The tattooers we were around at the time were more of the old-school guys. They were the old guard in Arizona. They owned shops and were some of the only guys we could get equipment from. They were the kind of guys who would blow up your shop if you opened up too close to them.