Where does your infatuation with religious imagery come from?

It comes from my heart, I guess. When I was younger, I didn’t even believe in God. I would go into someone’s house and if I saw a picture of Jesus I would think they were sheep. As I got older, I realized they were metaphors. Jesus, to me, became an icon for being compassionate and doing the right thing. I’m technically considered a Christian, but when I go to India and pray in a temple, I’m basically blaspheming. A real Christian wouldn’t go pray in a Buddhist temple. Organized religion is a crock of shit. It’s fear-based. That’s what I love about Hinduism and Buddhism. They believe they came from each other and neither one is right or wrong. I’m into Jesus, man. I’m into Martin Luther King. I’m into Jimi Hendrix—anything that’s positive.

Have you gotten any negative reactions from other Christians about your religious tattoos?

I used to go into religious stores and buy holy cards that were blank on the back. Then I’d print my info on the back and hand them out as business cards. I would walk into a church supply and they would usually call people over and look at them. I was in Miami a few months ago, and I’m at some Walgreens on the corner and some old lady started telling me in broken Spanish that God didn’t want me to do that to my body. I usually remind people that their bodies are their temples. Do you want to go to a temple that’s just four blank walls, or do you want to go to a church with stained glass windows and incense burning? My body isn’t permanent, so putting artwork on it is no big deal.

When was the last time you got tattooed?

It was in England back in May. There are some artists over there that are breaking new ground. Guys like Tomas Tomas and Thomas Hooper—who actually works at New York Adorned now—who are doing this new kind of tribal stuff that doesn’t look like anything else. When Leo Zulueta started doing tribal, he could do it really well because he was using Borneo organic images. But it became these zigzags with points and it just looked horrible. It became shallow. Real tribal was all black. The Polynesian, Japanese, and all that South Pacific stuff looked very soulful to me. They’re taking that kind of subject matter and throwing a psychedelic spiritual twist on it.

You’ve done a lot of design and artwork for the TV show Sons of Anarchy. How did that come about?

My good friend David Labrava, who’s a Hell’s Angel, introduced me to John Linson, who is the producer of the show. I was tattooing David and he started telling me that they were pitching a show to FX that’s basically The Sopranos meets the Hell’s Angels. I thought it sounded fucking cool, but I never thought it was going to happen.

But you ended up designing the patch and the show is a hit.

They wanted the patch to look like a real outlaw patch. They didn’t just want to send it to the art department. They were afraid it was going to come back with some bullshit that didn’t have any balls. I was honored to design the patch and it became the show logo. You see it constantly. I wanted something that looked really gritty and ’70s. I made sure the letters weren’t all the same size. I didn’t use masks. Normally, if I was doing a rocker on someone’s stomach I would make sure it was all even. I wanted it to look kind of clunky and real.

Will you be doing any cameos?

Charlie [Hunnam] always said to the writer that if we ever needed a tattooer on the show, it had to be me. I thought, Whatever. Then Charlie calls me and says it’s actually going to happen. I’m super stoked. I’ve never wanted to be on a reality show, but I have an infatuation with TV and film. I’d always want to play, like, a hood or drug addict or gangster. That’s the look I have going. I can’t play an innocent kid or anything.

Related Links:
Temple Tattoo : http://www.templeoakland.com/