The new host of MTV’s Headbangers Ball, José Mangin, got his first tat- too at 16 (Pantera’s famous Cowboys From Hell logo) and was hooked. But it was his encounter with the band’s late, great guitarist, Dimebag Darrell, that got him addicted. “I walked up to him and said, ‘Scarred for life, man,’ and he totally tripped out! Dime gave me a Coors silver bullet—I still have the can!—a black-tooth grin, and some hits off a killer bomber he had going around. I was never the same since.” Mangin was raised on “a healthy diet of tacos and metal.” He’s quick to profess his love for both, as well as ... Feature Story

From the outside, the offices of skateboard and clothing company Zoo York look like any other dull, gray building in midtown Manhattan. The inside is another story. Up the elevator and through a conference room decorated with skateboard decks, down a hallway lined with clothing racks and a few used and abused skateboards is a stairwell covered top to bottom in graffiti by renowned artists such as SP One, Skuf, Stay High 149, and Cinik. The faint smell of spray paint permeates everything. It’s a fitting passageway to the upstairs world of Zoo York, a company that shunned the warm California vibes of other skate companies for the tagged-up grit ... Feature Story

Nate Appleman, executive chef at San Francisco’s acclaimed A16 and SPQR restaurants, didn’t inherit his culinary chops from his parents. “They don’t cook,” says the chef. However, Appleman’s father did pass on another lifelong passion. When Mr. Appleman, a physician, returned from a business trip with a small spider inked on his leg, the future chef, then only 4, was in awe. “It made such a huge impression on me. I wantedone right away,” says Appleman. He had to wait 13 years, though, until he had a tribal mask the size of a basketball inked across his back at 17. “Of course, it’s the only one I don’t like,” he ... Feature Story

When Orange County hardcore band Eighteen Visions ended their 11-year run in 2007, frontman James Hart had mixed feelings. He was disappointed but excited by the prospect of starting anew. Since the 2004 album Obsession, Hart had been pushing the band in a more hard rock direction, and some members had pushed back. Now that he was on his own, there was no one to protest. "This is the record I've always wanted to make," Hart says of the self-titled debut by his new band, Burn Halo, which blends intoxicating '80s-style power riffs in the vein of Guns N' Roses with repeated guitar hooks redolent of The Cult and swaggering ... Feature Story

"The thing about fads is that they'll come and go," says L.A.-via-Brooklyn jewelry maker Rich Sandomeno. "But I'm into shit that's gonna last forever. Even the work boots I own have lasted me 15 years." Whether it's footwear, the engines he rebuilt during his former career as an industrial diesel mechanic, his handmade Spragwerks jewelry line, or his extensive tattoo collection, Sandomeno knows a thing or two about what's built to last—a sensibility that was forged early on by his blue-collar upbringing. It was among the postindustrial landscape of northeast New Jersey that, as a teenager, the creative but unfocused Sandomeno stifled his artistic longings and instead followed his father ... Feature Story