A Skateboarder’s Guide To Tattooing With Oliver west
portrait by Alex Waldmeyer, skate photos by Brendan Frost.
After a short hiatus we are back with the ‘A Skaters Guide to’ series – a series where I talk to a skateboarder about something that has nothing to do with skateboarding – today we have skateboarder and professional tattooer Oliver West.
He’s the Northern Beaches legend, who has now found himself living in Melbourne, skating Sydney Road as if it’s the cutty streets of New York. He had a great part in Leo Carroll-Capp’s video from last year, Useless, where you can see him in full effect.
I spoke to Oliver about one of the oldest human art forms, tattooing, getting the rundown on everything from the qualities of a good tattooer, how to give a tattoo, what a ‘constellation installation’ is to even what a tattoo is! Basically, all you need to know before starting to tattoo or before getting inked up. And if this gets you inspired to get a tattoo by him, you can book an appointment with him at Melbourne Tattoo Co., in Melbourne’s CBD. Without further ado, the most educational ‘A Skaters Guide to’ yet, A Skaters Guide to Tattooing with Oliver West.
What is a tattoo?
A tattoo is a mark that can take any form as long as it is in the skin. The simplest idea of what it is, is an image that is put into the skin with a pigment, anything from carbon to a vegetable pigment, and it is put into the skin deep enough using a device that your body can’t get rid of it. You can do that by stick and poke, a tattoo machine or by hand, there are a whole bunch of different ways to do it.
What is your personal favourite way of giving a tattoo?
I tattoo with a machine. Tattooing in the way I was taught, which is a Western traditional manner, you outline, shade then colour. I love seeing tattoos done in all sorts of different ways, I think tribal tattooing or the Japanese way where it is done by hand is amazing as well. A machine is just a mechanical way of trying to replicate that I suppose.
Wait, is it kooky to call a tattoo machine a tattoo gun?
I suppose it's kooky in a way, but it’s also really funny. I’m super down to call it a tattoo gun but maybe it’s a funny way to describe a tattoo machine. The technical term is tattoo machine, but I think if you’re getting mad at someone calling it a tattoo gun, you’re taking yourself a little bit too seriously.
Do old heads get pissed when people call it a tattoo gun?
There are definitely old heads that would be pissed off if they heard you ask that and wouldn’t be happy to hear it be called a gun, but at the same time calling it a gun is really funny. I don’t think it’s that serious [laughs].
Sorry to the old heads for this, but what’s the difference between a tattoo gun and a real gun?
I mean, depends on who you ask, but one has very pretty severe consequences if you point it at a human. Both of them can leave some permanent disfigurement. I think a tattoo gun is a little bit more fun, maybe. That’s the difference. I don’t think a real gun is too much fun [laughs].
Do you have any tattoos, Josh?
Nope.
This is so sick, I love this [laughs].
Maybe you’ll convince me to get one by the end of this [laughs].
I’ll probably do the opposite, to be honest.
[Laughs] Well, how do you give a tattoo?
You make a line drawing and turn that into a stencil, that is made using a thermofax which is a heat-based printer. That prints onto a carbon paper, and then you transfer that onto the person getting tattooed. Then I do the outline, then go into shading where I use a slightly different machine with different needles.
What are some dos and don’ts of tattooing?
I mean it’s so broad. People have been doing it in caves for hundreds of thousands of years, it’s one of the oldest forms of human art. The dos and don’ts aren’t about aesthetics or choices you’re making with an image. They are more about sterilisation and safety. The number one don’t is; don’t get tattooed with a needle, ink or set-up that has been previously used to tattoo another person, because it's blood-to-blood transfer and it’s no different to sharing a needle, it's that drastic. You want to make sure everything is sterile, single service and everyone is conscientious in that regard. As far as images I think it’s up to the person getting the tattoo and the person doing it.
How would you describe your style of tattooing?
I like to tattoo in an American Japanese style which is energetic images and on a pretty large scale. For the most part, though I am doing what people bring in and I think a lot of that style can come from that, meeting the customers’ needs and wants. Just trying to do a good job.
What is a constellation installation?
It’s a slang term, that I’m claiming I came up with, for someone getting a Southern Cross tattoo. I’ve installed constellations myself. They’ve got a bad rap, it’s just stars and people like them, people get them [laughs]. I’ve tattooed some questionable characters with constellations, but I’ve also tattooed some very regular folks with them. They were big in the 90s as a symbol of ‘patriotism’, but really was nationalism. They’ve gone out of vogue these days, but if you want to break off the first tat, book an appointment and I’ll hook one up for you [laughs].
[Laughs] Have you had to turn someone away because they wanted something so awful?
I haven’t turned people down because an idea was bad before, but I try not to tattoo faces or a hand when someone isn’t heavily tattooed. I tattooed someone’s face once and it was a horrible experience. It was a guy with a full-body suit, it was only a few dots under his eye. He wanted it and he was serious about it. It was a weird experience; you are really up into someone’s grill when you do that.
Actually, the worst tattoos are tattoos inside someone’s bottom lip. People come in when they’re drunk or on a girl's night out and they want to get a word inside their lip. There is nothing positive about it. It’s a saliva fest. It’s gross. A stencil needs to be dry to work with. You could imagine what you’re dealing with, you’re holding their bottom lip, it's visceral.
Lots of skaters do tattoos from The Chief to whoever tattoos Ville Wester. If you could get tattooed by any skater, who would it be?
Neil Blender, I think I would just ask him for a crazy character and see what he comes up with. That would be sick. Definitely not who does Ville Westers, that’s out of my ballpark [laughs].
Which skater has your favourite tattoos?
Brian Anderson has good taste, he has a really nice back piece and a cool Japanese sleeve, he did well. I mean its classic BA; he would’ve been into it all early not because of skating but being into different art forms. Bobby Worrest has definitely spent some time in good tattoo shops too. Some older 80s guys like Bill Danforth, Art and Steve Godoy have great ones too.
Which skater has the worst tattoos?
Most of them, I guess. Chris Gogoll, he doesn’t skate too much, but he has some pretty good, bad ones. Oh, my girlfriend is saying I’m the answer to the question, she’s saying I have the worst tattoos of any skateboarder [laughs].
[Laughs] Who’s Chris Gogoll?
He’s one of Jamish’s [James Robertson] really good mates. He has a tattoo of Jamish with a VX on his calf. He’s got Nick Smith with red pants on, and he has a tattoo on his leg that is a photo of me doing a trick and it's reversed so I’m regular instead of goofy [laughs]. The tattoos are actually awesome, but he’ll love that being in here.
That is so intense [laughs]. Are there any similarities between skateboarding and tattooing?
Heaps, so many. The biggest similarity is between good skateboarding and good tattooing, it’s about how you do something more than what you do. It’s a style thing. So, all my favourite tattooers are not necessarily doing the most complex or most groundbreaking things but that’s really common with really good skateboarding as well.
Is it good if you tattoo fast then?
People sometimes get really into it. Some tattooers that are really reputable are really fast and people get stoked about it. I don’t know if it’s a good thing to be that fast, you have to be fast and good like a hundred-metre runner is fast and good.
Who do you think could run the fastest hundred metres out of all the tattooers in the world then?
Well, I can tell you one thing here. Out of me and Fergus Simms, who is an extremely reputable tattooer, look him up. I am faster than him at 100 metres and it’s been documented. I don’t know about worldwide but out of my personal experience with fast tattooers, the answer is me.
What’s the backstory to this?
We had a conversation in the shop, somehow the topic came up about running and I think I was talking about how I had run athletics as a child. He was like ‘there’s no way you’re fast, I’ll beat you’. He’s quite a competitive guy so he challenged me to a hundred metre race. It got to the point where we ended up going down to the Clifton Hill athletics track, with the entire shop and some customers to duke it out.
How much did you win by?
By a significant margin, although, he reckons he was ripped off by the start. He didn’t want to do the crouch start which if you look at the Olympics that is how they start, he wanted to start from a standing position, but we made him crouch so he thinks he was ripped off by the start.
Fuck that’s so good. What was your time?
I’m not sure but it was like twelve or thirteen seconds and his was sixteen or seventeen.
Man, that’s so impressive, that’s like three seconds off Olympic time.
Yeah, but it’s probably half the track when you come down to it [laughs]. But the answer to the question, I am faster than Fergus Simms. It was just one of those things that was a yarn in the shop that turned into something we actually had to back up.
Speaking of yarns, does it ever get awkward when you’re one-on-one with a client for that long? Like what do you guys talk about?
I mean it depends on how long the session is, but yeah it can be pretty strange. Most of the time it’s really good because people know what they’re getting into. Sometimes you can get a pretty curveball situation, where someone will start telling you about their childhood or sometimes people feel like they need to divulge the intimate reason or story behind why they are getting the tattoo. You can definitely end up listening to someone’s life story when you weren’t expecting to. That can be pretty funny too, you can get some pretty crazy stories out of someone.
What is the craziest conversation you’ve had while you’re tattooing someone?
Maybe just telling every second customer that I can beat Fergus in a foot race [laughs]. I did hear about a tattooer who was tattooing a person’s leg and they were talking about how they were in the Navy. Then they told a story about how were in a battle situation and had to jump into the water to save someone, and they got shot in the leg and bitten by a shark at the same time. That’s not my personal answer but that one is crazy.
That is a crazy one [laughs]. And finally, does it hurt to get a tattoo?
Definitely! Yes. 100%. The most painful spot differs for everyone. I would say behind the knee, anywhere on your torso or the lower back tattoo is so painful. Maximum respect to everyone’s mum who got a lower back tattoo in the mid-90s because I don’t know how they did that. I’ve been through lower back stuff and it's pure horror.
Have you ever tattooed a tramp stamp?
Absolutely!
What’s your favourite tramp stamp?
Dolphins or tribal. With no trace of irony are awesome tattoos.
Oh, for sure! So where can the people come to get a tramp stamp from you?
At Melbourne Tattoo Co. which is on Somerset Place just off Elizabeth St in Melbourne’s CBD.