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In 2018, under the list of hotel experiences at The Siam, a 39-key boutique resort along the Chao Phraya River, I encountered Sak Yant tattoo sessions for the first time. These weren’t just any skin art. As with the rest of the hotel’s signature offerings, like Muay Thai training and Thai culinary courses, these tattoos were steeped in ancient Thai culture and tradition.
Sak Yant tattoos are magical religious designs that can be traced back over two millennia to the animistic Tai tribes in southwestern China and northwestern Vietnam. The patterns are created by hand using a khem sak, a sharp metal stick reminiscent of a needle, which honors the traditional stick-and-poke technique of how ancient religions tattooed their prayers and celebrated deities. Due to their sacred nature, The Siam created a consecrated space for Sak Yant inking.
“A Sak Yant tattoo is a spiritual blessing, deeply rooted in Buddhism, Hinduism, and
Animism. It can only be performed by a trained Ajarn (master) or Buddhist monk as part of a Wai Kru (sacred ceremony),” shared Michael Wang, hotel manager of Anantara Siam Bangkok, which added Sak Yant tattoos to their cultural-based programming in 2020. “Sak Yant tattoos have long been revered in Thailand, but their global appeal has surged in recent years,” he explained. The sudden increase has the team witnessing increased bookings from guests who specifically reserve a session with their on-staff Ajarn.
Yet, Sak Yant isn’t the only ink trending with travelers. In Hella, Iceland, Hotel Rangá recently announced a new partnership with local tattoo artist Jana Tomanová to provide personalized tattoo service for guests throughout 2025. Tomanová is renowned for her landscape drawcards that she likens to a travel journal, which she can translate to ink on the skin, or guests can opt for a design of their choice in one of her fine line silhouettes or lettering.
THE SIAM HOTEL, BANGKOK
PRIVATE SACRED TATTOO SESSION, THE SIAM HOTEL, BANGKOK
TATTOO CONSULTATION, THE SIAM HOTEL, BANGKOK
“Tattoos used to be considered rebellious, but today they are really about self-expression, and we are seeing guests of all ages interested in getting tattoos,” said Sonja Chase, general manager of Thompson Seattle, which has run a tattoo artist-in-residence program for the past few years. Inspired by the growing demand from travelers seeking unique amenities and experiences in a destination, Chase and her team dedicated a quarterly weekend to a celebrity artist takeover, like Alice Kendall, owner of Wonderland Tattoo in Portland, Oregon, or Justice Wolf, known for their hand-poked tattoos out of Port Townsend, Washington, where both guests and locals could reserve an appointment.
In New York City, the Lower East Side-based Untitled Hotel at 3 Freeman Alley hosts an onsite tattoo parlor, Unscripted Ink, founded by Liv Novotny, who says tattoos are “the ultimate souvenir.” Guests can book an appointment any day of the week, but the hotel also hosts special events like the weekly Tattoo Happy Hour. “We knew that a newspaper waiting under the door in the morning would not have the same impact on this generation as a tattoo commemorating their trip to New York,” shared Gadi Peleg, founder of GPG Hospitality.
Moxy Hotels across New York embrace a unique approach by offering partnerships with local parlors as part of its “Key to the City” program, where guests can access special deals at nearby businesses. Moxy Lower East Side currently partners with Crystal Ink of LINES New York; guests can show their Moxy room key to receive a $100 discount on tattooing services.
THE SIAM HOTEL, BANGKOK
MOXY LOWER EAST SIDE
CRYSTAL INK, CREDIT: SEZEN JUNE
NORTHERN LIGHTS, HOTEL RANGA
Whether new or repeat clients, Julia Pandolfo, senior marketing director for Lightstone’s Moxy Hotels, said guests are booking rooms just to get “Key to the City” access. “We’re not just offering a unique amenity — we’re giving guests entry into a destination at a neighborhood level,” Pandolfo said.
In the past, Moxy Chelsea offered a “Tattoos and Veuve with Boo” package where guests could declare their love with semipermanent tattoos from Ephemeral Tattoos, and at Moxy Times Square, celebrity tattoo artist JonBoy was a previous long-standing tattoo artist in residence.
“Guests have really embraced it,” said Pandolfo, who’s seen parents getting their first tattoo while dropping their kids off at nearby New York University, friends getting matching NYC themed tattoos, and even parents and children getting matching family tattoos on their vacation. “There’s something about being away from home that makes people more open to trying something new — like finally getting that tattoo they’ve been thinking about,” Pandolfo said.
UNTITLED AT 3 FREEMAN ALLEY, CREDIT: KATHRYN SHELDON
UNSCRIPTED INK
UNTITLED AT 3 FREEMAN ALLEY, THE GARDEN
UNTITLED AT 3 FREEMAN ALLEY, LOBBY MURAL
UNSCRIPTED INK
Brooklyn-based tattoo studio Atelier Eva noticed that up to 40% of bookings came from clients traveling from another city to get inked by founder Eva Karabudak, who has tattooed Sam Smith, SZA, and Joe Jonas, to name a few. The Standard New York partnered with the acclaimed artist to offer guests staying at its High Line and East Village locations $100 credits. Further, any clients traveling to NYC for a tattoo at Atelier Eva receive 15% off The Standard’s best available rates.
Outside of the urban accommodation, Wrong Way River Lodge & Cabins in Asheville, North Carolina, started working with Em Gallagher of Taurean Tattoo in 2023.
“Part of our mission in opening Wrong Way was to convey a sense of place and share the outdoor-centered personality of Asheville. Tattoos are a beautiful extension of this with designs that reflect the place, like nostalgic campground symbols or the Fonta Flora,” coowner Shelton Steele said.
Tattoos as souvenirs is part of what Chase called “a dramatic” shift in the perception surrounding the inked landscape. “I have a full sleeve myself,” Chase shared, explaining there was a time she made every effort to cover them up at work. “Now, I get to help curate a space that embraces this form of art and expression for not only guests and locals, but our colleagues as well.”
WRONG WAY CABINS, CREDIT: COLBY RABON
WRONG WAY CABINS, TAUREAN TATTOO
ATELIER EVA
THE STANDARD NEW YORK
ATELIER EVA
While every season has its charm, spring has a buzz to it that can’t be beat. Animals come out from hibernation with brand new babes to teach how to survive, we finally shed a layer or three of winter gear when we leave the house, and as snow melts and flowers bloom it’s the perfect time to pack some bags and hit the road to explore the wonders this world has to offer.
Maybe you’ve been traveling for years in a custom camper, or perhaps you are just now starting to understand the importance of some “you” time and want to shake things up. Challenge your norm and start researching and planning now, so you get the most from your getaway.
Bedrock XT2
Set Of with Style!
KRUG Expedition embarked in the United States in 2024 for the first time with its new Bedrock XT2 Expedition Truck. The Austria-based auto builder combines the durability of an adventure vehicle with the practical accoutrements of home.
KRUG Expedition and Arctic Trucks collaborated to develop this road and wilderness warrior, reengineered from a Ford F-550. The Bedrock XT2 boasts a tri-axle 6x4 drivetrain, multi-purpose tires, and an air suspension system that can be adjusted quickly from inside the cab to accommodate changing terrain. On the inside, make yourself at home with a kitchen, bathroom, and king-size bed with plenty of room to dream about tomorrow’s adventure. krugxp.us
PICTURE THE PLAN
Tattoo conventions happen worldwide, during all seasons, and can give a traveler a focal point for trip planning. While American poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver may not have been thinking about tattoo conventions when she asked, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” it’s fitting nonetheless. With almost 2,000 conventions in 2025 around the globe, many of them taking place in spring, this is a great time to craft your perfect tattoo getaway.
Andrew Alexander King, adventure traveler and founder of the Between Worlds Project, breaks down travel into three categories: city, beach/island, land/mountain. Don’t let the simplicity fool you: New Zealand, New York City, and Nepal all have conventions the same weekend in April, for example. With the kind of trip you want pinned down, the rest can more easily fall into place.
King recommends breaking out of your current environment. “If you’re not from an island, go to an island, and if you’re from an island, go to a mainland. The contrast is very, very pronounced,” he says.
Islands are likely to have a strong sense of community and culture because while people come and go, they rarely stay or even circle back continuously, so the culture and community of the island can stay more unique to itself. “The more remote the island, the more likely it’s going to make you understand what life is about,” King says. And if you grew up and live on an island, visiting a mainland city can be equally perspective-shifting. Pick a place, and let it change you.
If something breaks during your stay, King says, “You have to be a human being,” meaning, if you need help, friendliness and open heartedness will go a long way, especially when there’s a language barrier. “And that’s the cool
thing about traveling: it makes you humble yourself in a place where no one can speak your language, understand what you’re saying. But they understand kindness and just being rude — those are two things that are fundamentally always there.”
PACK INTENTIONALLY
Wherever you go, soak in the newness with an open mind. If you visit the beach, try surfing, suggests King, or rock climbing if you head to the mountains. An outfitter in the area can provide you with gear, lessons, and support. Search around for reviews at a few different locations — travel sites, guidebooks, local blogs — to be sure your needs will be adequately met, especially if there will be a language barrier.
You may need to purchase gear that focuses closely on your particular adventure. “Any foam board will do the trick,” King says regarding surfboards. “Most of the time you would like to get balance without breaking your board when starting out.” And climbing harnesses are similar. Something that is simple to use and can hold your weight is more important than the latest technology. Good gear is still recommended for less specialized activities, like a hike or walk around a city. For shoes, a widetoed sneaker can be a great option for all-day wear: they’re lightweight, offer full toe coverage, there’s enough cushion to withstand hours of walking on hard surfaces, possibly with a backpack, and
have room for your toes to wiggle even as your feet expand throughout the day.
A duffel bag for traveling and a comfortable backpack for day trips will make your trip easier to navigate. The duffel bag should be durable enough to withstand being treated like cargo. The backpack ought to be comfortable and have adequate weight distribution. What’s inside is most important: a water bottle, snacks, sunscreen, and a secret stash of cash. A few additions should be added to your bag as well. “A good journal for sure, because it’s cool to see as you’re evolving, moving through it,” King, who routinely journals his outings, says. “At the end of the year, I read through that journal, I’m like, ‘Wow, you’ve definitely grown.’”
Traveling is a great way to distill and process our world and how we interact with it, and keeping a log of those moments can help you remember all the cool stuff you see and experience, as well as the incredible ways we learn, grow, and adapt. Also helpful is a good phone for navigation, translation, and photos. The Instax app allows King to print photos akin to Polaroids to give to friends as memorabilia of shared experiences.
Budget for a few tokens of your experiences. Buying a painting, musical instrument, or other item from a local artist will not only prolong your connection with your trip by pinging your memory at home, but it will also enrich it through the interaction with the maker.
PERSONALIZE AND PRIORITIZE
You don’t need a plane ticket to have a perspectivealtering experience. A van or truck bed can become a makeshift bedroom with some pallets, and a car can be a comfortable place to rest with a vehicle-specific air mattress that fits your back seat if you don’t have a vehicle designed to accommodate sleeping. If you travel by motorcycle or bicycle, a tent can provide even novice travelers with shelter and privacy without too much weight.
“When it comes to roughing it, I don’t have any major deal-breakers, as adapting to the environment is part of the adventure,” King says. However, he has three essential pre-expedition considerations. First, shelter and warmth. “Whether in a tent or an RV, having protection from the elements is crucial. Temperature control, wind resistance, and insulation make a significant difference in rest and recovery,” he explains.
Second, King seeks shelter where noise, such as extreme wind, and other disturbances are minimized. Lastly, an adequate setup where one can rest weary muscles is ideal for proper recovery. “A quality sleep pad and an insulated sleeping bag are non-negotiable when in extreme environments,” he says.
“Ultimately, while a good night’s sleep is valuable, it’s often a luxury rather than a guarantee on expeditions,” King says of sleeping accommodations. “The key is preparing the body and mind beforehand so they can endure long days in unpredictable conditions.”
Curiosity is your guide. When you have an open mind and interest in the people and experiences around you, everything is an opportunity. If you want a tattoo from a local shop to commemorate your experience, there are a few factors to keep an eye out for — no matter where in the world you are. King recommends checking out the art being done in the moment, how clean the workstations are, and how the artists treat people at every step, from scheduling to explaining aftercare. “The main thing is, you’re getting a permanent gift.”
GOTTA GO!
Trelino toilets ofer on-the-go convenience and portability.
When you set off for an off-road adventure, you need simple, compact, and easy-to-clean solutions for your messes. With a Trelino composting toilet, you can take care of your dirty business wherever your journey takes you, without chemicals or electricity, leaving you free to travel to your favorite places for longer.
Easy to store in your trunk or a drawer, the Trelino portable toilet is a convenient restroom option that can go with you wherever you roam. Manufactured in Germany, Trelino toilets are meticulously designed and engineered, prioritizing ease of use, longevity, and aesthetics. In addition, Trelino touts a thorough, top-notch customer support team that is ready to assist customers all over the globe. mytrelino.com
GO THE DISTANCE
Rig and ready yourself for a spectacular adventure.
The TOBIQ Sleek Vik 60L travel bag equips you with ultimate organizational and versatile carrying options when you’re on the go, meaning more convenience. Wear it as a backpack, carry it like a duffel bag, or simply grab the handles and go. With four compartments and 18 organizational options, including two exterior pockets and a padded laptop sleeve, you can locate important items quickly and easily. Its durable recycled ripstop polyester has an easy-to-clean, sleek, waterproof coating that protects belongings from rain, spills, or whatever wet conditions come your way. The Sleek Vik meets most airline standards for overhead storage, which makes it a great travel companion whether you’re flying high, on the road, or covering ground by foot. tobiqtravel.com
LUXURY UNDERCOVER
Vistabule’s simple yet sexy design ofers a wealth of ease and convenience.
Vistabule’s teardrop trailers connect travelers to the world surrounding them, integrating large windows in its designs that beckon passengers to absorb the magnificence of the outdoors. The family-owned business has earned accolades for its high-quality craftsmanship, sleek retro-modern design, and functionality, with comfortable sleeping space, headspace, and legroom.
Pop the hatch and discover a galley kitchen equipped with a stovetop, sink, cooler cubbyhole, and counter and storage space. The original Vistabule design utilizes every inch of space for your home away from home, with a 10-speed fan, interior and exterior lighting, flip-up tables, and a queen-size bed with underbed storage that converts to seating space with a pop-up table.
Or keep amenities simple and spacious with its lighter-weight DayTripper model, which offers a minimalist aesthetic with more leg space and a smaller price tag than the original. vistabule.com
BY ELAINE MAGUIRE
hen luxury watch brand Hublot announced its first collection with tattoo artist Maxime Plescia-Büchi back in 2016, eyebrows were undoubtedly raised. What could the LVMH-owned Hublot, which sells watches for tens of thousands of dollars, possibly have in common with the world of tattoos, more readily associated with subcultures and a DIY ethos? Three watch
designs and almost a decade later, the partnership has proved a successful one, bringing together two traditional art forms where craftsmanship and surgical precision are paramount.
Plescia-Büchi’s collaboration with Hublot was not the only one uniting the worlds of luxury watches and tattoo art. Dr. Woo, the L.A.-based tattooist, famed for his celebrity roster —Miley Cyrus, Drake, and Justin Bieber all sport his ink — unveiled
O’CONNOR
two watch collaborations with Swiss watchmaker Roger Dubois. The timepieces, which retail for an eyewatering $158,000, are inspired by the cosmic journey of life and feature three celestial bodies on the dial: the sun, the earth, and the moon.
Mo Coppoletta, owner of the Londonbased The Family Business Tattoo Parlour, was tapped by luxury jeweler Bulgari, having previously designed for Geneva watchmaker Romain Jerome before it shuttered its doors in 2021. What was once an unusual pairing has become normalized as luxury brands seek to capitalize on the adoption of tattoos by mainstream culture.
“The watch industry, like many other industries, is always in search of new, interesting, and compelling storytelling. That’s why many launches of new releases are associated with either outside collaborators or other worlds like automotive, art, design, etc.,” Coppoletta explains. “If you couple that with the intent to appeal [to] a younger audience that will hopefully remain a faithful customer base for the future, the reach out to the world of tattooing, amongst others, is just an obvious move, considering how influential tattooing has been in the last 25-30 years in popular culture.”
The passing of time has been a perennial feature in tattoo art. Along with skulls and
roses, the hourglass has long been a favorite motif in more traditional ink work, though it was briefly surpassed in popularity by the old-fashioned pocket watch, which became one of the most frequently requested designs of the 90s. Often chosen to symbolize the passage of time and the transient nature of life, the artwork serves as a reminder to appreciate every moment.
In prisons, clocks and watchhands have been routinely inked on prisoners to signify time in their sentence or for some, a handless face, synonymous with serving a life sentence. But scratchers in a prison cell with makeshift tattoo guns are far removed from watches that cost three times the median American salary and don’t explain how and
why these seemingly unorthodox mashups came about.
Collaborations between brands and artists have been a mainstay of the fashion industry’s marketing for decades — Adidas’s Yeezy collection with Kanye West reportedly netted the sports giant $2 billion in annual sales before ending in 2023. There’s no easier way to reach a new customer base than to forge a partnership with an influential figure and tap into their pre-built audience. And with the rise of both celebrity and tattoo culture, watch brands, taking their cue from fashion, spotted a unique opportunity to both evolve their designs in line with changing customer tastes, and to reach a new, predominately younger clientele.
TATTOOS BY MAXIME PLESCIA-BUCHI
SPIRIT OF BIG BANG SANG BLEU KING GOLD BLUE
For the luxury watch customer, the collaborations allow them to own a piece of artwork by the world’s most in demand tattoo artists, without committing to the pain and permanency of an actual tattoo. It’s notable that, like Dr. Woo, Plescia-Büchi and Coppoletta have celebrity clients, no doubt a contributory factor in the brands’ decision to work with them. Strong social media followings — Dr. Woo boasts over 1.7 million followers on Instagram alone — also provide a powerful marketing tool for brands hoping to reach a new demographic.
For the artists themselves, watches provide a new medium to execute their art as well as, one presumes, providing a lucrative income stream. For Plescia-Büchi, the collection with Hublot felt both organic and natural.
Growing up in Lausanne, Switzerland, the watch industry was omnipresent and a major employer in the area —he likens it to the car industry in Detroit or southern Germany. And, as a long-time lover of watches, he had an appreciation and understanding of the world in a way that others might not. His name was initially put forward as a potential collaborator to a marketing executive at Hublot by the head of the art college in Lausanne where PlesciaBüchi had previously studied and taught. Coincidentally, he had also inked the son of Jean-Claude Biver, Hublot’s founder.
From a creative perspective, designing watches and tattoos are much more similar processes than is immediately obvious. In a world where everything is mass-produced in factories in China, watches and tattoos remain
two forms of art that still require skill and handcraft, and retain many of the elements of traditional handcraft.
Hublot watches, the latest of which sells for $47,100, are unmistakably the work of Plescia-Büchi, famed for his geometric tattoo art which he adapted for the collaboration. The complex designs feature geometrics that create a 3D effect and octagonal rotating discs on the dial replace traditional hands. The result is a unique timepiece that looks and feels more akin to a piece of abstract art.
For the average tattoo enthusiast, the idea of spending over $100,000 on a watch is nonsensical. Even the $10,000-plus mark at which the Hublot is sold, many of us are priced out. However, Plescia-Büchi does point out that many clients will spend as much on
ROGER DUBUIS EXCALIBUR MONOBALANCIER X DR. WOO / CREDIT: RICK RODNEY
actual tattoos, considering the number of sessions for a full backpiece or elaborate work covering arms or legs might take. Nonetheless, there wasn’t much cross-pollination of customer base, he says, and it was the luxury brand’s pre-existing customers who bought the limited-addition timepieces.
“My requests to work on the price point and look for ways to make the pieces more accessible is the only thing that fell on deaf ears,” Plescia-Büchi says. “For most of
my peers, the price point just didn’t make sense.” He says this is his one regret about the collaboration.
What might make more sense then, for those of us not in the financial position to indulge in five- and six-figure timepieces, is the more reasonably priced collaboration between The Camden Watch Company and London-based tattoo artist Rebecca Vincent. Based in the north London town famed for its vintage markets and vibrant subcultures, the
brand operates in the affordable luxury space with watches retailing at around the $200 mark —expensive enough to feel like a treat, but not one that will drive the average person into bankruptcy.
Those familiar with Vincent’s botanicalbased work will immediately recognize her stamp on the watches. Inspired by the Victorian language of flowers, the watches feature beautiful, intricate florals in exquisite detail, synonymous with her tattoo style. Unlike the luxury collaborations, Vincent’s clients have been enthusiastic about the project, and many have purchased watches, some even requesting the design itself be inked on their bodies. Others, she says, have purchased them because while they appreciate her design aesthetic, they perhaps don’t want to commit to a tattoo just yet.
The collaboration was a career highlight for Vincent, appreciating the avenue now available for others to access her artwork. Notably, she adds, her art is now something tangible that can be passed on to future generations, something that’s just not possible with tattoos. And who doesn’t want to leave behind something for the grandkids to fight over?
GAGA LABORATORIO LABORMATIC X MO COPPOLETTA
Kevin Lyman is a dreamer. He’s also a professor, a philanthropist, and music ambassador to several generations of artists all over the world. In 1995, he co-founded the Warped Tour traveling circus of up-and-coming punk rock bands, bringing skateboarding, music, and culture to the mainstream. The longest-running North American festival concert tour saw bands like Green Day, No Doubt, Blink 182, and Simple Plan expand from the sweaty dive bars of Anytown, USA, to an audience of 750,000 annually.
Warped Tour ran each summer from 1995 to 2018, finally slowing down for a 25-year anniversary run of three shows in 2019. Lyman then shifted to teaching the next generation of industry visionaries when he accepted a position at the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music. As associate professor, he gets to bounce ideas off the future of music industry professionals and keep his ear close to the ground.
“I still want to get people hooked on music,” Lyman said. “Whether in the classroom or out at the festivals.”
HENRY ROLLINS / CREDIT: LISA JOHNSON
The Vans Warped Tour is back this summer with three dates scheduled for the 30th anniversary in Washington, D.C., June 14-15; Long Beach, California, July 26-27; and Orlando, Florida, November 15-16, 2025. The goal remains the same: make all genres of music accessible to as many people as possible.
One of the reasons Lyman started Warped Tour was to bring live music to every corner of North America and beyond. He also wanted to create value in seeing live music with a $149.99 price point. “I didn’t like how much it cost to see music,” Lyman said. “The price was making it prohibitive to get out and see shows.”
Lyman always wanted to encourage people to make live music a priority, while also helping to give back to the music community that gave him so much. His philanthropic work was built into Warped Tour
The band was still unsigned and didn’t have a record out yet, but the musicians wanted to show they could play and find their niche among some of punk’s most established artists.
They learned how to act, how to tour, and what it takes to be professional musicians. It also taught them how to be humble and respectful to other bands, the fans, and the process. “Warped Tour was a great school for us; it was a great place to learn,” Comeau said. “We learned quick we weren’t better than anyone else; everybody was equal in this environment.”
Each night on the tour, a few bands were chosen to barbecue backstage for the musicians, sponsors, and crew. They were responsible for cooking and helping to create a sense of community and camaraderie. After the meal, they were allowed to play a small set onstage to introduce their music and get to know other bands playing on the multiple stages.
Simple Plan continued to play the Warped Tour over the years, as they began to break into markets worldwide. With the rise of alternative and
from the outset, from bringing the festival to smaller cities who might not have had a chance to see this many bands over one weekend, to sponsoring a battle of the bands to get the next generation of musicians up on stage.
The Warped Tour even offered support services for mental health and substance abuse to fans and band members, and supported animal rights and suicide awareness groups across the U.S. and Canada. In addition, Lyman had a huge influence on bands that didn’t have a place to play before Warped Tour.
Chuck Comeau, drummer and co-founder of the band Simple Plan, and his friends played in a high school punk band called Reset in Montreal. They grew up on Warped Tour bands and, as fans, found a special place in the welcoming and encouraging culture of the festival.
The annual event helped the Reset band members see other bands and fans similar to them coming together and creating their own scene. “Warped Tour had a huge influence on us; it helped make what we were doing legitimate,” Comeau said. “It was big, important, and it mattered to us to see the tour coming to Eastern Canada.”
The Warped Tour invited Simple Plan to play at the 2001 show.
I hope it’s a place where everyone can get excited about live music again and what’s possible with a little ambition.
punk music receiving well-earned airtime on the radio and MTV, the band was getting popular, selling more than 10 million records.
The Simple Plan bandmates began feeling pressure from punk rock purists spouting the ethos “Are you punk rock enough?” They had doubts about fitting in with the new lineups until their heroes, the musicians of Rancid, a punk rock staple who played right before them most nights, came out on stage all wearing Simple Plan shirts. “They helped legitimize us with a whole new generation of fans,” Comeau said. “They made us proud to be a part of the whole Warped Tour scene.”
Professional skateboarder, industry legend, and founder of Zero Skateboards and Warsaw Footwear, Jamie Thomas, known in the skate world as “The Chief” for his relentless pursuit and determination, moved to California in 1992 to pursue a career in skateboarding. He saw
ICE NINE KILLS / CREDIT: LISA JOHNSON
PENNYWISE / CREDIT: LISA JOHNSON
KEVIN LYMAN
the rise of punk rock and skateboarding starting in the 1980s and watched it grow through the 90s. “Warped Tour gave skateboarding and music a lot of exposure,” Thomas said. “It helped bring the subculture to a broader audience.”
Skateboard demos were a huge part of the Warped Tour experience and helped unite those with an alternative view of sports with others around North America. This was fueled by the increase in popularity from bands like Nirvana and Green Day, being respected as a bona fide genre and lifestyle.
Thomas started Zero Skateboards in 1996 and saw the residual effects growing with the rise of Warped Tour. The collaboration of bands, skateboard companies, and record labels helped showcase an underground movement that started in the 70s. The use of
punk music in skateboard videos, advertising, and promotions within the industry created a place for those on the outside to come together.
“It made skateboarding and punk look cool,” Thomas said. “There’s no such thing as bad exposure in the beginning.”
Thomas thinks it’s a good time for Warped Tour’s return. He sees the whole industry needing a revamp after 30 years and hopes the new tour will help bring new people in.
“Anytime the fringe becomes the mainstream, it doesn’t hurt to prune it back,” he said. “It allows new growth for bands and skating and creates a new appetite and appreciation.”
Lyman agrees. His vision is still the same as it always was — making live music of all genres more accessible to everyone. He wants the scene to grow again, and the bands, skaters,
and industry to be part of the next wave of Warped Tour.
He wants the past to reflect the future and people to discover their next favorite bands in D.C., Long Beach, and Orlando this summer for the third decade of Vans Warped Tour.
He’s excited to see multiple generations of fans come again to relive the past and experience new music, and for the firsttimers to see what it’s like to dream, make a difference, and create a scene worth holding on to for another 30 years.
“I want this summer’s festival to pay homage to the past, while looking toward the future,” Lyman said. “I hope it’s a place where everyone can get excited about live music again and what’s possible with a little ambition.”
The 30 Anniversary of Warped Tour will combine classic punk bands with new up-and-comers, including Avril Lavigne, Fishbone, Pennywise, Black Veil Brides, and Simple Plan.
The festival will also see the return of the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands, where unsigned musicians will play on the Vans Warped Tour main stage along with their favorite bands.
Bound to be nostalgic for some and formative for others, the three events will bring together thousands of live music enthusiasts looking for their next favorite band, new brand, and early origins of counterculture in a time where music has yet to decide its new relevance among digital societies.
CREDIT: JAMIE THOMAS
CREDIT: JAMIE THOMAS
40 YEARS OF JESSUP GRIPTAPE
Built for bold skateboarding, Jessup Griptape isn’t just about the tricks — it’s about the journey. The pavement, the push, the hunt for the next perfect spot. Since 1985, Jessup’s The Original has gripped the decks of legends and underground rippers alike, holding steady through every sketchy landing and deathdefying drop.
For 40 years, Jessup has been immersed in some of skateboarding’s most iconic moments, with Jessup underfoot for some of the greatest tricks in history. And for those who push the limits, Jessup ULTRAGRIP delivers next-level control when the stakes are high.
This road trip season, whether you’re ripping DIY spots, hitting legendary parks, or chasing endless asphalt, look toward the skateboarding legends and lock in your board with Jessup’s The Original, or level up with ULTRAGRIP. griptape.com
Skateboarding icon Jamie Thomas has a new venture: War Saw Ltd., a skateinspired men’s apparel and footwear brand that focuses on comfort and durability. Selections are minimalistic but land solidly with skateboarders, musicians, and artists looking for comfort and practicality for their wardrobes.
Monochromatic shades envelop the collection, with comfortable and relaxedfitting tees, sweatshirts, and chinos in the mix. Made with cotton and French terry, War Saw’s hooded Unknown Pullover sweatshirts are sleek and cozy, with “War Saw” softly embroidered across the chest.
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SMARTEN UP YOUR SKATE WEAR
NINE INCH NAILS BY DREW MILLWARD
BOTCH BY DREW MILLWARD
Music elicits feelings, sparks ideas, connects, and sometimes divides us. It contributes to our selfidentity; it holds a primal, embedded place in our human experience. Visual art is a way to represent that experience, so it’s no surprise that the artifacts of the music industry become treasured items.
In April 2022, a 1966 Beatles “Shea Stadium” poster sold for a hefty $275,000 at a collector auction. On the same day, a 1966 Grateful Dead “Skeleton & Roses” sold for $137,500. This was not the original sheet music written by The Beatles — granted, it’s been long-known that none of The Beatles members could read or write music — nor the guitar played by Jerry Garcia at the Fillmore.
The Beatles “Shea Stadium” promotional poster is just that — a picture of the band with concert information. More of a
billboard than art. The more interesting and artistic of the two pieces auctioned that April day is the Grateful Dead “Skeleton & Roses” poster, which was created through the collaboration of Stanley “Mouse” Miller and Alton Kelley, two of the godfathers of the gig poster industry.
These two pieces, produced in the same year, represent a clear divergence between a marketing department-driven band poster and a unique artistic expression. The latter occupies the transitional space between consumer art and collectible fine art.
“There may be a nostalgia at play, where people collect shows they attend and get to hang some history on their walls,” San Francisco Bay area rock poster artist Zoltron says of the collector market for gig posters. “Then there’s a thriving aftermarket and entire communities devoted to collecting and buying and selling and trading, where speculators find value knowing supply is always going to be outweighed by demand.”
These are the ephemeral artifacts of the music industry, the impermanent debris of music promotion; faded concert posters pinned to teenagers’ bedroom walls, bleached by the sun, torn and frayed at the edges.
In the last 25 years, concert or “gig” posters, driven by the musicians they are associated with, rarity, historical significance, and their artistic qualities, have become recognized as extremely collectible artwork.
Generations of Illustrations
Before the advent of concert posters can be understood, a quick stroll through printmaking history is needed. For the sake of brevity and avoiding a less than captivating dissertation on the invention and evolution of lithography, skip ahead to the turn of the century when printing technology evolved, and color exploded onto posters.
PEARL JAM BY KEN TAYLOR
METALLICA BY KEN TAYLOR
The early 1920s saw the art deco movement influence the content, color, and style of posters. The jazz movement of the 20s and 30s adopted art, streamlined typography, and introduced the modern aesthetic of the period for their concert posters.
Oddly enough, the early rock and roll concert promoters of the 1950s moved away from artistic expression and favored using the “boxing-style poster,” which featured simple photos of musicians and bold typography to convey important information about the upcoming concert.
The psychedelic rock era of the 1960s marked a dramatic shift in posters. Artists were commissioned to create highly conceptual, vibrant, and surreal artwork to match the musical acts they represented. Artists like Rick Griffin, Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Miller, and Kelley are credited with creating the psychedelic style featured in posters for bands such as the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Cream, and The Beatles.
“The gateway art for me was [the] discarded underground comix from the San Francisco 60s scene,” Zoltron explains. “Those fearless pioneers like Gilbert Shelton and Dave Sheridan’s Freak Brothers, Zap Comix, Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin, S. Clay Wilson’s checkered demon, and Crumb’s Mr. Natural.
All those fucked up 60s artists who destroyed my adolescent mind and pointed me toward a lifelong love of the twisted and absurd.”
The psychedelic era of concert posters has become the most well-known and vigorously collected genre. Bands of the period outgrew clubs and smaller venues like the Fillmore and shifted to stadiums, and the need for promotional posters waned. Its resurrection was found in the 70s and 80s in the anger and
There’s really been a renaissance for handprinted editions. - Zoltron
angst of punk rock shows — no self-respecting punk calls a punk show a “concert” or “gig.”
Inspired by a lack of industry support, the punk rock scene embraced the DIY minimalism aesthetic. These homemade punk rock posters — technically flyers or mini posters — were spartan works featuring handwritten or rough typography, confrontational imagery, and social commentary. Their handmade aggressive style
reveals the insurgent discord felt by the punk rock youth. The famed “ransom-note” style posters were popularized during these early years with lettering and imagery cut out and pasted in a collage.
As punk rock grew in popularity, it found a natural alliance with artists in the underground comix scene. Both groups featured a DIY ethos, anti-establishment sentiments, progressive social commentary, and a couldn’t-care-less attitude about whom they might offend.
The 1980s also saw the meteoric rise of hip-hop, which shared the same DIY musical and artistic spirit as punk. Graffiti or using the gentrified nomenclature “street art” served as a visual language for the hip-hop scene.
Ken Taylor creates bold, intricately designed concert posters, and has worked with several big-name bands such as Pearl Jam, Pixies, Metallica, and Phish. The Western Australian artist found inspiration in hip-hop music and the graffiti art scene during the birth of his career. “The confluence of art school, love of music, love of graffiti, and the fact that my friends and family were in bands were the basis for my start in the gig poster industry,” Taylor recalls. “I was the go-to person in my group of friends who would make flyers and posters, largely for free or little expense to the bands.”
PRIMUS / WONKA BY ZOLTRON
FOO FIGHTERS BY ZOLTRON
As punk, pop, hip-hop, metal, and alternative rock reigned in the 90s, artists like Frank Kozik gained fame for his often satirical and grotesque posters with direct nods to his underground comix heritage. Bands like the Melvins, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Beastie Boys, Green Day, Dinosaur Jr., and Butthole Surfers had posters created by Kozik. Other artists like Chuck Sperry created posters for bands like Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, U2, Widespread Panic, Rancid, and The Black Keys in a variety of styles and concepts that continued to push the acceptance of concert posters as modern art.
As a fledgling artist in the early 2000s, Drew Millward, a poster artist from the Aire Valley in England, drew inspiration from the post-industrial punk scene in working-class towns. “It was purely through necessity that I got into gig posters,” he says, explaining, “During university, I was running a fanzine with friends, which led to putting on gigs. A friend of mine and I started taking turns making posters for the shows. Word got out in our music scene, and I began to make posters for other gigs and other bands. The money was not good, but it was enough for me to quit a job I hated.”
The 80s and 90s were an intense period of creativity that served as an incubation for some of the most important and prolific
artists in the creative space today. The poster industry flourished during this chapter, and although the technology had been available for years, the adoption of silkscreen printing allowed for even more intricate and colorful works of art. Posters echoed everything from tattoo flash art to underground comix and art school vibe modernism.
Zoltron’s portfolio is brimming with heavy-hitting rock bands such as Primus,
The confluence of art school, love of music, love of graffiti.
- ken taylor on his inspiration
Alice in Chains, The Black Keys, Foo Fighters, and Nine Inch Nails. “The good news is that the silkscreen collector scene is alive and well,” Zoltron says. “There’s really been a renaissance for hand-printed editions; maybe it’s a resurgence of tactile art in a digital age. Something about holding a print that was created the same way it has been for a thousand years, smelling the ink, running your fingers over the embossed surface of a print,
knowing that the editions won’t be reprinted.”
With the invention of the internet and digital media came another change in the poster game: direct sales to customers and limited-edition prints. Many artists also create specialized limited-edition versions of a particular event that go to the collector scene. These are handmade, small-batch pieces that sell for a much higher price than large-run posters sold at events.
On occasion, concert poster artists are commissioned for special projects. For instance, Zoltron created a “twisted children’s book series for Primus” and is currently making a bronze, life-size Foo Fighters astronaut statue. He jokes that he deserves a gold record for his rendition of WEEN’s 30th-anniversary re-release of “Chocolate and Cheese.”
“Management had sent me a pre-release of the new album, and because I wanted to kind of tattoo her entire body with song references, I listened to that album like 40 times,” he says. “Every song is referenced, and diehard fans can read her body like a lyric sheet.”
Physical items like posters, album covers, and t-shirts are material representations of our attachment to music. They capture the specific date, time, and place of an emotional experience. These items seldom survive throughout our lives, even though the music and emotions connected to them endure.
GOOSE BY DREW MILLWARD
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE BY KEN TAYLOR
In 2012 and later in the 2014 research article “Modified People: Indicators of Subculture in a Post-Subculture World,” sociologist Derek Roberts made an interesting distinction when he looked at tattooed identity and subculture. He divided people with tattoos into two distinct categories: people who have a tattoo and tattooed people.
The first category, much like the name suggests, is comprised of people who have a tattoo but make no further attempts to engage with the tattoo culture or tattoo scene at large — they just have a tattoo.
The second category refers to people like readers of Inked Magazine, who take a step further in their relationships with tattoos, engage more deeply with the culture and industry, and often collect tattoos more extensively.
Roberts made this distinction because he could not disregard the ever-growing popularity of tattoos. Nonetheless, he noticed there was not the same kind of growth among whom he defined as “tattooed people.”
Sociology professor, researcher, and tattoo collector Beverly Yuen Thompson made a similar assertion in a chapter she wrote for the 2018 book “Subcultures, Bodies and Spaces.”
How Deep is Your Desire?
Thompson recently sat down for an interview to offer insights into this observation. The author of the 2015 book “Covered in Ink” said that negotiation takes place with oneself when deciding to get tattooed or not. For many, this negotiation entails balancing societal norms and the social sanctions that come with breaking them, as well as reconciling one’s sense of self and how tattoos fit into this idea of the self.
For those who choose to go for more extensive and visible body coverage, these variables are often a clear part of their considerations. Thompson and “Tattooing in Contemporary Society” author Michael Rees suggest that this is done out of an effort to be authentic and for acceptance by others who choose to get tattoos. They happily go against societal norms, beauty standards, and expectations to embrace their identity in a way that feels authentic to them — through tattoos. For heavily tattooed people especially, this also means, to some extent, sacrificing the ability to camouflage and adapt to different social contexts.
“People can have a tattoo, but at what point does it really affect their sense of identity?” Thompson asked. “I asked the women that I interviewed for my book, ‘Can you imagine yourself with no tattoos?’ And all of them screamed, ‘No! It’s part of my identity, it’s how I see myself…’ That’s part of that whole, tattooed person versus just having a tattoo. And so I guess it’s more of the relationship to the tattoo; how important it is to your identity.” Indeed, what matters more to those who commit to a tattooed identity, especially for those with more extensive and visible tattoos, is their sense of an authentic self. Whereas those who prefer to “just have a tattoo” still want to adhere to societal expectations and norms, which have changed to some extent to be more lenient toward tattoos overall.
Interpreting
Inked Individuals
Following the distinction made by Roberts, one might ask, “What ultimately makes you a tattooed person? Is it enough to simply take that extra step to become heavily tattooed? Does it mean moving beyond what might be trendy and committing on a more personal level to being tattooed?”
CREDIT: ANNIE SPRATT
These qualities are all certainly a part of being a tattooed person, however, there are some important nuances to engage with. “You could have two people with the same amount of tattoos, but it is about the personal connection… whether you connect with the community,” Thompson said.
It’s been argued that becoming a tattooed person requires more than merely collecting — it requires more direct engagement with the culture, art form, and community built around tattoos. “I guess it would be their identification with the community and some kind of engagement with that community as well,” Thompson explained. “So, it’s really kind of in their minds, it is not something external that you could categorize. It’s their level of commitment to engaging with the community and also identifying with it, like having that as part of your personal identity.”
However, being a tattooed person is highly subjective and a person’s perceptions
cannot be disregarded. Irrespective of how many tattoos a person has collected, their engagement and identification with tattoo culture and community could still be such that they could be considered — or at least consider themselves — a tattooed person.
Finding Meaning
Another interesting discussion, where the distinction between people with a single tattoo and those with extensive tattoos can be important, is tattoo meaning. For people in the first category, there is often a greater emphasis on attaching a meaningful story or narrative to the tattoo imagery and design to justify it. While this is not completely absent from tattooed people’s considerations, there is a much larger portion of this group for whom being tattooed in and of itself carries a lot of personal meaning.
Rees argues that there is a lot more overlap between the two categories regarding
tattoo meaning than in any other aspect, which should be considered. However, there is still some merit to distinguishing between people with tattoos in the way Roberts and Thompson have done, namely because there is a significant difference in when and how tattoos start to affect both your sense of self and your interactions with other people, with people who are heavily and/or visibly tattooed, feeling a much greater effect in both instances.
Undoubtedly, as has been recognized time and again, tattoos are increasingly popular to this day. Despite the prevalence of tattoos, it does not make it any less special to take that extra step and commit to being a tattooed person, to put in the effort to engage with both tattoo culture and community on a deeper level, and to find meaning in an identity more deeply connected with being tattooed. Perhaps you may find some comfort in that.
CREDIT: THIAGO BARLETTA
CREDIT: THOM MILKOVIC
CREDIT: NIKOLAS MITSIGGAS
CREDIT: ALEKS MARINKOVIC
ammy “The Bull” Gravano’s tattoos were born from persona, confinement, and aggravation.
The New York mobster-turnedecstasy kingpin-turned prisonerturned media maestro had a few tattoos in his youth: a diamond, Jesus, an eagle, and a girl’s name, “Pie.” After testifying against mob boss John Gotti in 1991, the former underboss served a five-year prison sentence. Upon release, he was persuaded to enter witness protection, and the ink markings were removed.
Discontent with the program, in 1995, Gravano left his witness protection persona, Jimmy Moran, and moved to Arizona, where his family resided. Years later, he was indicted on and sentenced to 20 years in prison for drug trafficking, a story recently recounted in the Max Original documentary “Sons of Ecstasy.”
“I was 55 years old going back into prison with a label as a rat, a cooperator,” Gravano shared with Inked. Fresh skinned and frustrated, he told himself, “Get tattoos, put your gangster hat on, and kill. That’s exactly my mentality in prison when I went in.”
Using a cup filled with black ink and a guitar string, the jailhouse tattoo artists used a motor or manually stuck the inky wire into his skin. “Not one of these tattoos came from the street,” Gravano said. “They’re all down my whole back, my chest, my arms — I got the sleeves all the way up and down.”
Gravano started rebuilding his life when he was released from prison in 2017. In 2020, he
launched the podcast and YouTube channel, “Our Thing,” amassing 628,000 subscribers as of press time.
In 2024, the confessed professional hitman “was engaged in a deeper, more personal battle: a struggle for redemption and peace,” and announced on Instagram that he was a born-again Christian. Soon afterward, he met face to face with his incarcerator, retired Sheriff Joe Arpaio, on NBC.
“I was angry with him,” Gravano admitted. NBC reporter Troy Hayden posted on Instagram that “Tension filled the room.” Yet, to many’s surprise, they eventually shook hands, cracked jokes, and took pictures together. “I hate walking around with hate or negativity in me,” Gravano shared. “Do I have a little bit of a temper? You’ll see it right away if I blow, but I don’t carry that. And I don’t carry hard feelings, and that’s another reason why I became a born-again Christian. I buried my sins. I don’t care who forgives me on the outside, but I care about God and Jesus forgiving me.”
Fast forward to January 21, 2025, Gravano sat down to share his story with Inked. From the birth of “The Bull” namesake to the Paul Castellano hit, his time in prison, carrying his murdered friend, mob captain Frank DeCicco, from a blown-up vehicle, and his media projects, the now 80-year-old was candid and went graphically in-depth.
“I know I don’t sound human with 19 murders and this and that,” he admitted. “I didn’t commit 19 murders, by the way. I was involved in 19 murders.” A movie about one
of those murders is currently in the works: an FX television series similar to “Sopranos,” with legendary writers Terence Winter, Nick Pileggi, JJ Sachs, and Director Antoine Fuqua. Executive Producers Aaron Kaplan and Gravano lead the team, and Gravano offered a sampler of what to expect.
The Ploy that Eliminated Keys
* To access the full transcript and learn more about the Castellano hit, visit inkedmag.com.*
Following mob boss Angelo Bruno’s assassination in 1980, a power struggle brewed in Philadelphia. John “Johnny Keys” Simone, a powerful Bruno family captain, had a target on his back from New York’s five crime families, who were unsuccessful in their previous attempts to off him. “They called it a ‘mission impossible,’” Gravano said. “Nobody could get it done.”
As the story goes, two “old timers,” Nicky Russo and Joseph “Pal Joey” Farinella, bumped into Keys. Previously acquainted, the three stopped at a restaurant to talk. An observer witnessed the meeting, grew suspicious, and brought it to the commission, claiming that Gambino boss Castellano was secretly conspiring.
One day at a club, while Gravano played cards, his boss, mob captain Salvatore “Toddo” Aurello, instructed him to drive to
Castellano’s house. At the crime boss’s house, “I shook his hand, but I back up. I go in the corner. I’m nobody. Even though I’m made, and I’m an acting captain, I’m a young guy,” said Gravano, who was in his early 30s at the time, adding, “[Castellano was] ripping mad.”
The Commission accused him of backing the wrong side — the Keys side — which was forbidden. Of course, he denied it because he had done nothing wrong. Castellano’s response to the Commission was swift and direct. “I’m not doing this on the sneak,” he said. The Commission responded, “If your guys could meet him, then you got the hit. Do it. Get it done.”
Castellano scolded the team at the next meeting, still frustrated to be stuck with the hit. Mid-rant, he looked over Aurello’s shoulder at Gravano and said, “Sammy, could you get this done?” Surprised yet unwavering, he agreed. Turning his attention to Russo and Farinella, Castellano said, “Sammy’s got the hit; he’s in charge. Do whatever he tells you to do.”
“My crew tells me, ‘Sammy, tell them we’re working on it, and we just can’t get it done, just like everybody else,’” Gravano explained. He dismissed their proposal, saying, “I took an oath to the life, bro. I got to do this. I’m not gonna bullshit. I can do it. If I can’t do it, I can’t do it, we’ll fall on our face. I gotta try.”
Gravano wanted to know who he was dealing with, so he asked Russo and Farinella to set an appointment. They warned him that Keys was in a war and always had 20 to 30 guys with him. He was smart, cunning, and a professional with 50 hits under his belt.
Gravano told his crew, “Make an appointment with him and tell him this exactly: ‘I got this young guy, Sammy. Paul wants to send him to meet you. He’s a made guy. He’s a jerkoff, a punk, and a bitch, but Paul uses him because he brings messages back and forth precisely – very good at that.’ Make sure you use that language.”
The initial meeting was a dud – no useful information. Gravano organized another meeting with Keys and then discussed plan B with his crew. He told them, “He sits in the back of the restaurant. Let me go in. This time, you guys stay on the sidewalk, talk to his guys, and you could see
me from the street. If they’re pulling me out of that booth, get in the car and go.”
Russo and Farinella warned him about what Keys would do to him: torture him for the truth and kill him. “You can’t come in,” Gravano told them. “There’s nothing you could do. But there will be other guys after me and you could be a big help to them. That’s what I’m telling you to do. I’m ordering you to do it. Period. I don’t want to discuss it. Do that.”
At the second meeting, Gravano told Keys that Castellano wanted to meet him and back him up, offering money, guns, and shooters to help Keys win the war. Keys would choose a safe place to meet, free of guns and with trusted associates.
Keys is convinced and named an upscale golf course with a country club and armed security. “He smiles. I smile. He got what he wants. I got what I want,” Gravano said. “I’m gonna kill him on the golf course.”
Gravano, Russo, and Farinella obtained a pass to the country club. They surveilled the property, observing two armed guards. Gravano explained the plan to his guys: The crew would be in the van, armed with an Uzi, shotguns, and pistols. If the guards drew their weapons to shoot, they would be killed.
On the day of the hit, Gravano and Keys were walking behind Russo and Farinella, discussing the meeting Keys agreed to with Castellano at the clubhouse. As they walked, Keys pointed out a van with its engine running. Gravano grabbed him, the van doors opened, and Keys was forced into the van. “Boom, I got him.”
They sped off, skidding, going sideways on the grass, smashing through the access barrier arm and into the guardhouse. The guards pulled their guns, but they ducked and didn’t shoot. Russo stayed with the car at the clubhouse, and as the van headed toward the highway, free from followers, Farinella abruptly announced, “Oh, my God. I got the keys to the car.”
It was a messy situation. Russo was stranded at the clubhouse without keys to the car, Gravano had a gun under the seat, and the crew’s fingerprints were everywhere. They pulled the van over, and Farinella was ordered to get out and return to the country club to find out what happened to Russo and the car, and the van was back on the road.
In the back of the van, Keys’ legs and arms were tied. He looked to Gravano and said, “A punk. A bitch. Five families in New York and half of fucking Philadelphia couldn’t have me sitting in this van. You’re everything but that.” He said, “[But] you’re making a mistake. The window’s open and not covered. A truck will see us. They got the CBs, and they’ll call it in. You’ll get busted.”
Keys was right. Gravano ordered his guys to cover the windows. Soon, Keys complained of chest pains and asked Gravano to grab a nitroglycerin pill from his pocket and place one under his tongue. Gravano did as he said but asked himself, “Wouldn’t he rather die of a heart attack?”
Keys didn’t resist being restrained as they approached the toll, and the van passed through without incident. “Sammy, I’m a very, very rich man. I can make you very, very rich. Beyond your imagination,” he told Gravano.
Gravano said, “Please don’t go there, bro. This is Cosa Nostra. There’s no money in the world.”
“Well said,” Keys responded. “I wish you were on my team. I would have won this war.” As they headed toward Staten Island, he said, “Sammy, do two favors for me. Make sure if it’s not you who pulls the trigger, it’s a made guy, a friend of ours. And don’t let me be found with my shoes on.”
Gravano understood the first favor, but was puzzled why Keys would want his shoes off. “My wife isn’t stupid. She reads the paper. She knows about what’s going on, and I tell her, ‘Relax, I’ll die at home with my shoes off. Don’t worry about it,’” Keys explained. “If I’m found without my shoes on, she’ll know I was thinking about her in the last couple of minutes or seconds before I died.”
Keys wanted to send his wife a covert message. To Gravano, it felt like a twisted love story — unbelievable and almost poetic. They spent 13 hours together in the van, reminiscing and creating a brotherly bond. Gravano thought, “It’s breaking my heart. I don’t even want to kill this guy.” Yet, the mission impossible was about to be realized.
Gravano laid it out to Keys. They would exit the van and walk through the weeds. “When the time comes, I want you to bend at the waist. You’re gonna get hit with a 357 Magnum. You know the power; you did a ton of hits. You’re not gonna feel nothing. You’ll be dead instantly. Your shoes are off. And that’s the best I can do.”
Gravano introduced Keys to Liborio “Louie” Milito, a made guy. “This is Johnny Keys, a very powerful captain in the Philadelphia mob. (Johnny) this is Louie Milito. He’s a friend of ours. He’ll be the shooter.”
Keys bent at the waist, looked up at Gravano, and said, “Sammy, I love you.” “It killed me. ‘Til today, it killed me,” Gravano shared. Keys was shot in the head, twice more after he fell to the ground.
The following day, the “Daily News” headline read “Bruno mob figure slain; dumped in Staten Island.” Aurello instructed Gravano to report to Castellano. “I go to Paul’s house,” Gravano said. “The maid opens the door. I go in and Paul sees me. He comes running, grabs me, hugs me, kisses me.”
As he hugged and kissed Gravano, he exclaimed. “You did it!” But Gravano’s body language didn’t mirror the boss’s. “What’s the matter?”
“I was with him for 13 hours. I feel dirty. I took out somebody who was the epitome of our life. Someone I’m supposed to look up to, and I killed him,” Gravano explained.
Castellano reassured Gravano that it was known he was following orders. “Every boss, underboss, and consigliere is gonna know that you did this. The mission impossible hit. Nicky Scarfo, who’s gonna win the war; you won the war for him.”
“No disrespect, I don’t give a fuck what they think,” Gravano said. “Paul, I fell in love with him last night. I loved him.”
“What did you say?” Castellano asked.
“I said I fell in love with him.”
“Don’t change who you are,” Castellano said, grabbing him, hugging and kissing him again. “Want coffee?”
“No, I’m gonna go. My guys are waiting for me.”
With her bold tattoos and sharp, quirky humor, Natalie Cuomo (@nataliecuomo_) is a comedian who knows how to make a lasting impression. Her unique blend of comedy and tattoo culture, showcased in sold-out shows across the U.S., Australia, and Canada, has made her a fan favorite, captivating audiences with her one-of-a-kind style.
Cuomo recently shared with Inked Magazine her experiences on the road, her journey as a comedian, and her unique connection to the tattoo community. As expected, her responses were as humorous and surprising as her standup performances.
Cuomo is recognized not only for her comedy career but also for her time as a freelance writer with Inked Magazine. For Cuomo, being on the other side of the interview represents a meaningful milestone in her journey. “I had the most fun interviewing tattooed comedians for Inked Magazine,” she says. “It’s very full circle for me to be interviewed as a comedian.”
When asked which tattoo artist she’d most like to interview today, Cuomo doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll take any excuse to hang out with Ryan Ashley and hopefully get a piece by her soon.”
Though she’s not a tattoo artist herself, Cuomo’s deep appreciation for tattoo culture is undeniable. “I have always been drawn to tattoo culture. I enjoy hanging around tattoo shops, making friends with talented artists, and collecting their work,” she says.
While her tattoos don’t directly shape her jokes, they do play a significant role in her connection with audiences. Her bold, intricate pieces spark curiosity and provide an additional layer to her stage persona.
“I often want to wear a sweatshirt on stage, but people after the show are like, ‘WTF! We wanted to see your tattoos!’” Cuomo shares, laughing. “Sometimes I feel like my tattoos are a distraction from what I’m trying to say on stage. If I wear shorts, I feel people staring at my legs like, ‘Why is there a skunk in a top hat on her shin?’”
Cuomo’s tattoos have also found their way into her material. “None of my tattoos are thought out, so a few of them have made it into my stand-up,” she admits. “It’s taken me to the age of 30 to realize that maybe I was a bit impulsive in my early 20s… but hey, who cares?”
If her tattoos could talk, Cuomo jokes, they’d offer one piece of advice: “Laser tattoo removal is bad for you!! Don’t do it!”
Cuomo’s life on tour is filled with memorable moments, cultural differences, and unique preshow rituals. “I like to write out my set over and over again on pieces of paper,” she shares. “Then I rip it out from my notebook and keep it in my back pocket while I’m on stage. Afterward, I put it in a folder, take a photo of it, and add it to an album on my phone. Then I do the same thing the next night.”
Touring different countries has also given her insight into how cultural nuances affect her comedy. “The audiences are pretty consistent because they’re familiar with my work,” she explains. “But there are some references I need to adjust. For example, Xanax isn’t as popular in Rotterdam as it is in NYC.”
Balancing a stand-up comedy career is no small feat, especially when sharing the journey with a fellow wisecracker. Cuomo recently tied the knot with comedian Dan LaMorte, and their relationship is a mix of humor, mutual support, and a few comedic challenges. “The best part is that we are
constantly pushing each other to be the funniest versions of ourselves,” she says. “The worst part is sometimes one of us wants to be serious while the other one is still in joking mode.”
For Cuomo, one of the most rewarding aspects of her career is the community it has created. She fondly remembers a particularly special moment when two fans who had formed a friendship through their shared love for her work met in person for the first time and shared a heartfelt hug. “Community means more to me than anything,” she says.
Between her comedy tour and her popular podcast, “Help! With Natalie Cuomo,” she thrives on building connections with others. “The podcast is an excuse for me to talk to people I really look up to and want to have conversations with,” she shares. Unlike her stand-up,
the podcast adopts a more conversational tone, diving into authentic and insightful topics with her guests.
When she’s not on the road, Cuomo enjoys indulging in reality TV and dreaming about a quiet life on a tiny farm, but for now, she remains focused on sharing laughter and stories with audiences around the globe. “Ever since I was a little kid, I loved the shared experience of live performance,” she says. “Coming from a very small family, I quickly realized the best sense of community I could find was sharing laughter with a room full of strangers. Performing forces me to connect with the current moment, and it reminds me that I am not alone.”
With her clever wit, relatable charm, and passion for tattoo culture, Cuomo is leaving a lasting mark on the comedy world. Whether on stage, hosting her podcast, or hanging out at a tattoo shop, she proves that comedy isn’t just a way to connect; it’s a way to do it with style and authenticity.
he journey of life profoundly impacts Latin and reggaeton superstar Maluma, his music, and the ink he adorns. “Everything that is important to me is reflected in the tattoos that I get,” he explains. “I often plan them out and work extensively with the tattoo artist to create something beautiful that reflects the moment of my life.”
At age 14, Maluma tattooed his left leg with his name, a name derived from blending the first two letters of three family members: mother Marlli, father Luis, and sister Manuela. His tattoo collection escalated from there, with “Magia,” the name of his first album, drawn on his left forearm; on his right forearm, four elephants with humanlike shadows reflecting in water, to represent his family; a lion, one of his favorite tattoos, on his upper left chest; and a dove tattooed on his neck by Peruvian artist Stefano Alcantara (@stefanoalcantara), symbolizing peace, which was coincidentally tattooed flying high at 43,000 feet aboard a private jet.
His most recent body art is a feast for the eyes: a sprawling blackwork masterpiece with angels and stallions surrounding the name “Don Juan,” a fierce sky looming in the background. Rendered by Alcantara and fellow Latino tattoo artist Carlos Torres (@carlostorresart) in Turks and Caicos, the piece took 16 hours to complete.
True, “Don Juan” is a fictional Casanova from the 17th Century, but it’s also the name of Maluma’s most recent album, and it references his birth name: Juan Luis Londoño Arias. “It has a great meaning. I have two horses that I would say always have this duality in my life about (making) decisions and how to handle my life,” he explains. “So, I put one horse that is more calm and the other one is more kind of angry, or more desperate.”
To fully interpret his tattoos, one must delve into the lifechanging events that impacted his story, from his family roots to the music he created, friendships, and the affinity and devotion to the country he will always call home: Colombia.
The Evolution of “Don Juan”
Maluma’s most recent album “Don Juan,” released in 2023, was born out of more than a decade of growth in the music industry. “With every album, my music evolves with sounds and with style,” he says. “With every album I create a persona, from Maluma Baby to Papi Juancho to Don Juan, and I love evolving with each one. I’m especially excited to go back to my ‘Pretty Boy, Dirty Boy’ era with my new music, but now more pretty and even more dirty.”
Maluma grew up in Medellín, a source of great pride and a constant inspiration for the illustrious artist, and where it was assumed he would pursue a soccer career. But his love of music ultimately outshone Colombia’s beloved sport. “My family was very supportive in my arrival in my music scene,” he shares. “My aunt actually gave me my first studio session as a present for my birthday when I first started,” which gave birth to his first song “No Quiero,” or “I Don’t Want To.”
When Maluma’s first single “Farandulera” — translated to “Showgirl” in English — hit the Colombian airwaves and received resounding attention, Sony Music Colombia took notice and signed him, which led to his first studio album “Magia.” His Medellín upbringing inspired the 2012 album, which included major hits like “Obsesión,” “Miss Independent,” and “Loco,” and landed on the Colombia and Latin America music charts.
It was his next album, “Pretty Boy, Dirty Boy,” that threw him into the international spotlight when it debuted at number one on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums in 2015. “I don’t think I ever imagined my music would be heard around the world, especially singing in Spanish,” Maluma says. “But that’s what makes it so special. Music doesn’t have barriers and I’m proud to take my culture around the world.”
In 2016, Shakira released the steamy single “Chantaje,” “Blackmail” in English, featuring Maluma, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart and made the Billboard Hot 100, Maluma’s first encounter on the esteemed chart. In 2018, the Latin singers collaborated once again with “Clandestino,” “Clandestine” in English, reaching the top 10 Billboard Hot Latin Songs.
In subsequent years, Maluma released two albums: “F.A.M.E.” in 2018 and “11:11” in 2019. His music career escalated further when he hit the stage with Madonna to
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LU’U DAN LASER CUT LEATHER PANTS
debut her new single “Medellín” at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards. The presentation of the Spanglish song was provocative and hightech, with sensuous dance moves and Madonna holograms dancing alongside onstage.
“I’ve been very fortunate to work with amazing artists that I not only admire but I can now call my friends,” Maluma says. “The way I met Madonna backstage at the VMAs in New York, and then doing two songs with her, to having her come to surprise my fans and perform together in my stadium show in Medellín in front of 55,000 people is something neither I nor my city will ever forget.”
More notable names on Maluma’s collaborations list include J Balvin, Marc Anthony, Ricky Martin, and The Weekend. “Papi Juancho” came out in 2020, and “Don Juan” in 2023, both tributes to his namesake.
Maluma is currently on his +Pretty +Dirty European tour and will stop in Medellín for the highly anticipated second edition of MEDALLO EN EL MAPA stadium show on April 26. He will also perform on May 3 for the BOGOTÁ EN EL MAPA stadium show in the country’s capital.
the couple’s cherished 1-year-old baby girl. “Becoming a father has changed my life in ways I never thought possible,” he shares. “My daughter Paris has brought a new sense of love and drive that inspires me in every aspect of my life, not just my music.”
Maluma cherishes his good fortune and joy, but this year heartbreak weighed heavy on the “Corazón” (“Heart”) singer, when on January 28, his 31st birthday, his beloved grandmother Bere Londoño passed away. “It was a day — like a lot of duality of feelings — where I was happy for my birthday, but on the other side I was sad because my grandmother was no longer there,” he shared on social media in the days following. “I feel like it’s time to find the best version of me.”
In the aftermath, Maluma expressed a renewed focus on peace, happiness, and reconnecting with nature. “I know the best is yet to come after changing on a mental and physical level,” he shared on social media. “I’m going to continue in this learning with a lot of peace, a lot of patience — one step at a time — a lot of meditation, a lot of love. That’s all we need in life: love.”
New Stories Unfold
In 2022, the world witnessed Maluma’s Hollywood debut in the romcom drama “Marry Me.” “When we got that call that they wanted me for this role and I read the script, I had to say yes,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to act and for my first acting role to be starring alongside Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in ‘Marry Me’ is crazy.”
A stable fixture at premiere fashion events, it’s no surprise that one of Maluma’s most recent ventures is his new clothing line Remanence. “I’ve always loved fashion and being creative director and launching my own line is also a dream come true for me,” he shares. “It’s a line we created that can take you from the gym to everyday errands and activities with sustainable materials, all done in my hometown of Colombia but sold worldwide.”
While Maluma has been with his girlfriend Susana Gómez since 2020, there’s a new leading lady in the household who runs the show:
No matter our difficulties, Maluma recognizes that we’re all in this life together. In 2016, the Londoño Arias family introduced El Arte de los Sueños (The Art of Dreams) foundation, an arts-focused program that teaches vulnerable adolescents how to morally and emotionally navigate the world. The program teaches teamwork and autonomy, and highlights the arts as building blocks to a better existence.
Most would agree that his life reads like a fairytale, but he strives to stay humble. “We are all the same,” he says. “I didn’t grow up rich. As a kid, my family and I struggled, so being able to live off of my passion and at the same time provide for my family is something I will never take for granted.”
Whether through his foundation, in the studio, at home, or connecting with nature, “I’m always working on music; it’s part of my DNA,” Maluma says. For his next chapter, expect more: more music, more transformations, more collaborations, and, along with it, more body art to commemorate a life of resilience, love, and optimism.
PICTURED: MONDAY BLUES X DEVOCION COLLECTION BURLAP JERSEY AND PANTS
hey wear their stories on their skin. She tells them through her lens. Helsinki-born and New York-based, photographer Reka Nyari’s journey to capturing the heavily tattooed was as artistically layered as the subjects taking center stage in her works.
“I don’t know why when I was younger I thought ‘art’ was painting,” she says, the adolescent belief leading her to study said subject at the School of Visual Arts in New York. “But I always would take photos as references,” she recalls, explaining that even when she took on modeling stints in Europe and Southeast Asia, despite being sans painting materials, she was ever-inspired to shoot. And did.
“It’s when I discovered that photography is actually an art medium and it’s something that I love to do. It’s so much more collaborative than painting by yourself in your room,” she says. Enter Nyari’s commercial work era in the fashion and beauty space, followed some years later by what now seems to be her sweet spot.
“Art photography. Telling my own stories and, instead of selling products and things, creating art,” she explains.
SKIN DEEP
Creating images and being a storyteller— and shifting narratives alongside them — is a holistic practice for Nyari. It’s part of her draw to tattoos, which, besides being personally fascinated by, she feels weren’t — and still aren’t — represented enough in the fine art world, inspiring her to kick off her “INK STORIES” series circa 2017.
The photographer paints the portrait of a stubborn, lingering taboo in “traditional” art spaces. Her subjects were likened to “criminals.” Visitors stood aghast with “Oh, my God” reactions at the sight of her large-scale portraits, the depiction of these emboldened — and naked — women inconceivable to any authentic art connection.
Seemingly outdated in an age of unabashed self-expression, these notions are ever in style in the “conservative environments” where some of her exhibitions have opened. The discussion is usually expected. Sometimes of her own habit to “instigate.” And always welcome.
“I’m flattered if somebody doesn’t like my work. I think reaction is better than overreaction,” Nyari proclaims. “Also, I think it says a lot, reaction to art, about the person who’s looking at it.” She explains that her Nordic roots, and thus sauna culture, shaped some of her own perceptions. “I was raised with nudity that was non-sexualized a lot.”
NAKED TRUTH
Still, Nyari acknowledges that they are technically “nudes.” And what, if any, responsibility does she feel with capturing individuals in these vulnerable states? “As a woman shooting other women that are in a state of undress, I just lean on that person to give me as much as they want to give,” she says. “My objective is not to shoot them sexy or in an erotic way… so there’s that line of what is that woman comfortable with showing? How do they want to portray themselves? So, depending on their own story, it can be empowering to be sexy and naked and say ‘See me, bro. This is my skin. This is my story.’”
If the reaction, as Nyari notes, says a lot about the person looking at it, what then does the photograph say about the person taking it? Is Nyari herself a tattoo artist?
Is her skin, too, her canvas of choice, working her way up to a body suit akin to her subjects?
To the former, no. And maybe more surprisingly on the latter, also no. But neither is off the drawing board, per se. Like any true artist, Nyari respects the art, the process, and, in the case of tattoos, the commitment, which she has now heard countless first-hand stories.
“Apparently the more tattoos you get, the more your body responds and the pain becomes more instead of less. Your immune system starts reacting more,” Nyari explains. One such subject has provided one of the most memorable proof points. “I shot this amazing French woman, and she has three body suits on top of each other,” she says. “She was telling me she was called a ‘true collector.’ It’s such a commitment to the art.”
Besides, if and/or when Nyari is ready to turn her eye for ink onto her own body, it’s go big or not at all. Turns out her teenage desires still linger but have matured. “I wanted to get my first tattoo when I was 14. I designed this massive backpiece, and my mom said, ‘Wait until you’re 18, and then I’ll come with you. I’ll pay for it,’” she recalls. “By the time I was 18, I’d changed my mind. Now that I’ve shot so many amazing fully tattooed [people], it’s art,” she adds. “I couldn’t get anything small. It would have to be a full body art piece.”
BEST UNDRESSED
Until then, Nyari is “living vicariously” through the inked-up individuals she photographs, “capturing their life stories and giving them a voice.” And continuing
to maneuver within, and arguably trailblaze, the photography fine art space of tattooing.
Her network has grown to the point of word-of-mouth hook-ups. “People find me now, also,” she explains of new subjects. And her purview has expanded to community captures in some instances, detailing an upcoming project with “portraiture of actual tribes.”
And now, even high color has seeped into at least one of her typically black-andwhite projects, representing a moment to “flip everything upside down” post-COVID. And yes, by the way, she does shoot men too — and always has — so look out for her project featuring “generally masculine themes of tattooing, with something typically feminine” to come soon.
No matter the individual or the tattoo, the draw for Nyari remains the same: art as its own story and the art of telling those stories. Their canvas. Her capture.
“I like scars and imperfections and all these different things on bodies. And tattooing is just another layer of telling a story on top of it,” Nyari says. “It’s almost like art on top of art, you know?”
ashion photographer Markus Klinko has spent over 30 years behind the camera, continually pushing boundaries with a compositional technique that underlines the unique characteristics of his celebrity subjects. From his imagination came the 2019 photo of singer-songwriter Billie Eilish sandwiched between expressive duplicates of herself and the 2023 image of New York City rapper Ice Spice reclining in a bathtub, surrounded by a richness of orange elements designed to accentuate her ginger curls.
It took some time, but throughout Klinko’s lengthy career, prominent figures began appearing in his photo gallery, distinguished with visible tattoos. The staged photo of Mötley Crüe’s legendary drummer, Tommy Lee, in a classroom, sprawled over a pair of desks with his tattooed sleeves on full display contrasts nicely with the profile shot of the guardian angel piece on the right side of Pharrell Williams’ neck. There’s even a conceptual image of Klinko’s contemporary, David LaChapelle, lying in a coffin with a camera resting in the middle of his tattooed hands.
These photos are indicative of an increasing trend that has seen influential creatives throughout every market of the entertainment industry make a few tweaks to their appearance with body ink. It’s an upswing that raises a fair question: Is there any chance Klinko’s name will be appearing in the digital appointment book of a tattoo artist anytime soon?
“No,” answered Klinko without an ounce of hesitation during a Zoom interview. “It’s not something that I’m drawn to myself… I kind of like
simplicity… But I really like tattoos on my subjects. I think it adds to the dramatic effect of a person’s appearance and personality. It plays a role in the styling choices, (like) do we want to show the tattoos? (And) do we want to focus on them?” Interestingly, Klinko’s most famous photo session of all time directly inspired the biggest tattoo piece he has ever captured on film. The incidents occurred decades apart from one another, and now, they are forever linked by his backstory.
In 1994, the darkroom process was a standard industry practice in post-production, but Klinko bypassed the traditional methods for achieving museum-quality images by digitalizing his film negatives with a drum scanner. At the outset of Klinko’s career, he gained exclusive access to high-end post-production facilities through his association with some affluent figures who put their resources behind him after realizing the enterprising potential of his art.
Not being bound by the early limitations of SGI workstations, as his profession gradually evolved
SERPENT/ DAPHNE GUINNESS
PHARRELL WILLIAMS
DAVID BOWIE, FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: HEATHEN / SMOKING / THE CROSS
from analog to digital, enabled Klinko to let his imagination run wild. He adopted the principles of automation before software programs like Photoshop 3.0 became widespread and curated a signature style where high-resolution shots of his celebrity subjects were enhanced with a colorful approach to image overlaying and split toning to add depth perception to his backgrounds.
In the process, he piqued the interest of the late David Bowie, a rock/pop icon and one of his first celebrity admirers. Their shared interest in turning controversy into a creative activity spawned a pair of iconic photo shoots in the early 2000s, where Klinko pulled out all the stops, employing a newborn baby as a visual element, multiple body doubles, digital face replacement, and more.
Ironically, it was Bowie who first suggested that Klinko experiment by adding more antiquity to his pictures and stripping them of an essential element that made his projects so distinctive as a rising star in fashion photography. It happened during the fall of 2001 after their pre-scheduled shoot day had been postponed multiple times due to 9/11. When Bowie finally made it to Klinko’s studio in NYC, he brought with him an unprecedented request.
“Bowie specifically wanted me to do black and white (photos),” Klinko said. “I asked him about it and said, ‘Why would you choose me to shoot the black and white album cover?’ I said, ‘You realize that I don’t do that?’ And he said, ‘Yes, that’s exactly why I’m asking you because I think it’ll get your creative attention and you will get extra motivated to try to do this.’ And he was right, it did open doors for me in my mental limitations because I just felt that I was more of a color guy. (But) after seeing the results of working and producing final black and white images, I was grateful to him for motivating me to incorporate black and white photography.”
Subsequently, the shots that Klinko snapped during the transformative photo shoot in support of Bowie’s “Heathen” album release were succeeded by new additions where other celebrity subjects such as Outkast, Keanu Reeves, Carmen Electra, and Jason Statham were also captured using a similar brand of raw monochrome photography. But, by and large, Klinko has reserved much of his avant-garde thinking for arranging colorful works of art at studios and on-shoot locations where he has captured editorial shoots and album covers.
- KLINKO WHILE RECOLLECTING HIS PROJECT WITH PHARRELL WILLIAMS
THE WAVE/ DAVID BOWIE
JOE PERRY
During Klinko’s rise in the early 2000s, album covers were an essential part of the marketing strategy behind musicians signed to major record labels. With apps like Instagram and Spotify still about six or seven years away from having a significant influence on fan engagement, the music industry relied heavily on hard copies of album covers, which typically included corresponding artwork booklets and decorative promo photos as a way of revealing an intimate look at the multifaceted purveyors of Top 40 hits. In turn, the collection of recording artists who stepped in and out of Klinko’s camera frame saw firsthand what it was like to be the subject of creation from a leading artist on the opposite side of the curtain.
Within five years, the ex-musician who was once signed to EMI Classics, orchestrated a string of photogenic themes in support of albums like “Elephunk” by Black Eyed Peas, “Dangerously in Love” by Beyoncé, and “The Emancipation of Mimi” by Mariah Carey. The latter
The polished reputation of the acclaimed Swiss national with a keen photographer’s eye was not lost on actor Joe Manganiello, who referred to Klinko as “the one who’d captured his favorite David Bowie shots of all time” when they were seated next to one another at the 2024 Hollywood Beauty Awards.
On the night when Klinko received the Outstanding Achievement in Photography award, Manganiello took the opportunity to pitch himself for an in-person photo shoot. They bounced ideas off each other throughout the spring until finally settling on a shoot date. Manganiello was so excited that he channeled his inner Bowie and brought forth an unexpected twist to the collaboration. Before his shoot with Klinko, the host of “Deal or No Deal Island” booked an appointment with a Los Angeles-based tattoo artist named Small Paul and obtained an elaborate Japanese-style tattoo that covered his arms and chest. In the process, he gave Klinko more elements to get creative with.
two became amongst the bestselling LPs of the 21st century, thus making it apparent that when the foundational stage of a marketing plan for an upcoming album release called for the all-important “culling” process to begin, Klinko knew a thing or two about handpicking the final cuts out of hundreds of options.
“I have a very strong opinion of what the very best is,” Klinko said. “Typically, my selection process is very narrow. Most of the time, I feel very strongly about ‘This is the shot.’ So, I use a lot of effort to convince my clients of that, which is not always easy because (labels) are used to being thrown these large amounts of possibilities. But I believe that since I know what I’m going to do with it in final post-production, I feel pretty strong that it’s a decision I should be making. I’m very controlling when it comes to that.”
“There was a substantial addition of tattoos that he specifically wanted to have done before the shoot. He’s obviously a very physical personality. He’s a huge guy. I’m 6 foot 4 and always considered myself very tall and generally the tallest person in the room, but when I met Joe, this guy was almost 6 foot 6, and he was twice as wide as me. He’s full of muscles,” Klinko said with a laugh. “I felt like a toothpick next to him… I think the tattoos just reinforce all of that. So, I think the whole concept was subliminally inspired by the total look that included the tattoos.”
The result was a fascinating piece of conceptual photography by Klinko, which he named “The Return.” In this picture, Klinko used a small amount of sunlight as his backlight to illuminate Manganiello’s sturdy physique and body ink. Using CGI, he added a pair of robotic wolves, an homage to Bowie, which he knew his muscle-bound subject would appreciate.
MARY J. BLIGE
MARKUS SHOOTING MARY J. BLIGE
MARKUS KLINKO
“M
y name is Dakota Weik. I travel, I study, and I document the world of tattooing.”
That is
how the intro goes to Dakota Weik’s documentary series “Life Beyond Ink,” where he takes his audience on a journey to learn more about the people behind tattooing. Most recognize Weik as the “Inked Abroad” host on social media, where he has taken the tattoo world by storm with his passionate, charming, and insightful reviews of tattoo artists who inspire him.
If you do not follow him already on social media, you may have stumbled on one of Weik’s many reviews, possibly one that includes one or more of your favorite tattoo artists. His flair and style are unmistakable as he sits at his desk, excitingly telling viewers, “You have got to check this out.”
Talking to him, it becomes clear quickly that his incredible fondness for tattooing is genuine. Weik puts considerable work into researching and locating tattoo artists he feels are doing something unique and creative with a skillset he wants to promote.
It is more than a mere reviewing — it has become a guide to incredible artists worldwide. His knowledge and keen eye have also been noticed and acknowledged by brands such as Sullen Art Collective, Co:Create, and
Mad Rabbit Tattoo, all of which have worked closely with Weik. Weik wants to spread positivity and help others through his social media presence and influence. “I always liked the positive approach,” he said. “I like spreading positivity… and art is subjective, so I am not going to go on and negatively bash someone that I don’t agree with. There is no need for negativity in that aspect, and I just want to promote people, whether it is helping artists get new clients or helping someone find their dream artist.”
Leaving No Stone Unturned
“I kind of stumbled into the tattoo industry as I came up with this idea to create documentaries,” Weik said. “I started building on social media (while) discovering the incredible artwork around the world. I just became so fascinated as I learned about the history, and how the artwork comes together, and the different cultures.”
Indeed, Weik came to the world of tattooing through his love of documentaries. From the outset, he wanted to document the tattoo world in as much detail as possible. One of the projects that flourished from this ambition is his documentary series “Life Beyond Ink,” with two episodes published so far at press time. The title resonates well with what Weik sets out to do in this documentary series.
Weik styles himself as a tattoo ethnographer, and watching the documentary, you see why. He truly takes you “beyond the ink,” guiding the viewer further into the incredible art of the artists and publishing details about their lives, friends, families, hobbies, and more. He takes a deep dive, offering viewers a deeper understanding of what inspires their artworks while showcasing a complete picture of their social and cultural context and identity.
Whether talking to their colleagues, families, and friends, joining Sergey Fedotov at a drag race, or visiting Maryland glitter realism tattoo artist Amanda Graves as she coaches cheerleading, sitting down with them for a meal later, it is all part of it, and Weik takes you on a journey of discovery to see why.
If Weik’s ever-growing inkwork and tattoo book collections are anything to go by — he has collected a lot of both on his travels to 48 different countries and counting — there are no signs of stopping the documentarian. While his passion for documenting the tattoo world remains the primary objective, in the future, he wants to create the most comprehensive tattoo museum the world
has ever seen, complete with all tattoo books — from academia to art guides — ancient tattoo artifacts and tools, shopfronts, and more. “That’s like a 20-year plan, but it’s a huge, huge project that encompasses a lot of different things from tattoo history and preservation,” he said.
Weik’s keenness for body art is heading toward uncharted waters. A seemingly natural progression, this year, he is relocating to Germany to begin a tattoo artist apprenticeship. “I have tattooed two people before. Both were very ‘poop’ tattoos but it’s what you expect for the first couple,” he said, laughing. “But it was very scary because I
used the coil machine on the first one and I just could not see the needle. So, I was just praying, I was like, ‘Just pull a straight line.’ So nerve-wracking.”
One of Weik’s latest endeavors is a massive backpiece inked by Germany-based neo-ornamental tattoo artist Isabella “Filou” Buhring. The artwork will pay homage to his love of traditional pinups but in her distinct style.
But before that, Weik will head to the East Coast to learn to build machines with the guidance of an experienced tattoo artist. “I want to learn how to do everything the old school way — solder needles and everything — and then do the coil machines and then go over and start my apprenticeship.”
The Pennsylvanian’s devotion to body art is palpable with his projects “Life Beyond Ink” and “Inked Abroad,” lessons in oldschool tattooing tools and techniques, a move across the Atlantic Ocean, an apprenticeship, appearances at conventions, plans for upcoming projects, and more. “It’s a crazy balance,” he said, “but I have so many projects because I’m so passionate about everything I do. I love everything in tattoo history.”
Growing up outside of Venice, Sebastiano
Perazzetta has been interested in art for as long as he can remember, so it was no surprise when he started a tattoo apprenticeship in his native Italy at just 16 years old.
The highly successful tattoo artist better known as “Peste” has become a worldwide sensation for his unique “oil spill” design. His free-flowing, organic style was designed to accentuate the unique curves of the human body, resulting in eye-popping works of freehand art.
“Everything started with a love of drawing, painting, and a love of the Orient and Japanese culture,” Peste said in a recent phone interview. “Since I can remember, I was drawing. It was during a time when I was surrounded by an underground world of skating and punk that I discovered the world of tattooing. It was the first time I saw a tattoo artist, and I thought it was the coolest thing.”
Peste was raised and immersed in an underground community that didn’t conform with the masses, and it was a huge influence for him at a tender age. “It was inevitable to embrace art in some way walking around such an old country,” he said. “Drawing is a common hobby in Italy, and my mother was always interested in art. It was a good solution for the cold winters.
“I attended a Picasso exhibit when I was 7, which is my first big memory of a great exhibition. My love of art is the most important reason I became interested in tattooing. I loved the idea of being able to express myself through my tattoos. With my love of art and tattoos, I thought I could find a way to make a living at it.”
When he was starting out, Peste knew he could not make a living as a tattoo artist in Italy, so he decided to move to Australia. “Traveling has been one of the most important experiences of my life,” he said. “I was let down from the Italian scene of tattooing, and the U.S. was not a possibility at the time. Australia was much more open-minded.
“Now, I spend most of my time in Europe, but I am looking forward to traveling to the United States for the first time to New York, Chicago, Denver, and Orlando,” he continued. “The influence in the American tattoo industry is insane. I have so many friends tattooing there that I look up to and love.”
Peste has always appreciated the selfexpression that comes from creating his signature designs, and attributes his success to not only being disciplined but also receiving encouragement from friends pushing him to succeed and inspiring him along the way.
“If you are looking for a tattoo specialist, one of my favorite artists is Jondix, who owns a studio (Seven Doors Tattoo) in London. I have been guesting there for six years.” he noted. Outside of tattooing, Peste finds inspiration from anyone who represents avant-garde; those who push boundaries and find innovative ways to hone their craft.
Today, Peste has made a name for himself with his unique artistic style that embraces both blackwork and abstract art. One of his most popular tattoos incorporates eyes into the design, creating a complex and mysterious style.
“My job is to give the best tattoo, and I found a painting technique called Suminagashi, which was really impactful,” he said. “When I was painting, I was trying to see how the human body could empower the art.”
Peste’s love of fashion has also played a major role creating his signature style as he realizes “tattooing is dressing someone forever.” Creating customized body art designed to highlight a specific piece of the anatomy requires a lot of planning to study both placement and movement. “It’s incredibly technical, but I’m a nerd and the beauty of the human body is already there.”
Peste loves abstract art and has lately become interested in integrating subject matters, but his main goal is to create a piece that feels timeless. “It has been the biggest honor sharing my tattoo journey.”
The award-winning tattoo artist who has tattooed in more than 15 countries still
remembers getting his first ink. “My first tattoo was of a crab that I did in my bedroom two minutes after I turned 18,” he laughed. “It looks absolutely terrible, and I still can’t find the answer why I got that. I guess I felt it would be easy to draw.”
While Peste says traveling to conventions has been a fun way to share his art, last year, one of his most challenging projects was at Frankfurt’s world-famous Gods of Ink Tattoo Convention.
“I challenged myself with something massive and created a psychedelic woman portrait combined with my abstract style,” he said. “It took three days and about 30 hours to complete an outer leg and hip for the Best in Show contest. I overshot the size of the tattoo because I wanted to bring something new to the most challenging expo in the world. It was a bit of a gamble because I didn’t know if I could finish it, but I got on the top five.”
Peste appreciates the support and encouragement he has received along the way, and he believes training at a young age is one of the best ways to hone your skills.
“Definitely go through an apprenticeship,” he said. “I remember it as a really good time to understand the dynamics of the business. I have enjoyed every step of this journey. If you study, learn, and work hard, everything will fall into place if you want it enough. Don’t be afraid to try something different. If it’s a crazy idea, go for it! Go nuts! Because, why not?”
Everything Anaïs Chabane does is purposeful. From her tattoos to her studio, it’s all meticulously elegant, feminine, and precise. But it isn’t an antiquated, stuffy sort of femininity — the kind you’d find at a finishing school. Rather, it’s a bold, intentional elegance that, more than anything, loves the female form and celebrates everything that makes it so.
“I want to be elegant in all the ways that I can, in my work, my personality, my clothing. I really want to change the mindset that people have that [tattoos] are rebellious,” Chabane explains. “They can be elegant things, chic things, and more like an accessory — a beautiful accessory that you wear.”
Hailing from Toulouse in the south of France, the 32-year-old Los Angeles adoptee has always been drawn to the feminine.
The 5,000-year-old tradition of henna — a temporary, natural dye used to decorate the hands and feet of women at celebrations in her father’s native Morocco — is Chabane’s earliest inspiration. Her time at fashion school and her travels in India, where a similar but distinct form of henna is practiced, eventually shaped her inimitable style of fine-line tattooing. Her designs, which can take more than eight hours to draw, are finer than traditional henna art but meld the geometric lines and vines of the Moroccan style with the emblems, mandalas and flowing elements
of Indian mehndi. Like all henna, Chabane’s art is about appreciating and enhancing beauty. “What I do is ornament women’s bodies,” she says. “It’s like lace underwear. It’s body jewelry I have in my mind that flows with their body parts.”
Looking at Chabane’s own tattoos, you wouldn’t recognize her commitment to fine line work. A bold collection of traditional, predominantly blackwork tattoos, they instead represent her commitment to an aesthetic.
“I started with this style before I specialized in ornamental. I already had a lot of old-school tattoos, and I don’t like having a mix of things,” she shares. “For sure, I would have preferred something more like henna, but it was too late. I have an aesthetic in mind so I can’t change anything.”
Despite this unwavering sense of style, her introduction to tattoos was casual and unplanned. “Before I was 18, I was not really interested in them… I just started with some friends who had already started at home.” And it was another three or four months after that when she decided to get her own.
“It wasn’t prepared and wasn’t like ‘I know I want a tattoo one day’ or anything. It was just fun things, and we wanted to practice on each other,” she explains. “They did a few of them on the same day. One on my back was wings with color — so horrible — so I covered it over later. And another one was a Gandhi quote that says, ‘Begin by changing in you what you want to change around you.’”
Practicing like this for a couple of years and then struggling to find apprentice work in the “really saturated” Toulouse, Chabane decided to make room for herself and opened her own shop at just 22. “I probably wouldn’t do that again! When you’re 21 or 22 you do things like that. For some reason I was just not scared at all.”
With only two other artists specializing in ornamental tattoos in France in 2014, it didn’t take long before she exclusively tattooed clients in her style and carved her own space in the industry. A decade later, and fine line is one of the most popular styles in Europe and her new home in the United States, where she is one of its most sought-after artists. “It’s come really slowly. It’s not like the next day I was like ‘Oh my God, so many shops do fine line,’” Chabane
explains. “I think it’s good. Everyone has a different style, even in fine line.” The popular style has even inspired her to create a line of temporary tattoos, based on her most popular designs, which launched in 2021. In her newest home on Melrose Avenue, Chabane has created a haven of bright, feminine energy, with female figures adorning
the shelves, soft furnishings accented with soft colors, lotus-shaped chairs, and a bed flanked by a huge, golden sun. Though she will tattoo men as a guest artist, she says she “only wants to work on women’s body parts” because “they flow so, so well” with her designs. Her studio reflects that — curated and inspired by the divine feminine. She will even buy flowing, white dresses that compliment a client’s new tattoo for a photo shoot that realizes beauty of the art on the body and the body as art.
Ultimately, tattoos are the vehicle through which Chabane practices deliberate elegance — uncompromising and unmistakenly feminine. Whether permanent or temporary, or simply from the way she moves through the world, her pursuit of radical femininity is making the tattoo industry a more beautiful place.
If you book a session with Ignacio “Cacho” Suarez, you’ll witness something rare: He’s a tattoo artist without any tattoos, but not for lack of interest. The Los Angeles tattoo artist is still deciding, still in that critical period of contemplation, ruminating over exactly what to get and what artist will vibe best with what he’s looking for.
“When I first started pursuing tattooing, I encountered a lot of gatekeeping in the industry. Some shop owners told me I wouldn’t be respected or successful without tattoos, and some even suggested that I let others tattoo me — random things on me, just to ‘earn my place,’” Suarez says. “Instead of following that outdated mindset, I took it as a challenge to prove that skill, dedication, and artistry matter more than fitting into a mold.”
He understands the journey his clients have taken to land in his chair. “Tattooing is an exchange of energy,” Suarez says. “When someone sits in my chair, they’re trusting me with something meaningful. That connection, that moment of creating something permanent is what makes tattooing so powerful.”
Suarez is making a name for himself by specializing in single-needle tattoos rather than traditional tattooing that relies on multiple needles. The challenge with this style of tattooing is the delicate nature of creating vivid artwork without causing harm — applying enough pressure to sufficiently penetrate the ink into the skin without hurting the client.
Once he started playing with fine-line tattooing, Suarez realized he could bring “precision and depth” to tattooing. “I’ve always been drawn to the smallest details,” he says. “I love the challenge. The idea that I can create something incredibly detailed in such a small space — something that looks almost surreal in its precision — drives me to keep pushing my limits.”
Despite his dedication and passion for tattooing, becoming a tattoo artist wasn’t always the plan. Initially, he came to L.A. to be a muralist. In fact, in Mexico City, where Suarez grew up, he spent time painting murals and dabbling in various art forms, including graphic
design, editorial illustration, animation, and teaching young artists at a fashion design college.
“Art has always been my obsession, my way of seeing and understanding the world,” he says. This obsession began at a young age. When he was around 5 years old, his father noticed him drawing and encouraged it by bringing young Suarez to his studio, which he covered in construction paper. His father handed him charcoal and let him create. That moment solidified Suarez’s artistic journey, and while his path hasn’t always been linear, he says that each job along the way has allowed him to “explore different forms of storytelling through art,” shaping him into the artist he is today. “My goal has always been to build something bigger than just tattooing, to create work that inspires and leaves a lasting impact,” he says. “Creativity isn’t just what I do. It’s who I am.”
When he’s not tattooing, Suarez is still creating — painting, illustrating, and collaborating with fashion and jewelry brands. He even wrote a children’s book in Spanish that he’s working on translating to English. “I’m constantly pushing myself creatively,” he says.
As far as tattooing, this drive takes the shape of exploring ways to expand his fine-line work into larger pieces, such as sleeves and back pieces. The challenge with large work is maintaining the same intricate level of detail, but it’s a challenge Suarez welcomes.
He believes tattoos are “time capsules of our lives,” and the people sitting in his chair hope to capture a moment, memory, feeling, or experience that they can visibly carry with them.
For clients and celebrity married couple Katee Sackhoff and Robin Gadsby, their bodies are canvases, slowly being filled with art that captures what their daughter is interested in that year, whether it’s an airplane or her favorite book. “What I love most about this project is the anticipation, waiting to see what they’ll bring in next, hearing the stories behind their daughter’s latest obsession, and knowing that, in a few years, these pieces will be a map of her childhood,” Suarez says.
Suarez often has celebrities in his chair, including Tiffani Thiessen, Candace Cameron Bure, Stephen “tWitch” Boss, Teddi Mellencamp, Kyle Richards, Kaley Cuoco, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sharna Burgess, Daniel Rodriguez, Daniella Monet, and Joel DELEŌN.
Regardless of their celebrity status, Suarez treats all his clients the same: with a strong commitment to being the best fine-line artist he can be and spreading kindness through each session. “Art is my language, my passion, and my way of understanding the world,” he says. “There’s still so much I want to create, and I want people to be part of that journey.”
rtistic expression comes in a variety of forms and is the result of myriad motivations. Tattoo art is oftentimes born from emotions, principles, style, and sharing of knowledge, and the same can be said for muralism.
Muralist Guido van Helten uses a technique much like traditional black and grey tattoo artists. “When I paint big concrete buildings, I use an element of tattoo style where I want the original surface to be a part of that mural, a part of the painting. I let the base color of the wall be like the midtone, and I’m just darkening it,” he explained. “It’s like a sculptural approach where I’m shading the original surface and I’m making that a part of the piece so that the mural itself is in the concrete.
“People sometimes say that it’s black and white; they’re black and white murals. But they’re not black and white. I’ll mix the tone of the wall, of a concrete tone, for example. I will shade the concrete,” he elaborated.
Raised in Melbourne, Australia, van Helten was drawn to the diverse and iconic graffiti that decorated the vibrant city. He painted graffiti murals for about 10 years, starting around age 15. But in 2013, after finishing an art residency in Iceland, he rented a scissor lift, bought 300 cans of spray paint,
“REFLECTIONS” WELLINGTON DAM, WESTERN AUSTRALIA
DESEGREGATION 50TH ANNIVERSARY MURAL, GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA
and created a simple mural of a house in the photorealistic style he uses today.
“This style, I’d say was kind of like a rebirth for me,” he said. “The people there hadn’t seen something like that before.” Commissions started from that day forward, and van Helten has traveled the world ever since, leaving his mark with profound artistry and connecting communities along the way. To understand the mindset of this accomplished muralist, van Helten shared three stories that impacted the communities surrounding his true-to-life artworks.
A Voice for Integration
In early 2020, van Helten was doing research in Greenville, South Carolina. “This was kind of a serendipitous thing that I happened to be there during the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of schools,” he recalled. “I was at the gas station and I
saw on the local newspaper a lady named Pearlie Harris, and she had this great story. She was talking about teaching in a white school, but just before desegregation.”
He was intrigued that Harris was a Black teacher who taught before, during, and after desegregation, so he set out to locate her. “Finding her and talking with her and taking some portraits, that led to her being the feature character because she was wellrespected and well-loved,” van Helten shared.
“These kind(s) of coincidences I take as signs, a guide to connecting stories with place,” van Helten shared on Instagram. For six weeks, using the texture and colors from the existing building structure, the Australian muralist brought his vision to life.
The result was a nearly 20,000-square-foot mural depicting Harris encircled by young students. The message it conveyed was of unity, diversity, and the unique relationships between students and teachers. “You have
to find the face of a community by just being there. And this is why that process is important,” van Helten said.
Portraying the Past
Brushed across the immense concrete face of Western Australia’s Wellington Dam is an awe-inspiring 86,000-square-foot photorealistic representation of the local communities. “That was hugely difficult,” van Helten says about the project.
Located in Collie, the mural illustrates the life of the locals across generations and their collective memories from their visits to the heritage-listed site. “It was the biggest (project), it was at the time the longest; I had to camp there,” van Helten explained.
“It’s an international park and I had to work to a very tight schedule because we had to paint off these swing stages that were moved in segments.”
“REFLECTIONS” WELLINGTON DAM, WESTERN AUSTRALIA
“The photographs depict migrant workers, school children playing in the water, Aboriginal children on a picnic day out from Roelands, a Collie family huddled on the sand, and an Aboriginal couple from a photograph believed to date from the 1890s,” van Helten’s website, guidovanhelten.com, outlines.
van Helten immersed himself in the community and consulted with Wilman Noogar Natives, gathering stories and perspectives, carefully selecting the photography, and constructing his vision of the project.
Completed in March 2021, “Reflections” is the largest mural dam in the world and is a popular tourist destination.
Bound By Books
Deeply immersed with a radical far-left identity, Exarcheia in Athens,
Greece, was the site of the beginning of the Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973, where students from the National Technical University of Athens demanded democracy and an end to the dictatorship.
While visiting the area, van Helten recognized the historical significance of the uprising was still very much alive, but he also saw the bookstore culture that saturated the neighborhood. “There’s so many amazing shopfronts with people still bookbinding,” van Helten explained. “The theme of books and literature and political activism to me was interesting because that’s the real heart of the area; it’s not just burning cars and fighting police.”
As he visited the bookbinding shops, two friendly men welcomed him and van Helten photographed them as they performed their craft, and they became the focus of his “Bookbinders in
Exarcheia” mural. He wanted to document Exarcheia’s story so that people could understand the culture, whether they agree with its political persuasion or not.
“I try to open up something so it’s communicable and people can feel,” he shared. “(My murals are) quite simple in their composition or messages because I’m trying to bring people together in a way.”
“BOOKBINDERS IN EXARCHEIA” ATHENS, GREECE
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENT, SICILY, ITALY
PFORZHEIM, GERMANY
APRIL
25-27
ORLANDO TATTOO ARTS FESTIVAL
Central Florida Fairgrounds
The Villain Arts Tattoo Arts Festival is back in Orlando for its third time, bringing tattoo fanatics huge doses of ink intel and camaraderie. An abundance of seasoned and up-and-coming tattoo artists will be at the fairgrounds, showcasing their craftsmanship and bringing guests’ renderings to fruition. The lineup of live entertainment during the three-day event will take your breath away with hook suspension performances, sword swallowing, contortionism, magic, and more. Tattoo contests of various categories will be held throughout the weekend, crowning the Best of Show on Sunday.
MAY
2-4
BEACHLIFE FESTIVAL
Redondo Beach, California
Make a beeline for the water’s edge for a weekend of music, art, and the beach way of life. At this year’s BeachLife festival, major headliners include Lenny Kravitz, Alanis Morissette, and Sublime, featuring new lead singer Jakob Nowell, son of the late Bradley Nowell. Punk rock is at the core of the SpeakEasy Stage, with performances by Milo Aukerman of the Descendents and Jim Lindberg of Pennywise, who is also the BeachLife creative director and brains behind SpeakEasy. BeachLife is even sweeter in an elevated luxury private suite, where guests get premium views of the HighTide Stage.
MAY
8-11
SONIC TEMPLE ART & MUSIC FESTIVAL
Columbus, Ohio
Rockers’ headbanging dreams become reality at this year’s Sonic Temple Art & Music Festival at the Historic Crew Stadium. Powerful megastars Metallica, Korn, and Linkin Park headline the event, with big names like Incubus, Alice in Chains, Chevelle, Mastodon, and more heating up the crowd. Art immerses itself into this mind-blowing music festival, with prominent and up-and-coming artists demonstrating their distinctive murals and live exhibits. Metallica’s flavor will be omnipresent with its BLACKENED American Whiskey and BLACKENED Burger Bar fueling concert goers with premium tastes.
BEACHLIFE FESTIVAL
ORLANDO TATTOO ARTS FESTIVAL
SONIC TEMPLE ART & MUSIC FESTIVAL
MAY 15-18
WELCOME TO ROCKVILLE ROCK FESTIVAL
Daytona International Speedway, Florida
Rev up your music appreciation umpteen decibels at the Welcome to Rockville rock festival where, for four days, more than 150 bands will rock out across five stages. This annual event’s unique racecourse setting provides ample space to ensure the bands stay independent of one another, and if you’re ready to rock, you’re in for a treat. Shinedown, Killswitch Engage, Linkin Park, Good Charlotte, Three Days Grace 2x, and Pierce the Veil are just a handful of the heavy hitters heading to Rockville. Camping space is abundant, but there are more than 20 nearby hotels to help headbanging noggins slumber soundly.
MAY 23-25
BOTTLEROCK
Napa Valley, California
BottleRock is more than a music festival — it is an all-encompassing entertainment afair. While a sundry of big timers will grace the music stage, including headliners Green Day, Justin Timberlake, and Noah Kahan, star chefs and celebrities will be on the Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage entertaining the crowd with rib-tickling cooking demos. In 2024, multiple celebrities, such as Cameron Diaz, Steph Curry, and Bradley Cooper, assisted star chefs as they enraptured the crowd, including Tyler Florence and Jose Andres. Pamper yourself at The Spa, get cozy at the Wine Cabanas, browse the art installations, and keep the night going at BottleRock AfterDark. There will be tequila, beer, cocktails, bubbles, and of course, plenty of wine to boot.
JUNE 19-22
ART BASEL
Basel, Switzerland
Art Basel’s premier international art fair is back with four days of historical, early, and contemporary works of art provided by hundreds of the foremost galleries worldwide and 4,000 artists from 42 countries and territories. Art Basel arranges exhibits into sectors, each with a particular focus, including the new Premiere sector, featuring striking works created by a select number of innovative artists. Katharina Grosse returns to Art Basel to disperse scads of chromatic attention to the Messe Basel gallery with her spray gun, including the exhibition hall entrance. Set your sights on extraordinary sculptures, paintings, photography, digital art, and more, and learn about hot topics in the art world.
BASEL
LOCKED UP SHREWSBURY
JUNE 21-22
LOCKED UP SHREWSBURY TATTOO CONVENTION
Shrewsbury,England
Satiate your tattoo art cravings at one of the most imaginative locales: Shrewsbury Prison, a decommissioned lockup facility built more than two centuries ago. Back for its third year, the Shrewsbury Tattoo Convention invites guests to step inside a prison cell, visitation room, executioner’s bedroom, and more to get inked. More than 100 invited tattoo artists will showcase their works to contest judges and be on hand to perform their craft, showcase past works, and answer guests’ burning questions as they wander the prison floors. Purchase tattooing paraphernalia, and enjoy live music, food and drink, and an epic grafti show.
JULY 5-6 BRISTOL TATTOO CONVENTION
Bristol, United Kingdom
The Bristol Tattoo Convention at Ashton Gate Stadium has more than 250 tattoo artists lined up, including more than 60 first timers, to adorn eager guests with their signature styles. For nearly a decade, the Bristol Tattoo Convention has bestowed attendees with amazing outdoor entertainment. While the 2025 lineup was still forthcoming at press time, past entertainers have included a Team Extreme skate show, a BMX display crew, and music performances by Southern Ruin, Los Dedos, and The Busketeers. Vendors will be on sight selling apparel, tattooing supplies, artworks, housewares, jewelry, and additional curiosities.
JULY 18-20
INKCARCERATION MUSIC & TATTOO FESTIVAL
Mansfield,Ohio
Music, tattoos, and history merge at the Inkcarceration Festival, inviting you to saturate yourself in a unique culture of vigorous sounds, tantalizing sights, and fascinating stories from the retired Ohio State Reformatory. Get inked in the prison’s cell blocks by one of the many esteemed tattoo artists, or simply spectate as they make their magic. Headlining the stage are Falling in Reverse, Slipknot, and Five Finger Death Punch, ofering the powerful vocals and instrumental energy fans crave. And don’t miss out on a tour of the reformatory, which began as a reformation and rehabilitation institution in 1896 but converted to a maximum-security facility in the 1960s, and ultimately closed in 1990.
