There was some controversy when I created the cover for “Yours Truly” for Sublime with Rome and a couple people have commented here asking what the cover means. As I wrote back in June, the cover that was chosen was one of twelve concepts I created for the band. This one was chosen without much consideration otherwise. I worked on a couple variations of it but ultimately the original was selected.

Initially, Rome called me up one morning and said, “What if we did a guy in a Joker suit”? I am a big fan of the Batman series and punk artwork from old posters and skateboards and already had an idea in my head as soon as he mentioned that. The tattoos were something I added to convey an obvious sense of going against convention. I can’t speak for the band about why they chose this cover over the others, but I can explain what it means to me.

Over the last few years and even more now, there has been a lot of people in news for fucking everyone else over: bankers, politicians, corporate executives. These assholes all wear suits, and even more importantly are involved in clandestine conspiratorial organisations that the tattoos on the neck illude to. These are used not as a specific reference to occult organisations but to arose distrust in convention. The Joker says is best in The Dark Knight when he says, “Why so serious?”

We take ourselves seriously, and as a collective are overwhelmed with anxiety and fear. That anxiety is completely manufactured by the 1% to keep the masses under submission. I say FUCK their fear and negativity. We are living breathing beautiful creates of love, who want nothing more than to be happy and have fun. By using imagery that connects to our natural fascination with evil, we are exposing it and turning it into something funny that can no longer scare us.

In the end, there is no great conspiracy about the cover art or the tattoos on the neck. The main reason they are there is because they are symbols that I use in the majority of my art. Most often, for the reason I mentioned above: that when you face what you are scared of fear can not control you any more and you become free.

There is however a secret hidden in the artwork. In the PDF file you get when you download the cd from iTunes, there is a hidden link (that I guess I hid too well considering no one has found it yet). This link plays off the masonic conspiracy and extends the content of the album a good deal further. The only clue I’ll give you is: What is the name of the Producer of “Your’s Truly’s” band?

Happy Hunting :)

Halley graduated from beauty school in Phoenix and moved back to LA the same day. But not until after we did this tattoo on her first.

This is Lisa my cousin’s baby mama. I shaded this thing for 6 hours. Couldn’t get a good picture of it to save my life. So here’s a sampler plater.

I stopped in LA for 24 hours and managed to get my mentor Jim Hayek to work on my arm. Still not done, but definitely closer.

He didn’t want to take a picture but I caught him laughing. Jim is the reason I know anything about tattooing.

I worked on my cousin Zach for a bit, shaded some newer stuff and touched up some old. I did another 4 hours of touching up old tattoos I did years ago after this picture was taken, but I didn’t get a photo. It’s coming together nicely for being a collection of a ton of random stuff, which is something he takes pride in.

Here we have a basswood tree, common to the Michigan upper peninsula, coming through a sugarskull, with a waterfall from behind going off of a cliff. And a moon for safe passage. This started out as a black and grey piece but we decided it needed color. I’ll be finishing this before I leave Arizona in the next few weeks.

Logan wants a baseball sleeve and this is piece number one. Six and a half hours. I made a video of it. We will likely do another panel session over about six hours, and then hopefully go back into this piece and finish it up before I leave AZ as well.

Melissa wanted to get a phrase added to her back while I was tattooing in Arizona. So I fired up Photoshop and did what I usually do for longer lettering tattoos: I made her a print out with a couple different styles. Each is similar to what she described that she wanted and she chose between them. Here is that piece of paper. She went with the one second to the bottom.

I shot and edited this video for Neuma Tattoo Machines. I got so caught up working on Sunday that I didn’t even think to get any video of myself tattooing to include in it! Oh well, it’s still a great video. Hope to be back next year.