Name: Brandon Bond
Years Tattooing: 10 Favorite Junk Food: Pussy
Currently Working At: All or Nothing Tattoo - Atlanta GA
Tattoodles Member Since: 9/21/2003
Home page: Brandonbond.com
Brandon Bond is a tattoo artist who's traded in a lifestyle of adversity and addiction for the joys of creativity. That's a fancy way of saying that Brandon was a typical rock and roll tattoo artist getting drunk and womanizing until he discovered that the only thing that truly fulfilled him was his art.
Adam Sky: So you got a lot of naked girls on your web site, what's that all about?
Brandon Bond: Is THAT what we're going to talk about?
A.S.: Well, we all know that as a professional tattooer it's very easy to get girls to take their clothes off. Purely for purely professional reasons, of course.
B.B.: I think that sex is a large benefit in our industry, and anyone who disagrees is definately missing out. Tattooists dont get 401K or dental insurance, we instead are given a different form of bonus and incentive plan, the photographs on my site are representative of that adventure and experience. There is a huge gallery of my personal fetish style photography on my website. Its pretty nuts. It is under the Private Gallery menu option. A gigantic wealth of naked lesbian fisting greasy insanity can be found there, but it is for viewers 18 and up, as the images are extremely intense and rather vulgar. It beats the shit out of a yearly Christmas bonus.
A.S.: Do you find that fetish photography is a good way to distract yourself from tattooing?
B.B.: Photography has been part of my life since before I ever started tattooing. I get a lot of pleasure out of it; to play with light and shadow. It's amazingly artistic. A lot of the tattoos I do are from photographs I take with different lighting techniques. Different directional lighting has really been the key for me in the last few years. Lighting with different angles, creating dramatic angles can really bring a tattoo to life in the same way it does a photograph.
A.S.: What got you interested in becoming a tattooer?
B.B.: I got tattooed and it was horrible! At the moment, I'm actually healing from laser surgery from removing that tattoo. It was repulsive and the guy charged me like $900. So I thought, holy shit! This guy's on to something and he's not even doing it right. The tattoo was from a drawing that I had done and this old biker dude had just botched it.
A.S.: So how would that inspire you to do tattoos?
B.B.: Because I saw that from the town that he was living in he was successful. He was booked and had all these chicks and big piles of money and nice cars and I thought wow, this is a form of art that I can do and in all honesty; probably pull off better than this guy.
A.S.: So could you find someone who was willing to teach you?
B.B.: Yes. I vehemently, almost franticly searched for an apprenticeship. I went to a lot of cities and I took a lot of shit and I painted people's buildings but I was also doing a lot of flash sets which is what got my foot in the door, enough so I finally found an apprenticeship because they were tattooing my flash sets on their customers and this shop that I started at wasn't really attune to the artistic side of tattooing that I've since learned about. Early on I was taught that if it wasn't on the wall, why bother drawing it? But they were happy to have someone around who could draw so I drew a lot of their stuff for them. I had to spend the next several years unlearning a lot of bad habits however it got my foot in the door.
A.S.: What sort of bad habits did you have to unlearn?
B.B.: Well, I found that in the latter part of my career that the art comes first. I was always taught that the money comes first. Now that I get older and my art has evolved I learned that that's not it at all. The pleasure that I get from what I do is all based on the art. I try and push it all the time. I try and make things bigger and more dynamic and I find that customers are really open to it if you sit down and draw in front of them. It's amazing how open minded people can be with just a little suggestion.
A.S.: How long have you been tattooing for?
B.B.: 10 years.
A.S.: A lot of tattooers I've talked to have told me that they've reached the 10 year mark and they're worried that they might have reached the ceiling artistically, so to speak. Do you find it hard to stay motivated after all this time being in the industry?
B.B.: Honestly, not at all. I've been through a lot in the last few years and my life has changed dramatically. I don't use chemicals at all any more and through being clean and having a different perspective on my life and on my art I've found that now I'm more eager to do tattoos than ever before. I tattoo 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I tattooed all day today with a broken rib. I love it! When I'm not tattooing I'm drawing flash and when I'm not drawing flash I'm painting and it brings me an immense amount of pleasure. Money is a secondary thing now where as before it was the only thing. I feel that my artwork has only started to explode in the last year or so.
A.S.: Tell me about being clean and sober.
B.B.: It's the best thing that ever happened to me. I spent a lot of years doing conventions and guest spots and partying; going city to city. New Orleans for Mardi Gras, Las Vegas, Miami, San Diego, Dallas, just constantly touring and partying and just wearing myself out. It got to the point where it just wasn't fun. All the people around me were still having a blast but I wanted to do more art work. It's really hard to be creative with a hang over. The best thing to ever happen to me was quitting because it freed up a lot of time. Now, instead of going to the bar I go do some painting or I go do some tattooing. Instead of getting high before work like I used to, I spend time redrawing that piece that I'm going to do that day. You can tell a dramatic difference in that tattoos that I do now versus the tattoos I did a few years ago because of this.
A.S.: Was there an epiphany or a defining moment when you decided to quit drinking and doing drugs?
B.B.: Yeah! I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and I was with my friend Bishop from Slave to the Needle Tattoo. We were doing a guest spot for Annette at Electric Lady Land and we had big wads of money and there were crazy naked chicks (which you can find on my web site) and big piles of drugs and anything you could ever want that you would think would bring you happiness but I was just miserable. I had lived life at such excess and for so long that it wasn't bringing me contentment anymore so I decided to quit.
A.S.: So it's been 10 years behind the tattoo gun, where do you want to see yourself in another 10 years?
B.B.: Wow, um, tattooing! I feel real fortunate that I've found something that I can do fairly well and that I enjoy and that's also lucrative. I'm incredibly grateful for the life that tattooing has given me. It's been a hell of a ride and it's been awesome. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
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