Scott Sylvia

Danny Reed was going to be in town for the convention in South San Francisco in October and Cody Miller said he wanted to interview him for Last Sparrow. I thought it would be a good idea to start having friends do interviews as well for the sake of not hearing my voice. I don't know Danny well, my only real interaction with him besides convention greetings was the year before when after the convention he came to my machine shop and built a machine while we hung out. So I thought it was all set for Cody to do it, I was finishing up the Chad interview when Cody came to the room.....so on it went. I was exhausted and I say some really awesome stuff, haha. The chewbaka comment really tops it! Danny speaks of his helper in the interview who decided to move to SF and we hired his ass. Man he is great, I would like to thank Danny for passing him our way. We started this interview at 3 in the morning or so and like I said it was directly after the Chad one so I was out of my mind with my voice blown out from the night before when we had the pre party for the convention. In the room with us is Nick Colella, Erik Gillespie, Cody Miller, Cody's special lady friend Krissy and our helper Moses. There are a few parts of this where I think I'm losing my mind, I hope you enjoy it.... I would like to thank Danny for doing it as it was a real pleasure to do! Danny is an incredible tattooer, he is profound in style and technique. I love his 'weird" stuff as it is a fresh take on things and definitely one of his own. I look forward to getting something from him, if he will do it. I would also suggest that any tattooer looking into getting the flash book he did that we talk about in the video to get it, we have it at the shop and it rules! And for the record I did not steal Harrison. Also why do I sound like I have a mouth full of mashed potatoes? What the hell! *

Chad Koeplinger is currently setting the tattoo world ablaze. He has found his own way in this business full of people who are busy ripping off the latest thing and having no abilities. These people are probably looking at Chad's tattoos. I can't even count how many times I have seen rip offs of his tattoos. I don't think it even bothers him. He has a very kind energy that you can easily pick up on, but don't be fooled he is an intense personality, he knows what he wants and is capable of getting it. This man has traveled so much it's mind boggling. He touches on it in the interview and you get the feeling it is a bit much, I love the sheets comment. Chad is a very skilled tattooer with great originality that is rooted in the correct tradition that allows his tattoos to flourish with great style and still be timeless. We did this interview at the Bay Area Tattoo Convention which is at the SFO airport right before Halloween. I had been trying to do one with him for about a year and finally brought it up when we both had time to do it. Hope this finds you all well, thanks to Chad and thanks to you for watching this. -Scott

There are many people in this business that have no business being in it. Beppe on the other hand is the kind of tattooer that makes people want to become one. Not only is he extremely talented and very kind but he has a very welcoming personality. He owns a shop in Verona, Italy called Ink Addiction and is located in the most fantastic place.. Verona being the home of Romeo and Juliet it has an incredible charm. The shop is like no other tattoo shop in style and quality. Beppe and I have become great friends over the years. I have been to Verona and Love the place. If there is ever an opportunity to be in Italy, I would suggest with great zeal to not miss out and get tattooed at Ink Addiction. Everything from the town to the food to tattoo shop is a pleasure and full of memories. This interview was done at the Stockholm Ink Bash in Sweden at the end of August last year. I hope this will inspire a trip to Europe or at least to your local tattoo convention that will be hosting Beppe. I would like to thank Beppe for sitting down with me and doing this interview. It was great pleasure and a great honor. Thank you.

Phil Kyle is a hilarious man. I know him mostly from traveling to Sweden where we meet up at the Stockholm Ink Bash every year. We have an awesome time with ton of laughs and lots of tattoos. He owns a shop in Brighton, England which is called Magnum Opus. I had gone to Stockholm with hopes of catching Phil in a great mood for this interview and I succeeded! He lets say, had been drinking a touch, well lets say a touch is a ton and he rode that thing like a rodeo clown. We stay on a boat that is sort of hostel slash hotel but all boat. We are doing the interview in his room at 1:00 in the am. There is a special apperance from one of his traveling partners...... I look forward to seeing Phil every year that I'm there and hope there are many to come!

Oliver peck is somewhere between an absolute sociopath and a carnie. If you are hanging out with him you are either having the time of your life or risking your life. He is very loud and is generally the center of attention and people love him or hate him. I think that is a pretty great place to be. It cuts out all the fake ass friends we all don’t need. I have spent endless days with this man and I am one of those people who love him. We have traveled around the word together. Rode motorcycles cross-country together with three of us sharing a two-man tent in Nashville, which is not pretty by the way. I first started hanging out with him when I worked at 222, he would always come up with Eric Maaske. Oliver is a true Texan in all his ways from Cadillac’s to barbeques to the man, I’m serious....not much anyhow. He is tattooed from head to toe. I do believe he is going to be on a TV show that is rumored to have Dave Navarro as a tattoo expert. What the fuck is this world coming to? Oliver has been around the tattoo TV thing due to his marriage to Kat. I am not sure what the hell it is about but at least one of the people is really crazy and not just acting like it for TV, haha. I did this interview while at the Long Beach Convention which I think wins for the longest one. We started at 2am and like 10 minutes into it the batteries die, fuck! I use a flip camera for the interviews so off to 7/11 for batteries I went needless to say it is late. When we get started again I’m with Cody Miller who this time is not that fucked up while we pop off questions. I love the detailed description of his first tattoo equipment and the absolute ignorance that came along with it. This is the tamest I have ever seen him, I promise to do just a video of him telling one story so all the people can see how he really acts. We are brothers on many levels and I am glad to have him as a friend.

Nick and I are good friends so I asked him to interview Katie for me. Katie and Nick are friends so he visits her shop to guest spot and vice versa often so he headed out to her place to do this interview. I like how relaxed and forthcoming she is, extra bonuses are Nick’s smart-ass comments. Katie and I had met a few times here and there but never really had any quality time until this past June. I knew she had to be cool due to the people she hangs out with who speak highly of her and I think highly of them. Then we got to hangout and have some quality conversation when she was in town before Long Beach and sure enough she is an impressive asset to tattooing. She is a very charismatic person and has a great perspective on the process of tattooing. I think she probably does some of the best lettering in the biz! Not to sell the rest of her tattooing short because she is a well rounded tattooer with competent skills in the profession. Being a tattooer who always wished I did better lettering and have constantly worked on it and has never been great, ok, but not great. To see her lettering will humble you. I watched her lay out maybe 10 pieces with ease and skill, which is rad to see. Some people will know what I’m talking about, I sit next to Tim Lehi every day and watch him draw a Japanese back piece with out even breaking sweat and it is so natural. It makes you feel good to watch someone do what they are selected to do in ones life. Chris Conn and the girls he draws is same thing, natural gift. So here is the interview that I hope you enjoy and want to give a big thanks to Nick for doing the interview and most of all thanks to Katie for being a part of this site. Interview by Nick Colella at Mt. Idy Tattoo in Montrose, Iowa.

Jeff Cribb is a great man. One of those men you have undying respect for. He is honest, loyal and most of all humble. My experiences with him all started and until recently have all been at tattoo conventions. There are a handful of people I am always looking forward to seeing at conventions, Jeff is one and Beppe is another. So when I get to see him it’s a great gift. The laughs are endless and the moments of serious talk are equal in magnitude. I have two kids but when I had just my boy I had an American Bulldog named Stella, which I loved though she was never that keen with kids. At the time when I got her I had no idea I would even have a relationship good enough to have kids. So a dog that didn’t do well with kids was fine....until along came Henry. She was fine til he started to crawl and then you could just see the tension in her when he would be near her. It was like she was afraid of a 20-pound kid. It slowly escalated to a point where she nipped at him then they had to be kept separate when food was around. As he got older she just didn’t get any better like I had hoped she would get used to him or something, however, I was just asking too much from her. The day came when she went nuts on him as he walked up to the crate to let her out for breakfast, same as every day. Though that day was not everyday. Jeff was the only person I trusted to call who I knew would understand that I loved my dog but loved my kid more. His reply was send her out I’ll take care of it. Kindly, he walked me through the process of shipping a dog cross-country and he still to this day has her. She has gotten old and I see pictures of her every now and then and am glad that someone could help in such a shitty predicament and gratefully it was Jeff. Jeff recently made a trip out to California to work at our shop while I was in Long Beach. I hated the fact that everyone was hanging out with him at home and I was juggling retards with pompadours. Thankfully he extended his stay a few days so I got to get in some quality time with him and that is when we did this interview. The setting for the interview was just there, the flag was still hanging from an interview with Tim Lehi for a magazine and there just happened to be a shotgun on the couch. Swear to god it was sitting there! So when the guys at the shop heard I was going to interview him Nick Rodin and his faithful sidekick Cody Miller decided they were going to side bust the interview. Lets just say they had been sipping and toking and make a great tag team for any train of thought. I think the interview turned out great, serious in the beginning and a fucking jackass festival by the end. Our shop will forever be grateful for having him work with us and we are better for knowing him for he is an inspiration of a man and a fucking great tattooer by the way. I guess I really want to celebrate the person as much as their craft. I believe they are one and should be judged and treated accordingly. Jeff comes through shining. I hope you find him as great as I do.

Dan Dringenberg hails from an era of tattooing that was scary, violent and otherwise hostile. I started tattooing in this period, cutting my teeth with a big biker guy named Miller. I'm sure that many people will understand when I say that Dan has changed tattooing in many ways, but most notably with his black back pack. It maybe true that every corner of this business is currently saturated with suppliers ripping each other off, but it wasn't like that back then. Dan was one of the first people to produce a high quality tube. Up until that point, you either used super small Spaulding tubes or crappy brass National ones that turned strange colors in the autoclave. That's where Dan's genius began. He produced a remake of the tattoo Sven tube which is now known as the "open top shader." Philip Leu had been traveling around the world tattooing with these, but they were just legend to us, until along comes Danny. In his great wisdom, he figured out the jig work needed to make these things. Now I have seen these things, and they are really complex pieces, multiple actions happening at once. But cut, polish, press, and blamo! There goes Danny, out on the track pimping his wares out of a black back pack. I still have the first tubes i got from him to this day. They've been beaten useless, but i still have them. Dan has since been through the gauntlet of ups and downs and has come out on top. His machine shop has become a corner stone of innovation, and the quality of the machines coming out of that shop matches Danny's integrity. All of my first parts were from Dringenburg and Company, he is the only reason I was ever able to start making machines in a production form as opposed to one-offs. I did this interview at the same time as Kore and Tim's interviews, just real late at night when everyone had split except two of Dan's friends who sat next to me while we talked. I'd like to thank Dan for not only allowing me to use his place and disrupt the day to day affair of his shop to do these interviews, but also for all of his help and involvement with my own machine business. I hope you enjoy this wild ride with Danny, I know I sure did.