Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Chaoszine had the pleasure of chatting with Owen Paulls; Owen, lives and works in the Seattle area, where he’s gaining recognition for his black and grey tattooing. But before this, Owen was a musician, and so we talked about music, tattoos, and touring.
Hello Owen, how are you doing?
Owen Paulls: Good, how are you?
Good, thank you. So after like about two decades of being behind the drum kit, what drew you specifically to tattoo rather than any other visual art form?
Owen Paulls: I think honestly more than anything else it was just being my own boss, being my own sort of destiny and able to carve out whatever niche that I wanted. So like music’s so freeing that you’re producing a product that other people can vibe with and other people can like, tattooing is almost identical except for you’re just one person instead of a band of people.
That’s awesome, that’s really interesting. Both music and tattoo are also very permanent. Has that shift in performance changed your relationship with your art?
Owen Paulls: I think I just perform in a slightly different way now. Before I was performing like a lot on stage and everything’s going into a sort of more energetic stage show. Now it’s more that I’m almost like I’m producing a record in secret and then at the end of the day I might put it out for everyone else to see what they think and enjoy. But at end of the day, I’m being commissioned by one person every day to produce something just for them; if the world likes it as well that’s a bonus. That’s the trade-off I think between music and tattooing is that tattooing is so personal for one person whereas music you’re trying to sort of get a whole scope of people interested in what you’re doing.
Most definitely, yeah. So if I’m not mistaken you took part in more than a few editions of the Warped tour?
Owen Paulls: Yeah, we did a few years of that for sure. We caught the tail end of what I consider the sort of heyday years.
What kept you coming back to the world tour for more than one time?
Owen Paulls: I think it was just the way that show was put together. I don’t want to say that it was a party vibe because it was a lot of hard work and it was a lot of really long drives as well, but it was one of the only tours that we ever did where regardless of how many people you’re pulling in, regardless of what stage you’re on, everybody’s just hanging out like friends.
You’ve got some people that are playing to 100,000 people, you’ve got other people that are paying to 10 people but everybody’s an equal and I really, really liked that and it doesn’t matter if you’re on a tour bus or you’re driving yourself in a van like we were, there wasn’t any status that excluded you from hanging out. Everybody just felt like one of the cool kids and that’s what we liked.
Wow, that’s fantastic. Can I ask you what made you stop going back to the world tour?
Owen Paulls: We caught the tail end of everything when DJ sets and a lot of nu metal was starting to emerge more into the mainstream so I think the first years that we were out there doing it, you had bands like NoFX and Bad Religion and Rancid playing it and The Bouncing Souls and people like that and it still came with that sort of punk attitude. They still had the skate ramp, they still had a bunch of people riding around and then just over the course of the years that we did it, you did see that sort of fun side of stuff tail end off into more of the professional music management style of bands, which is fine.
I understand that you’ve also got to sell tickets so if punk music isn’t selling tickets anymore, you’re going to look for what is and that’s all the nu metal and the highly polished stage shows and everybody with their digital backgrounds and all of that going on. So I think we just saw that the professionalism was starting to make it more like a job than it was just hanging out with friends and playing music.
Even to this day, I know bands that are still going now where the amount of work they’re putting in, especially for their socials and other things like that, my hat’s off to them because it’s such a chore now compared to what it used to be back in the day. So that’s probably one of the reasons why it was easier to switch over because it just meant that I could still earn a good living, still be my own boss, but I didn’t have to deal with impressing some industry person that didn’t know me from Adam.
That’s very true and you’re speaking to someone that grew up with punk music as well, so this relates to me very dearly. Since you do tattoos and you used to do music, do clients ever recognize your musical past?
Owen Paulls: No. They ask me about like, “Oh what did you do before tattooing?” and I try and downplay it a little bit because you don’t want people to sit there googling you and being like this, how about this and like showing you the phone all the time. It seems like I’ve been extremely lucky to have led two lives and the tattooing, as much as it is similar like we said earlier, it’s its own thing and I’m happy for it to sort of live in its own little legacy bubble rather than all the music stuff, but I never get recognized anymore, but we were never big enough, I think, to warrant that.
Maybe if I still had my half haircut that I had back then or the punk sort of style haircut and I wore the jacket still and everything like that, maybe so, but few and far between. It’s a bit like Kiss, like no one knows what Gene Simmons is walking around. I want to be clear that I’m not likening my career to Kiss because we’re nowhere near as popular as that, but even still, it’s its own thing and when I’m working shows and conventions where I’ve got to be a bit more dressy or make a bit more of an impact, it’s a nice go-to to have my punk side of stuff showing through.
I’ve got to say that that sort of freight train riding punk rock look from the 90s doesn’t gel that well with somebody that’s spending what I’m charging them to produce like a sterile, clean piece of artwork, you know. They want to see that I’m clean cut and that there’s no risk of like a safety pin falling into their design or something like that.
If you could tattoo any musician or any artist that you’ve worked with back in the day, who would it be and what would you want to create for them?
Owen Paulls: This might be just because I was looking at their merchandise yesterday, but I really like the band Bayside. I wouldn’t mind tattooing one of them. That would be kind of cool. I feel like they’ve maintained such a solid career in that genre compared to everyone else. They’re still going and they’re still making records and they’re still sounding great, so that would be a fun one just to nitpick about their journey and what they’ve done.
A guitarist of mine was doing the guitar teching for the band Lit. I got invited to go and do tattoos on the road for them whilst they were doing their UK tour, so I spent about two weeks on their tour bus with them just tattooing them nearly every day and tattooing other support bands and little bits and bobs like that, so we just turned the back lounge of the bus into our own little private tattoo studio and sterilized the whole place.
It would be really awesome to get to see some of those tattoos because they’re like 10 years old now and then maybe give them a bit of a refresher and give them something that’s in my skill range now and maybe a bit of an update and then also have a catch-up to see what those boys have been up to.
I have a mission now. I’m gonna interview them and ask them to take a photo of their tattoo and then show it to you.
Owen Paulls: I bet they’re awful. They’re really old but please let them know that I’m more than happy to get them set up with some more bookings and I’ll just come out to wherever they’re performing and we’ll do that. We will invite you along and then you can do an interview at the same time.
Awesome, sounds good. Looking back at your younger self, what would surprise him most about where you are now?
Owen Paulls: That I spent about four years just eating cinnamon rolls, just putting on weight. No, not that but I think I never imagined that tattooing would take me this far. I was really happy just to have it as a job and have it as like an independent, self-employed job and whatever happened, happened. The fact that I can live here in the States now and I have all my qualifications and my work visas and everything like that and that I’m getting asked to join shows all around the world like next week I fly out to Luxembourg and just having the opportunity to travel around the world whilst also earning money is unbelievable.
I really never thought I would be able to look around at what I have now and the skill sets that I have now and think that within the last 10 years it was achievable. I mean, I don’t know, like all of us are just super lucky to have this as a job, like drawing for a living is one thing but getting paid and doing a permanent procedure on somebody and they actually want the art that you produce, it’s like playing life on easy mode.
We’re so privileged to be able to do this as a job every day. You gotta be pretty lazy to be underprepared for a job that is just drawing, like it’s not like I’m a rocket scientist so the people that aren’t putting in maximum effort I’m like well you might as well just quit.
Definitely. So I think that both the punk scene and the tattoo culture have evolved like significantly over the years. What do you think are the core values from your music days that you still carry into your practice?
Owen Paulls: I think the work ethic for one thing is a big one, so being able to have rehearsals and to polish up a tight set and to be really locked in with your bandmates as well just teaches you that that resilience and that hard work does eventually pay off.
All I did was copy and paste the exact same work ethic into the tattoo scene and what I realized was that there wasn’t a lot of people even planning for their sort of 5, 10, 15 year goals and by having those sort of 5, 10, 15 year steps in my head and sort of refreshing them when I meet a goal or whatever, it really keeps me on track to to achieve what I want to achieve in this life.
I think my journey is a little bit different because I’m over here as a foreign immigrant essentially on a work visa so a lot of people that I meet here are just doing it for them and just doing it for their own personal reasons so yeah, I guess I’m just just trying to keep up with my own self-worth and my own sort of goal set brought over from the music world.
Sounds cool! I have like a weakness for drummers and I think that drummers are like the backbone of the band. I think that good drums can make or break a song, but it’s also like a very demanding position to be in. When you’re playing in a band did you ever have moments when when your body just couldn’t keep up with like the rhythms of maybe touring or recording or what you wanted to play?
Owen Paulls: There’s definitely been dates that we’ve played that were outside in dust bowl conditions where you’re playing a 30-45 minute set and just gasping for air and like we we used to cram so many songs back to back in our sets because we’d only get sort of 35-40 minutes maybe to play so we try and cram in as many as we could.
Sometimes that would mean playing 4 or 5 three-minute-songs back to back without a break without any water in like Texas in the mid-summer heat with all that dust, that red dirt dust getting kicked around. Even when you’re drinking, like trying to down a whole bottle of water in 30 seconds or whatever and essentially waterboarding yourself it’s like none of it is being processed the right way.
Then by the time you’ve even got to the bottom of the can you’re like 1, 2, 3, 4 right ready to start the next track again! That was definitely the biggest demand, trying to work under outdoor festival conditions. So after that, tattooing is an absolute breeze. At no point in my day am I doing five tattoos back to back and having to down a bottle of water so yeah, I still maintain that being in a band and drumming is far harder than tattooing is.
Would you ever consider going back to live performing?
Owen Paulls: I mean, I audition for bands now. I still haven’t found exactly the right fit, but I probably do one audition every other month or something like that. But it’s tricky because I work a lot with tattooing, and I also do painting on the side as well, so it’s hard trying to find the time to learn a whole band set and then go to the audition and then see if it works out. Luckily here in Seattle there’s so many bands and there’s so many music projects that it’s one of those things that as soon as I’m able to remain in one area with tattooing for quite a while, then I feel like I can get more stuck into that. Right now tattooing and artwork has to be the main focus for sure.
You’re not the only musician that has become a tattoo artist, also Taneli Jarva from Sentenced kinda went the same path.
Owen Paulls: The lead singer of New Found Glory he’s a tattoo artist as well, the one of The Bouncing Souls, Brian he’s also a tattooer up in New York. I think the the similarities between the two professions really do sort of lead people down that path and especially for sort of more rhythmic and bass-and-drum style. It really is like you’re locked into a rhythm all day long and it’s such a a nice creative outlook as opposed to putting on a like a suit and tie and trying to impress some boss dude.
You have been touring with several bands like Iron Orange and Ren Rancid and Alkaline Trio so did you find yourself adapting your playing style into like each bands or were you always like finding your own approach?
Owen Paulls: I grew up listening to so much like Blink-182 and The Offspring and bands like that but by copying those records, I don’t think it taught me a lot about dynamics until we started playing with a lot more of these larger bands in sort of bigger arenas. When our sets went from 20 minutes to 30 minutes to 40 minutes to 45 minutes you realize that if you only play heavy and fast you’re gonna lose people.
After 45 minutes it’s it’s too much for them to try and process on for every song being this like powerhouse hard-hitting song. Especially with Alkaline Trio their drummer’s so relaxed and so laid back in the verses and and the super powerhouse during the choruses, same for Jimmy Eat World. I just went to their drummer’s clinic where he was just running through a few of the tracks, it’s wild how simple the verses and the bridges are in comparison to the choruses.
So when we started playing bigger live shows, that’s what I was able to take away from from those larger bands: the set needs more than just fast playing and tight fills, it needs a range so that the audience can travel on the journey with you and not just be barraged with a ton of cymbals and snare slaps in the face.
To not be super cheesy for a minute but tattooing is really really similar to that. A design, especially for a whole sleeve, needs breathing room. It needs detail sections, it needs other sections that are more simplistic… if it’s all detail all the time, the viewer gets lost. The audience is just looking at a wall of sound instead of actually enjoying the music.
I wanted to play a little game with you if that’s all right. Imagine that after the interview is over, you receive a phone call from a lawyer that says that you’ve inherited a pizza place in Rome. What are you gonna do about it?
Owen Paulls: Pack a suitcase, I mean I’m gone. I would move out there. Unfortunately the pizza place it just wasn’t busy enough so we turned it into an art gallery/tattoo shop. It just happens that way sometimes, and that’s what happened with this pizza place. Now I own a tattoo studio and have a work visa for Italy and spend all of my time just at the Vatican and looking at other famous old masters.
It can work out, it’s one of my absolute favorite places in the world. I used to try and go at least three times a year but it’s now been two years since I was last in Rome. I get asked to go out there quite often, so I’m either in Napoli, or I’m in Rome, or I’m in Florence or just somewhere but I think in a past life I must have been involved in the art scene in some way in Italy. Or like trudged through Europe with my little art supplies on my back as a pilgrim man.
I feel such a connection to Italy when I’m there and all of my tattoo friends that I keep going back to the same studio every time I go, they’re so welcoming, they’re so lovely. I have such a lovely little family there so yeah, Italy for me is a big one, so if someone’s going to give me a free pizza place to do whatever I want with, it’s amazing. If an American tourist comes through and says “Hey I want pineapple on pizza“, we’re going to close down the place.
Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with me and for being such a good sport is there anything else that you want to add to our viewers and readers
Owen Paulls: You can find me online just google me o-w-e-n-p-a-u-l-l-s, if you want to set anything up or chit chat about tattoo design or try and find my upcoming appointments just shoot me a message.
