For the last six months people have been interviewing me about my book and about being a writer, and it always makes me laugh. I'd most certainly say that I'm a far better interviewer than I am a writer. The one thing I've been noticing lately, as journalists ask me questions, is that people generally don't listen. I've told interviewers that "I plan on having a bunch of kids, and I'm going to train them all to kill," and they had no follow-up questions. They'd simply ask,
"So how's the book tour going?"
I make it a point to never, ever write questions down for an interview. I may research the subject and try and remember some information about the person, but generally I try to have a conversation with the person and listen to what the person is saying and play off of that. One interview that people love to ask me about is the "trashy" Corey Duffel interview. Corey referred to Stevie Williams by a particular racial epithet. Can you imagine if I let that slide and I followed up with, "So what's it like riding for Emerica?" I wouldn't be doing my job as an interviewer or as a human. Shit like that should not slide. It screams for follow-up questions. For what it's worth, I think Corey learned a lesson that day. If nothing else, he learned to think before he opens his mouth. But one thing he did not do, which I applaud, is call and ask me to remove it from the interview. I've had so many people call the day after an interview and beg me to leave stuff out. But despite what you might think, I don't want to tarnish anyone's career in my interviews. Ams I would always fuck with pretty hard. Not to embarrass them but to teach them that they need to have tough skin in life and this business. I'm actually protective of skaters because I'm a skateboarder and I love skateboarding.
Musicians, on the other hand, I enjoy torturing. A successful music interview is when I piss them off so bad that I almost fight the artist. Pun pulling a gun on me for all my fat jokes; Angus Young cursing me out for asking if AC/DC chose their band name because they were bisexual; Method Man blaming me for throwing his kid down a flight of stairs; telling Dio I would knock his teeth down his throat when he got loud with me after I kept calling him Rodney; some band from Long Beach threatening my life after I asked who was fucking their dead lead singer's wife now that he's gone; Richie Sambora wanting to fight me for making fun of Bon Jovi's Superman tattoo... and the list goes on. But my belief has always been that I will endure the most awkward situation and the reality of getting beaten up by security guards to make the readers laugh. Life is too short; we gotta laugh while we can.
But if you want to know what my favourite interviews of all time have been, skate-wise it would be Ryan Smith's "Goddamn Am." Simply because of all the years I'd been fucking with am skaters, he was the only kid to have a set of balls and actually curse me out.
Overall, just because of the absolute absurdity of it, the phone interview I did with this Polish band called Behemoth I hold closest to my heart. I didn't ask the guy any real questions. Instead, I asked the setup for a bunch of Polish jokes, and the raddest part was he'd answer them as if they were real questions. I asked him if he heard what happened to the Polish hockey team in the spring. And he said he did not, and I told them that they all drowned. And he got all bummed and couldn't believe that he had not read about the tragedy in the paper. Then I asked him why Poland fell so easy to the Germans in WWII, and he gave me a long-winded, scholarly answer about Poland having no real army at the time and being ill prepared. I said, "No, actually the Germans marched in backwards and the Polish thought they were leaving." It completely incensed him. He started yelling how that was not true and that he was a history major in college. Completely missing the joke. I ended the phone call with the classic, "How do you keep a Polish person in suspense?" And when he said, "How?" I said, "I'll tell you later and hung up on him." All these years later I like to think he's still sitting by the phone, waiting for me to call him back and tell him how to keep a Polish person in suspense.
 The Learning Chanel’s reality show L.A. Ink is a phenomenon. It’s come on the scene and pummeled the ratings of every tattoo television show that came before, and its star, Kat Von D, is the hottest thing in heels right now. Known for her lifelike black-and-gray portraits for more than ten years, the 25-year-old vixen has put her time in. Sadly, a lot of jealous folk in the tattoo world have a problem with the fact that she and the other artists in her shop—Corey Miller, Hannah Aitchison, and Kim Saigh—are glamorizing tattooing (yet they have no problem reaping the windfall their industry is feeling as a result of the show’s success). I recently had a chance to talk with Kat and her crew, which also includes Pixie, Acia, manager of High Voltage, the shop where L.A. Ink is filmed. We touched upon everything from Kat’s sexual fantasies to Pixie’s days on the boy’s high school wrestling team. Enjoy.
Growing up, did you ever see yourself as America’s heartthrob, plastered
in your underwear all over billboards everywhere?
I don’t think I’m a heartthrob. I have to say that the majority of dudes out there probably don’t
think I’m hot. I think the tattoo thing turns a lot of people off.
Not true. Tattoos equal dirty girl. I have a theory that 100 percent of
the time girls with tattoos—
Fuck better? Yes, that’s true.
I was going to say, ‘like butt sex.’
Oh really? Wow. That’s way better than heartthrob. Oh man. I would honestly answer that question if it wasn’t going to bum out my publicist.
 It doesn’t require an answer because, as I said, it’s 100 percent of the time.
Uh-huh. I think you might be on to something there. It’s something to wrap your mind around.
Are you and Ami, who you worked with on Miami Ink, and had a major falling out with, still broken up?
Yeah, that bridge is definitely burned. I’ve never spoken to any of the cast from Miami Ink since I left. Not even Garver. It’s sad. It was heartbreak for sure, but people prove themselves to not be that down for you at times and you just have to deal with it.
I read that Ami was losing his mind upon seeing billboards of you all over New York City.
I read about that too. I don’t know. After I left Miami, the only line I’ve ever drawn with my friends was that line. Before it was, ‘You can hang out with whoever you want, I don’t care. You’re my friend.’ Now I can’t associate with anyone that is associated with them. I won’t. Are you his fucking friend?
No. I don’t even know him. And I don’t like bald people.
For the full, unedited, uncensored transcript of this interview; get the latest inked mag... or stay tuned here and we'll post it all soon. [ photos by lionel deluy ]
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