English tattooer Lal Hardy lived the 70s and the 80s as few others did in the tattoo trade. At that time in London, he’s a key actor of the new creative wave coming from the US, initiated by artists like Ed Hardy and which hits the UK. He tells us about this turning point in history which changed the face of modern tattooing in Europe, from his studio in Muswell Hills opened almost 40 years ago : « New Wave Tattoo ».
When you were young, were would you go and get tattoos ?
February 8th, 1976, I was 16 or 17, I went and got my first tattoo : a panther’s head with a dagger done by Dave Cash in Woodgreen- North London. It cost me 4 pounds which is probably 2 euros or whatever. Because there were so few tattoo artists the names were very familiar and very famous. In London there was Jock Tattoo Studio in King’s Cross, Cash Cooper in Soho, Dennis Cockell, George Bone... Each town used to have one tattooist. Like in Plymouth you had Doc Price, in Bristol Les & Danny Skuse, Phill Bond in Torquay… Gradually as the 80s started, because of companies like Ultra that were making equipement available, more people started to get into tattooing. Now, there is so many tattooists in London, it must be over 300 in London easily.
The 70s and the 80s were very exciting times with the emergence of many subcultures...
I think the 1980s especially were very interesting time, so much was happening. There was a lot of creativity, of influences. In those days, because there was only two channels, people didn’t have the luxury of staying indoors and being able to watch sport, so the pub became a focal point for the community. And every pub used to have a room where they had music. The revival of the Teddy Boy movement -the original Teddy Boys were from the 1950s- was very exciting : there was like clubs everywhere, everynight of the week was somewhere you could go and watch Teddy Boy bands and rock’n’roll bands. Then it changed to Rockabilly that changed to Psychobilly. At the same time you had communist skinheads, nazi skinheads who just liked two tone music, punks, new romantics...
What kind of designs would these subcultures go for?
The original Teddy Boys went more for traditionals tattoos : hearts, skulls, swallows, daggers… But the ones of the latter generation got images related to that music scene too : record labels, microphones, tattoos in memory of the stars that died like Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent. If you were a punk, quite often you would have a logo from a band, pictures of punk girls, mohican girls. Because the skinhead movement was fragmented at the time between different political views, there were a lot of patriotic tattooing with images like the Fred Perry logo, « Made in… » and the name of the town they came from, viking iconography was popular, Dr Martens boots ; heavy metal people would go for the Eddie -from Iron Maiden- character and AC/DC logo … It wasn’t like everything was defined then, you were this or you were that. Some of them went from one subcultures to the next. I always think it’s funny when you see a skinhead who is covered in rockabilly tattoos. It was just mad, there were things happening all the time.
The music was a keystone at that time…
The music, the fashion. I copied a lot of album covers. How many people have a Motorhead logo ? The fact that the music the people would listen to and the fact that the people gravitated where the music was being played, linked the fashion of the dress codes. When Sid Vicious died, people wanted to get tattooed this picture of him on which he wears a nazi t-shirt.
Some pictures of the time depict young people with facial tattoos, was it a common thing ?
There was this whole thing about being antisocial. In Britain, in late 1970’s going through the 1980s, you had like Margaret Thatcher, the minor strikes… so many different contributing factors. Young people’s views were molded. A lot of the skinheads would get tattooed on their heads ; some of them would get it on their faces because, when you’re in a group together and you’re in a pub with 500 punks or 500 skinheads… and 50% of them are tattooed, it seems normal within that thing. But when you go out into society and there’s 5000 people on the streets and you’re the one person with your face tattooed, it makes you an outsider. I’ve never done facial tattooing, I found it something to avoid. Now you can go to a tattoo convention and see people with their face tattooed and it seems to be more acceptable. Back then it was basically saying : you’re never gonna get a job.
How would the old-timers tattooists react to the new expectations of this young generation ?
Back then, if you went to Jock and said : « I want to get an Exploited skull » he would go : «What the fuck are you talking about ? ». He just got what he had on his walls, and that was it. Dennis Cockel would probably have because he was pushing the boundaries, he’d come back from America. But the thing is, at the same time as this happen, myself, Ian of Reading –an amazing tattooist-, other people were drawing designs and putting them out. Gradually some of the old-school people realised there was a market within the subcultures.
Being involved in the punk scene, what kind of new designs would you create?
Seeing all that imagery and tattooing on punks, suddenly we started to do punk girl faces, with coloured mohican on it, a ring on her nose, a chain, etc. When you’re young you want to do those things, being enthousiastic. Jock said to me : « Why would you bother putting a earing on a girl? Why ? » The older guys, they just wanted to do tattoos with a minimum of effort and with the minimum of colours. Ed Hardy, after we met, because he loved the punk stuff I was doing, said to me : « What you’re doing is a new wave of tattooing ». I kept it to name my studio.
At the same time Ed Hardy was already moving the lines of tattooing in the US, how did you meet him?
Through Dennis. His shop was in a posh area, with a lot of more upper class, trendy young people going there and where he tattooed the Stray Cats, Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols, to name a few. When pictures of Ed Hardy’s work came out I was getting tattooed by Dennis and hanging around his shop. He told me about Ed and he said : « You really need to see his work ». Then he called me up : « Ed is coming over, come and meet him, if you want to get tattooed by him we’ll make an appointment ». It was 1980. Suddenly seeing the work that he was doing was amazing, unbelieavable. I told him I wanted to get a punk rock girl, he was so enthousiastic to make this design. What impact did he have on the tattoo scene in England ? Once it became apparent how visionnary he was, everyone wanted to get tattooed by him, to talk with him and be inspired by him. At the time there was the Tattoo Club of Great Britain, small conventions in hotels, mainly for tattoo artists. Ed came to a couple of them, so the only people he tattooed were tattoo artists. People suddenly realised that you could go out and find inspiration from so many different places. Ed has make people look away from the tattoo flashes that a lot of tattooists were used to copy exactly as they were. He opened doors and opened people’s eyes. Technically too, I never knew what a magnum was until I met Ed. In my eyes, all the fantastic tatooing that goes on now, which is incredible, he really was the starting point for inspiration. For people of my generation, he is like God.
Did you go to America ?
Yes, in 1982, I went to the « Tattoo Expo » convention, on the Queen Mary ship in Long Beach, California. There was Mike Malone, Leo Zulueta, Greg Irons, the Dutchman, Jack Rudy, Mike Brown… all these artists were mind-blowing. Going there and seeing what was going on changed everything. At the same time in England, people like Micky Sharpz, Ian of Reading, Kevin Shercliff, Tony Clifton, these guys started to make a name for themselves, they would trying to push. In Europe you had Claus Fuhrmann, Bernie Luther, Luke Atkinson, Mick in Zürich, Filip Leu… By then that was the beginning of the vortex that started.
What about tattoo conventions?
They were starting to take off a bit, so with that, people would get together. Me and Ian, and some other guys got together and starting to put our own conventions. That was Dunstable Tattoo Expo, the first one was in London 1986 and then they rent of it 12 years after that in a little town called Dunstable. That drew a lot of people together, people like Bernie Luther came in, Claus Forhman, Paul Booth, Horiyoshi III. Suddenly this whole energy was happening. Back then there was one or two in England and Dunstable was the big one in Europe along with Amsterdam.
How do you look at the tattoo scene now ?
In more than 30 years I have been involved in it, it changed so dramatically that I just wonder what’s the next 30 years will have. One of the things now is : how many kids are computer-literate to use photoshop to create designs ? Ultimately with tattooing I guess that, which ever way you create the design and the customer loves it, it doesn’t matter.
CONTACT :
New Wave Tattoo 157 Sydney Road, London N10 2NL England. http://newwavetattoo.co.uk instagram : lalhardy www.lalhardyink.co.uk
