My Dear Friends of Inked My daughter plays national she’s on a national volleyball team so it’s me and a bunch of guys that wear khaki pants no offense khaki pants polos and that whole thing right clearly i don’t i usually wear like gym shorts or whatever so my immediate reaction is if.
I see them staring and i just see them being very uncomfortable it almost makes them uncomfortable so i’ll go have a conversation with them once they realize i’m just a really normal dude that just looks a little different it’s pretty awesome so i’ll confront them but it’s.
Confrontational in like the best possible way and now everyone’s hey johnny hey johnny it’s like it feels a little weird but it’s awesome hey i’m johnny nobody from orlando florida i own 36 black art collective and i sing in a band called kill the imposter.
So i grew up in lower east side manhattan um did art most of my life did a bit of that homeless thing for a minute and then went to college and been tattooing kind of ever since first time i saw a person with tattoos was my father um.
Obviously when i was little uh he had my name tattooed on him i’ve been around it my whole life my dad was a biker so covered in tattoos and i honestly never wanted a tattoo because i wanted to be different and now i went the opposite way apparently i would say i started wanting to get tattooed.
Based off like punk shows here in new york city everyone had one and it was the most rebellious coolest thing you could have imagined doing uh and then i drastically changed how i felt about getting them versus not wanting them just the whole rebellion thing the whole.
Thing i guess so i started getting tattooed but i knew once i started getting tattooed that i would not stop getting tattooed i guess technically the rebellion would be not getting tattooed but my parents both were alcoholics and kind of did the drug thing which i rebelled against that as well.
So super straight edge guy but not being around my father i think it was kind of the transition to like if i started getting tattooed then i’d be kind of like him or where he was missing then i would be part of it the first tattoo icon was a tribal thing on my leg but it was hand tapped.
So i went try to get original with it but it’s been covered for a long time so i heard that hand tapping was like a metronome the tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap break tap tap tap uh that was fascinating to me it took the idea of pain away right.
Because you’re thinking how do you make that musical how do you spin that uh yeah so that fascinated me far more than of course i had the questions does it hurt does it all of the and i was told to man up and do it so i did it.
It did actually mean something which is kind of you know it wasn’t just a american tribal spiky thing it was this eternal warrior design thing uh and everything i have means something to me so it was like i was then searching what the next meaning would be as opposed to.
Thinking what the next tattoo would be i’m like i gotta have a meeting and then i can get the tattoo for the meeting and then i could make it all work but again wanting to be covered was kind of my goal so i found myself not looking for tattoos but finding meaning for a tattoo.
And then designing the tattoo for the meaning that was weird never really thought about that until just now do you remember a moment when you went from being a person with tattoos to being a tattooed person yeah i think from moment one because i.
Knew where i was gonna be there was not a time where i was like oh i’ll probably get one and try to connect it later it was always i am this person and once i had the one then i was like not necessarily in a hurry because you can’t be at that you know what i.
Mean but it just had i needed it i don’t know that there was like that weird moment like lightning moment where i was like i just knew that from the first this is who i am and i need the rest against everything i believe because i’ll have people come.
Want me to tattoo them in their face i got my chin tattooed before i got my neck tattooed which i am overly against by traditional standards right so i don’t tattoo hands necks or faces unless you have sleeves or you’ve earned it um but my face when i learned about maori.
It was supposed to signify a pillar that holds up a town and that words are so important and it was like where else would it go it’s got to go on my chin because that’s where they put it so it just meant a lot to me so since i was 12 i have night terrors and what i saw in the terror was missing.
The left side of its face own what terrifies you right so i did my left eye the moment i got it done someone took my picture showed me on their phones and i was like that that’s not the look i was trying to look at and then i looked in the mirror in my bathroom and i was like oh yeah.
Wow this is horrible so i immediately made the appointment as soon as you can get me in and it was a year later so i did my right eye for vanity purposes because my eyes are so shiny it looked like one eye was going this way and one eye was going this way because the white one looked way.
Different i had no traumatic life event that started me having night terrors very loose quotes i don’t know if you’re going to diagnose it i suppose right but i owned it it was mine 100 that’s why i did it and i don’t know if i mentally made that happen.
But that’s how it happened so back in the late 90s 2000s i had 32 holes in my face like i was that guy that looked literally like just put metal on my face and then i would about people asking me questions right like i asked for this like.
I look quite literally like that weird cliche saying go into a tackle box it i could see it now then i’d be like why are you looking at me bro clearly i did this to myself but yeah i thought it looked amazing in the mirror and then i stopped looking in the mirror probably 20 years ago.
I was like i think i need this i feel like i need this and then i’d get it and i’d feel way better right though i don’t know it was never a vanity thing for me it was just i dug it i felt accomplished you know you sit in a chair for eight hours or.
20 minutes whatever it was the best 20 minutes of my life i walked away with something i thought of something i wanted something i got something i left with something and now i have to take care of something it just made sense to me i can’t say i regret anything really.
Ever like as life like i don’t either you learn from it or you don’t right so same thing with tattoos if you could start everything not tattooed just blank slate blank i don’t think i’d get tattooed yeah i wouldn’t start it again everyone has a tattoo.
Literally everyone has a tattoo the grocery store mom that is buying lunchables for a kid has that sweet tattoo that she really wants to show you so we’re on the same team we’re not i mean yeah we’re parents that’s cool but i we ain’t the same team i i feel like my ideals my morals my my.
Moral compass is different than a lot of people’s in general just by the brutal honesty versus the sugar coating hellos like hi how are you today you don’t care how i like you forget me as soon as you walk away and then they look at me and i can’t forget me so there’s that i guess.
I would change it i wouldn’t have any tattoos none i don’t think i was asked this last month and i said the same thing i i think i would be blank would you still be a touches no i don’t really like where the tattoo industry has gone i don’t think it stands on anything very.
I’m sitting here with you guys in front of a camera which is the one thing that i don’t like about the industry i don’t like the tv shows i don’t like what it did morally or traditionally there’s not a lot of earning it everyone is accepted.
Without the hard work i’ll accept anyone who puts the work into it but everyone feels as they’re part of this thing that i’ve worked really hard to protect so i am a bit contradictory but i’m allowed to tell you guys that’s how i feel about it right where i can’t go on.
A tv show and be like oh my skin my canvas is done in six hours or whatever it is you know what i mean like i’m not trying to put anything out there like that but i don’t know i really enjoy building stuff but i also enjoy painting very angrily and like.
So i don’t need the tattoo to do that it is a great creative outlet but i really enjoy building ikea furniture for my kids as long as i’m creating i’m good that’s why i play music sitting here going i hate cameras hi cameras like i get it but i don’t i just wish it.
Wasn’t that is that weird maybe that’s weird i don’t know it’s me honest i guess you
When you look at him now it’s almost impossible to believe, but while he was growing up Johnny Nobody didn’t want any tattoos. It wasn’t until he started going to punk shows and seeing all the tattooed people in the pit that the idea of getting covered came to him. Once he was in, he was all-in. We spoke with Johnny about his roots, night terrors, what made him decide to tattoo his eyeballs and much more.
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Johnny Nobody https://www.instagram.com/johnny_kti_nobody/
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