What got you into tattooing?

Seeing it growing up, our friends.  I really didn't want any at first, then slowly but surely I started getting them.  San Diego Tattooland was where I got my first one, picked it off the wall and never looked back.

Water finds it's own level.  You need the guy who does conji all day long at the beach and you need the guy who does dragon body suits.  You need those two kinds of people in this business to make it actually work.  Everyone's got their niche.  There's nothing wrong with that.

What got you into making your own guns?

I've made them for awhile because I wanted something better to work with.  The necessity was for myself.  The business part came later.  Like a musician if you have the tools to get the sound you want, it doesn't become work, it becomes more fun.  You got your effects pedal that is going to give you the sound you want coming out of your bass then you don't have to worry about it anymore. Now all you have to worry about is playing your bass.

I want things to run the way I want them to run.  I learned from some really ahead of my time dudes.  That was a big thing for me.  They try to explain to you things you don't understand, and you have to try and process it.

Did you change some serious basics on the tattoo guns?

No, I did not make the wheel any rounder.  It's all the same premise. 

Even before I moved to San Francisco, I lived in  San Diego, I always had a camera and always took pictures.  My first trip to Japan I had a point and shoot and got some cool pictures, really whacked out stuff. I was getting some good results with next to nothing as far as a camera goes. Then my next trip to japan I was like "I want to buy a camera, a Japanese camera!".   I bought a nice one, changes lenses. I liked the look of fish eye.

It's the same thing as far as equipment. When you really get the right stuff where you can accomplish what you want to, forget about it, you can just run with it. You can't go wrong.

I always carried a camera around with me, always. Just for fun.   Because of tattooing and having friends in bands.  Now because of those friendships, a lot of the bands got more popular, I can take pictures at bigger venues and travel.  Since I'm always traveling I've expanded it.  My first trip to London ever, I took pictures of Iggy and the Stooges, the Melvins, it was so bitchin' to be a part of that and capture it.

What makes you want to take that shot?

Not just bands, documentation is one of the main motivators. You can do commercial photography, but we're getting older every day. All those moments are gone. To really capture that in one shot, that's hard to do. One shot, one picture, let's make it happen. There's nothing like it when you take a photo like that, cause you know you were there in that split second when that was happening. That to me is motivating.

So you look at it as documenting rather than composing an image?

A little of both. Documenting has to have an evolution, an element of change.   I have pictures of stuff that people don't know I have. They're like, "where were you that night?"  I was taking pictures! While you were enjoying the show, I was enjoying taking pictures. 

When you go to take photos of a band that you're familiar with, you know what's going to happen.  You know when people are going to start jumping up and down, when some kid's gonna land on your head.

When I first started shooting bands it was like combat photography.  People would be like, "oh my god, my camera!!"  and I'm like, "You came to this show! You knew exactly what you were getting yourself into.  Don't complain now".  I remember the early photographers from Flipside and Maximum Rock n Roll.  This girl Mouse was like 100 lb.  soaking wet, and she was right there taking pictures of this shit!  Glenn Freidman, he was capturing movements.  He's everyone's favorite.  He was everywhere at the right time.  He knew it was a movement before anyone else.  No one else has that shit.  How do you do that?   90% of photography is just being there.

When punk came out, it wasn't work, it was survival from space to space. Now you have bands that are sponsored and all that. If you can do something you love and get paid for it, that's killer. It's a bonus and more power to you!  It's just amazing to see how it's become such a business.

I would love to get into making movies and documentaries.   Not to sound "Hollywood" but you need backing.   Money talks and bullshit runs a marathon.

Tell us about the book.

The book concept started in ‘86. There is a company in Japan that made two books that every tattooist that has been tattooing as long as I have bought and cherished. At that time they would learn everything they knew from that book, outside of getting tattooed or looking at other tattooists' work. It was a photo documentary of a tattooist's work.

So this museum in Sweden wanted one of my buddies, who was in San Jose, to do an art show collaborating Japanese wood block prints with the tattoos of his teacher, who was in Japan. So he called me, knowing that I was into photography.

He says "how would you like to shoot this book? They're going to pay us to go to Japan".  I said I would love to.  I was old friends with this tattoo artist.  I knew his work.   It was the opportunity of a lifetime...I said cool, let's do it.

We took about 200 photos using this medium format digital camera which is not easy to shoot with. It has to be tethered to a computer, etc., but it takes the most insanely crisp photos you'll ever see.

So we do that and the company only uses 3 photos out of 200! So I have this body of work shot so well, and I had always envied these books done in like,  1986, so I said, "we gotta make a book like that".

So I talk to Horiyoshi, and we agreed on everything,  and he was into it. Then we went back for another photo shoot and shot another huge body of his work.

My girlfriend Sadie laid it out.  It was important for me to have the quality and style come through. Hardback, cased and everything and the book came well. It worked. A 3000 book run; 2500 numbered, 500 that aren't. It is a little expensive, but the first books in '86 were expensive,too.

I've gone back once to do another shoot and I'm going back in April to do another shoot.

I'm going to come out with another book. I'm amassing all the killer photos. The next one will be a little more culturally diverse, but on the same artist. I want to capture the culture and the seasons.  I want to capture Japan in a whole different light. 

I might also do a book on all my solo works, 10 years of me taking photos,
maybe in 2015. It will be the last 15 years from Slayer to Rancid to everything in between.  All my friends tattooing, hanging out. Lifestyle photography, catching weird shit on the street.

Do you photograph all the tats you do?

If it's different, and it stands out.  I have a serious archive of tattoo photos.

Talk to us about traveling.

Love it, everyone should do it.

The first time I left the country was in ‘95.  I went to Amsterdam, and it change my life forever, in a good way.  Not because I was high or the ho's!

The European mentality is something else. That goes from country to country. Everyone is so wound up in the U.S. They're either wound up or apathetic.

In Europe they are concerned about things that are important, not about things that aren't. I came back with a different mentality. It was like I don't give a fuck about what you're saying. All this shit is going to come and go.

You have to pick and choose your battles. You got 80-year-old people walking up to sex shops in the red light district pointing and giggling. They've been through it all over there. I went to Ann Frank's house, and it was a really moving experience. You ask a lot of people here and they don't even know who she is. This is someone who was hiding from Nazi Germany in an attic, and it makes you think of the inhumane things man has done to man.

Then of course, you're just partying your ass of cause you're in Amsterdam!

Traveling is a very important thing, to witness what other people are doing and get their perspective on it. You can make fun of people who come here from a different country because of what they say or how they talk, that's easy. Try going to Japan and sitting there with a bunch of people for three hours. You can't understand a word they are saying and really have to learn to adjust and accept where you're at. You don't have to be comfortable everywhere, but you learn a lot about yourself when you travel. It is a very important aspect of life that I hope most people somehow get to do.

Did tattooing bring you to traveling?

Yes, tattooing has taken me around the world. Tattooing was THE motivator.

When I went the first time, my buddy Cory Miller hooked me up with a guy from Amsterdam.  I met him,  and I asked him if I could come out and tattoo for a month before the convention there. He said "perfect, you're the first one to ask me."  I killed it and had the most amazing trip.

First time I ever left the country I was gone for a month and a half! It is to this day the trip that can't be beat.   It's kind of crazy to even think of that.  They wanted me to come back a month later! I worked for Avalon tattoo at the time, and my bosses were super cool. They never wanted to hold me back. My two bosses, Patty Kelly and Pit Buchanon, they are just cool people. I've had a few bosses and there have only been a couple who stood by their word and meant what they said, and they are two of them, the pair.

I came back with a new zest. Same with Japan, they let me go for a month to Japan. They were just stoked for me as a person developing my own thing.  Hats off to them for sure.

Give us one traveling horror story:

I almost got mugged in broad daylight in Spain. It wasn't Spanish people.  It was Moroccans. That's the only shitty thing about traveling is some motherfucker is always trying to get over on you.  Always an agenda. You just gotta be on point constantly.

Japan is the one place where you can let your hair down and not worry to some extent. You can leave your suitcase in a train station, and there will be some dude standing there the next day like, "oh, you left this here". You got dudes pick pocketing you in broad daylight in Spain and Italy.

So, these Moroccans tried to mug me and it didn't work. They followed me into a restaurant and it turned into this showdown!

The cab driver is the one who set me up.  They wanted my shit!  I had just landed an hour before that. I had a backpack and a small camera bag. They tried to go in my pockets as I was walking down the street, and I thought it was my buddy fucking with me, but it was two dudes I DID NOT know. So I kinda had a stand-off with them out there on the street and I thought it was going to be easier, but they were not letting up.

So they go and grab a couple more buddies and I go into this restaurant to call my friend on the cell phone, and I'm like, "dude, it's going down right now......there's gonna be a war any minute! They are outside the door now!"

They came in and started talking their shit. The owner came out and they're trying to say I stepped on his pants blah blah blah.  They wanted to roll the owner too!  I'm like "It's on.  I'm going to fight to the death with these motherfuckers and I just got here!"

When I walked into the bar I thought I was walking in to safety, and then the guys come in the bar and they knew the guys who were sitting there drinking!   I'm like, "this just went south".

Finally this little cook came out from behind the counter with a cleaver bigger than him - this short fat dude, and they all split. He saved the day, it all worked out.

When you travel to tattoo...what do they come to you for?

It's my style of work, or "You're Juan Puente, you've been tattooing for 17 years in the U.S.".   I give hard working tattoos.  I consider myself one of the best average tattoo artists.  I can do just a little bit of everything really good. With that in mind people say I want this, and I draw it the way I do it. I guess I have a traditional style. A style is a bit tricky to call or lay claim to.

What do you like to listen to when you tattoo?

When I first started it was like punk, punk, punk! Now I sort of read the customer more. I listen to punk every day, a day does not go by that I don't listen to something that I listened to when I was 15 years old. I like some metal stuff, I'm not gonna lie, some Britt pop. I like almost too much of everything.

When I dislike music, I really dislike it. I listen to all of our local bands. It goes in moods. I listen to blues, Chet Baker on a quiet chill day.

You want to take care of people. Tattooing hurts. I don't give a fuck what anyone says, that shit hurts.

What do I hate? I hate new metal. Can't stand it. Avenge Sevenfold, the new Guns and Roses, I would rather listen to some old punk.

How many songs are in your Ipod?

30,000 to 40,000.

Can you remember your first record you bought?

Yes, Kiss Alive! double live at Gemco. My Mom worked there. There was a record section on your way out and the Sex Pistols and Kiss were right next to each other. My Mom asked the girl that worked there what record should I get my son cause we had just gotten a new record player. The girl is like, "I hear all this crazy stuff about these guys from England," so my Mom picked the Kiss record.

Then it was Journey, Led Zepplin. I started out metal. I went to Catholic school with our good friend Ed. We got into Devo, The Vapors, cause that shit was hot on the radio - pop music.  They force feed you with it.

In Catholic school me and Ed were just hanging out in Mission Viejo, then slowly but surely the evolution came.

What bands have you sung for?

UTI when Jimmy was nowhere to be found, then our band 4th degree.

Where was Jimmy?

Just no where to be found. The band would be all set up at a party, and, of course, this is before cell phones, and he's just not there, so everyone's
like, Juan, you're up. I'm like, "I'll do it" and then like, "Oh shit, what did I say that for?"

Then 4th Degree was the band we had. The first and only official show we had was with Bad Religion, JFA, Side Effect, and Violation. Through Silvervoice Productions. Scott French set that up.

We were supposed to play first.    No Violation goes up first so we're like pacing, and then Joey's mom is out there yelling "4th Degree!!" and we're like, "Why is she yelling this shit?!!"

Then, cool we're up next.  NO, Side Effect is up and now the place is fucking packed and I'm like, "Are you shitting me we're going up before JFA?!!?"

This is like first everything, and I remember the first song, my legs kinda went but I didn't fall, and then it was just on 40 minutes tops, Chromag cover at the end, and we're like, "Did we just do that?"  Then we played Tom Vadikans house after that. That was it, short lived.

Tell us about your old leather.

You get these things and you just start painting them.  Back in the day there was a guy named Claude Mona.  He was like rocket scientist smart.  He spoke like five languages and was an amazing artist.  He painted a lot of my jacket, like big stuff, and he was really good at it.  

You could draw it on with a pencil, or you could paint the whole thing white then paint black over it.  That jacket has hours of bullshit in it between studs and painting.  That shit took forever.  That's your jacket and that's the shit you wear.  I got that jacket when I was 16, and I'm 40 now.  I've had kids offer to buy that off me.  I'm like, "Fuck you, go make your own."   They want it to look 20 years old but don't want to spend the time on it.

I wore that thing everyday with the jean vest in rotation in the summer.

We used to put the boots and the leather in the dryer with no heat to make them old, and my mom would get pissed cause it sounds like someone's tumbling down stairs for an hour.  The boots would beat up the leather.  People would run over their boots with their car.

I painted some leathers for other people.



What are your future dreams and plans?

Moving back to SF.  That's happening right now.  I would like to take more documentary style photos, do more traveling.  Tattooing is more comfortable for me now than it has ever been.  Things are really nice and I'm into it.  

Keeping on doing what I'm doing, just on a bigger level.  Bigger and better.

Do you plan out your life or do you fly by the seat of your pants?

Both, I only book appointments two weeks in advance, so if I want to split, I'm gone.  If I want to do something, if everything is taken care of in my life, then there is no reason to not do it.  At the drop of a hat.  It's definitely a little of both.  

Do you have lots of ideas all the time?

Yes, it hurts.  I have a headache sometimes.  But you can only do one thing at a time.  When I'm tattooing I'm concentrating on what I'm doing, but sometimes things do come to you when your completely concentrating on something else.  Ideas kind of just float into your head cause you're so unattached from everything else except for what your doing.  

When I get in the zone little things will come into my head.

What do you like to do to unwind?

I like to hang out with my friends, eat a good meal.  Now I've got a new baby boy, it's not unwinding at all being with that fool, but it's just something else.  Kids have a fresh perspective on stuff.  

It's hard to unwind.  You really got to not burn yourself out on the unwind. I love coming home, love traveling, hate waiting in line at the airport, but I love getting off the plane.  

I really don't know what unwinding is.  I drive to Hollywood everyday, and I'm on the phone the whole time, and then I'm there and I forget my drive.  That to me is unwinding.

Is there a time when the phone is off?

When I sleep.  

I don't  sleep much, about 6 hours.  I go to bed at midnight and wake up at 6.  There's just too much to do right now.  I'm just up and doing stuff.  It's like the cliche, I'll sleep when I'm dead.

What do you like to cook?

BBQ is key.  I'm also loving vegetables right now.

Tell us about 2009 and the new shop.

I'm moving back to San Francisco where I met my lovely girlfriend, Sadie.  I think the move holds for me getting more back into the roots of tattooing.  I'll be at Black Heart Tattoo.  I did a lot of stuff in L.A., but now I really want to get back into serious photography and just tattooing.  I'm cutting a lot of other stuff out.

I used to have to fly back and forth to L.A. when I lived in S.F., and now I don't have to do that.  My days off I can go fuck around with Sadie and my son in the city. It's gonna be nice and a good change.

Tattooing allows me to do everything else.  Back to Long Beach to host the tattoo convention again, another event in Los Angeles the week before that.  I was hired by the band The Gallows this year to take photos for their U.S. release at SXSW.  That's a fun thing. That's what I want to do.

Japan in April, then Europe in September and October for a couple of different conventions.  2009 will be big!

Juan's MySpace

JuanPuente.com

Horiyoshi3.com

BlackHeartTattoo.com