Few people are as involved in tattooing as Tim Hendricks, and if you ask him, he’ll tell you “I didn’t find tattooing, tattooing found me.”

The Fullerton-based tattooer might be most famous from his time on NY Ink and Miami Ink, but his impact goes far beyond reality TV. Since buying his first professional tattoo machine from legendary ink slinger Rick Walters (who happened to be his friend’s dad) over two decades ago at Bert Grimm’s historic tattoo shop in Long Beach, Hendricks has created designs for brands like Hurley, started his own tattoo machine company (Saltwater Tattoo Supply), bought Fullerton’s iconic Classic Tattoo Parlor, and become one of the finest tattoo artists in the world. 

People haven’t always agreed with Hendricks. Many tattooers feel the reality shows did their community a disservice by turning the sacred art form into big business, and several others told him he was insane for wanting to buy the near-derelict Classic Tattoo, but ultimately it’s hard to argue that Hendricks isn’t among the most successful and admired tattooers on the planet these days. 

Before he took off to London for the International London Tattoo Convention, the brutally honest tattooer sat down and took a few minutes to talk with Myspace about tattooing, his advice to new artists, and TV.

What was it like to tattoo on the reality shows?

It was fucking awful. Art is something you do that’s inspirational. You do art because you’re either seeking God or escaping demons. I don’t believe in God, so I do art because I’m escaping demons. When I’m tattooing, I listen to music and it puts me at peace. Now imagine doing that with two dudes watching you and no music.

Here, whenever I feel like creating, I can come in and create. There, you’re ready to create, but they have to film someone else tattooing and then do a reveal in a different room. You wait three hours to tattoo, and there’s no inspiration by that point. I’m at the point where even my worst tattoos are still good tattoos, and some of the worst ones are from then. I worked with some great human beings and some awful ones that I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire.

What about tattooing do you think people don’t see on the shows?

They don’t see anything that’s real, even though it’s a “reality” show. They don’t see the pain I was in before I had my back surgery. They didn’t see the interactions we had or the dinners we’d have together as a tattoo family. We would get together and we would all tell each other everything—we really were a family—but we were just unimportant people for them. We’re just nerds with paint jobs.

They just want to tell people’s stories, but the stories didn’t birth from the tattoo shows. The shows birthed from the stories. They don’t show the real lives of tattooers. Actually, that should be a show. I’d watch that.

Some people would say you hurt tattooing by doing the shows. What would you say to them?

People—mostly mid-schoolers pretending to be old-schoolers—say “You gave away tattoo secrets,” and I challenge anyone who thinks that to show a clip where I show a tattoo secret. Anything you saw on the shows, you could’ve seen me do at a tattoo convention. There was actually a rule that whenever we were doing anything that was a “tattoo secret” like making needles, we’d tell the cameramen to film something else and they would. Some of the people give really good reasons why it’s ruining tattooing, but I had one of the real old schoolers tell me it’s great for tattooing and that the boom of tattooing is great. 

What would your biggest tip or advice be to a tattooer just starting out?

Get out while you still can. People see the TV show and it glamorizes it. They see tattoos on glamorous people and think you get a piece of that glamor, but you don’t. Sure, you get backdoored into some cool places and get to rub elbows with some cool people, but you destroy your body in the process. You’re dealing with criminals and art school students with big egos a lot of the time. Then, if you’re really successful—like top 10 percent—you might be able to own a small tattoo shop and a modest house in a suburb and have just enough money leftover to pay for your headstone.

When not traveling the world, Tim Hendricks can be found at Classic Tattoo Parlor in Fullerton, CA, on Instagram @timhendricks and on Twitter @saltwatertattoo.