heart luck
Credit: Travis Shinn (photographer), Chaucey Hollingsworth (writer)
The Summer X Games are a Roman circus of skateboarding, BMX, and motocross—a four-day orgy of sports that don’t require teams or uniforms. Balls, however, are a must. Deep into the parking lot of L.A.’s Home Depot Center sits Carey Hart’s encampment, a brigade that includes three massive tour buses emblazoned with sponsor logos and the words Hart & Huntington in flowing tattoo-style script. Hart—the motocross racer, reality TV star, and sometimes-husband of pop songstress Pink—is pivotal to the X Games. He is a motocross godfather and the first freestyle motocross (FMX) rider to land a backflip on a dirt bike in competition, a trick that’s now an expected component of any freestyle rider’s arsenal. Outside, he’s signing posters and posing for photographs with fans waiting six deep for the privilege. A steady crowd of nearly a hundred people wave their arms, snap cell phone photos, and scream continuously as a member of Hart’s entourage eggs them on, periodically tossing them a T-shirt or bandanna. An hour later, Hart’s still signing autographs and there are still a hundred people screaming for him.
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“This is how it always goes,” Hart says later, while relaxing on one of the buses. “We’re very professional and by the book, but at the same time we create a hype and a value—bring some brand awareness, bring the party to the event.” As soon as he speaks, the image of the reality TV stereotype starts to fade. He’s smart. He’s insightful. And he has impressive mastery of marketing-speak: Talk of brand synergy rolls off his tongue with the smoothness of a well-executed no-footed cancan. “I guess I’m not your typical athlete,” he says by way of explanation. “I had the talent, sponsors gave me the money, and I didn’t just cash the check and go buy a Bentley. I learned. Why are these companies paying me so much money to ride for them? It’s because I’m the face of
their brand and I bring their brand cool factor. So over the course of the years, I talked with my team managers and found out how they controlled and built their brands, and that’s what I’ve been doing with Hart & Huntington. I might not be the most accounting-, P and L’s-, business-savvy person, but I know how to build a brand.” Hart’s use of the term P and L’s (profit and losses) belies any idea that he lacks business knowhow. The invited athletes and X Games Skate Park Legends competitors—including exmembers of Stacy Peralta’s Bones Brigade
and ’80s skateboard stars like Christian Hosoi—provide a peek into the path of many other extreme sports icons. Tony Hawk sits in an air-conditioned broadcast booth awaiting royalties from the upcoming 12th title in his video game franchise; Duane Peters— the ’80s skateboard legend and punk rock singer who has struggled with drug addiction—mugs for cameras in 90-degree heat with pads and helmet on. Time has not been kind to Peters. His face looks tired, his snaggletoothed grin stained. “I’ve been doing this since I was 14—now I’m 48,” he tells me later that day, popping a cigarette into his mouth. His shirt is wet with sweat, his nicotine-ravaged voice hoarse and strained. “I’ve been doing this all my life, before there was contests. I’ve watched it go full circle too many times. But it’s better to have kids get paid to do this shit than not get paid.” Carey Hart has placed a premium on getting paid. The Hart & Huntington brand, of which
he is the sole owner, encompasses three tattoo shops, two reality TV shows (Inked and the upcoming Hart Luck Life), a nightclub (Wasted Space at the Hard Rock Hotel), and a motocross team. Of course, there’s also Hart’s personal exploits, including his FMX career, motocross racing, a stint on VH1’s The Surreal Life, and a book of tattoos also called Inked.
there and talk shit about me, but I’m creating jobs. I’ve got 43 tattoo artists, probably another 30 shop help, and another 30 receptionists who all have a job because of these stupid TV shows that we did. What is she doing for the industry other than buying fucking Range Rovers and having a big house in the Hills?”
Inked, the TV show, was the first of its kind. “We were just trying to do a show that spotlights tattooing in a crazy environment—a hotel in Las Vegas—and all the personalities and trials and tribulations that go along with it,” Hart says. “I came up with the idea, so we shot a pilot, shopped it to A&E and Discovery. A&E jumped on it, and Discovery went and did Miami Ink. I think our two shows did a lot for tattooing. They took all the bad perspective away and brought [tattooing] to the foreground, and now everyone’s making good money and tattooing is a huge craze. It did a lot for tattooing in general worldwide. I think it’s great for all artists.” Hart has no tolerance for backlash. “I never got into tattooing to get rich,” he says. “I got into tattooing because it’s a fucking passion of mine. I can’t draw to save my life, so the next best thing is I’ll hang out in a tattoo shop where there’s amazing art going down. Kat Von D will sit
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sounds ofa revolution Credit: Steve Baltin (writer)
Green Day’s Oakland, CA, studio is about what you’d expect from one of the world’s biggest rock bands. The fenced-in complex includes a Ping-Pong table, outdoor weight room, vending machines, vinyl library, huge motorcycle garage, basketball hoop, and almost anything else a young punk could want. About the only thing it doesn’t have is its own tattoo artist. Bummer—because the place would have been an amazing source of inspiration. The indoor and outdoor walls are covered in an incredible graffiti shrine to the Bay Area trio. In the same way the band mixed their ambitious new album, 21st Century Breakdown, within, designer Chris Bilheimer’s art was born and crafted on the outside, along the walls. “The cover of the record was actually made from a 12 by-12-inch stencil. It took [Bilheimer] about 10,000 years to cut out and spray and then take pictures of it,” bassist Mike Dirnt says, laughing. “It’s pretty awesome.”
Those visuals are already—or will soon be—inked forever on the men whose music inspired Bilheimer’s art. Dirnt, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, and drummer Tre Cool are like walking billboards of their band’s history. And why the hell not? More than two decades into their careers, they’ve experienced plenty, becoming the biggest band on the planet with ’94’s Dookie, falling into self-described valleys, and reemerging as bona fide rock auteurs with 2004’s American Idiot. Green Day have morphed from poppunk kids into what Armstrong calls “the most socially conscious band out there.” And on the stunning new 21st Century Breakdown, they’ve done it all while mixing the trademark Green Day hooks and firedup anthemic rock with some of their most audacious and complex arrangements yet. It’s a worthy successor to the world’s first punk rock opera, and an album the band—and their fans—should be damn proud to get tat-
tooed all over them. INKED visited the band in the Bay Area to talk to each member about tattoos, family, rock stardom, and The Who. Let’s talk about the new album. Did the success of American Idiot give you the confidence to really challenge yourself on 21st Century Breakdown? I think it was everything. The success definitely had something where you felt, like, free to do it. And the bar was raised so high, it’s like, we gotta go for it—we can’t let ourselves down. One Green Day album that never got the respect it was due was Warning. Around Warning, we started to develop more and more. And we’re naturally evolving, not trying to force evolution, which is cool. What we were known for back in, like, ’94 was being the slacker band. Now I feel like we’re known as being the most socially conscious band out there. It’s like we’re going from one extreme to the other within a period of 12 to 15 years. American Idiot came out a decade after Dookie, and yet you were able to create something that transcended pop music to become part of pop culture. Very few artists ever do that twice. How do you think you were able to do it 10 years apart? I don’t know. When you make
a record you make sure there’s no stone left unturned, and I think when you’re writing from a political standpoint, what’s important, for me, is that you have to write from the same place that you would write a love song. Even on the new record, it goes from “Christian’s Inferno” to the song “Last Night on Earth.” One is one of the angriest and most diabolic songs I’ve ever written, and the other is the most pulling-at-your-heartstrings, romantic song that I’ve ever written in my life. I think that’s where purity comes from. When I hear a song like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” there’s something in it that I can reflect on, about myself. And that’s why people feel like, “That’s my song. I want that song to be played at my funeral. I want that song to be played at my wedding, or I want that song played at my graduation.” We’ve been really lucky in the fact that we’ve been able to do that.
“ the most socially conscious band out there.” So what Green Day songs would you pick to play at a wedding, graduation, and funeral? “Time of Your Life” is a song that’s always been played at graduations and funerals, it seems. [Laughs.] I would have to say for a wedding, “Last Night on Earth” would be really great. And a funeral? “See the Light.” That’s a good one. What did producer Butch Vig bring to the process of making 21st Century Breakdown? Butch brought a sense of calm, fearlessness, and encouragement to the whole process. He was never daunted once by anything that was going on, even
when we were going, “Oh my god, are we going too far?” He always had a sense of calm, a sense of class, and sort of like a quiet storm about him. I think he’s the only man for the job for 21st Century Breakdown. He got everybody in a calm place, he got me feeling like I could write: “Don’t look at the outside pressures. We’re all here, and let’s crack open a bottle of wine, and let’s make a kick-ass rock album.” Sitting down with him and reading my lyrics was a big thing because as I was reading the lyrics to everybody the concept of the record started to unfold, and everyone was seeing that there are different things that are happening and different themes that are reoccurring. And Butch really identified with that stuff and tried to make it hit home even harder.
So you went over the lyrics rather than just letting them come through the music? Oh yeah. I didn’t know how important a role the lyrics were gonna take, but I think for us it became probably the most important part, arguably. But I’m slightly biased because I did write them all. [Laughs.] The content of it was just there, and the themes of Christian and Gloria were all there and it was great. You played the American Idiot album in its entirety on select tour dates. Will you do the same on this tour for 21st Century Breakdown? I think we’ll do it here and there, for sure. We just played in San Francisco, and we played the album from beginning to end. And I kind of look at it as rock ‘n’ roll theater in a lot of ways. All the dynamics to it—it feels really good to play. It’s getting better and better. Are there songs from your catalog you’ve developed a different appreciation for—or that you’re really excited to play live? We played “Jesus of Suburbia” the other day, and that really stretched out our brains to start tackling new arrangements for 21st Century Breakdown and to be unpredictable in sort of arranging a song. So that song re-
ally made a lot of sense playing with the new album. The American Idiot musical opens in Berkeley, CA, in September. In the annals of Green Day history, where does having your own musical rank? It’s probably one of the coolest things to happen in my career. For the first time we feel like we’re going into new territory, and very few people have actually been able to do something like this. And we’re doing it with Michael Mayer, who did Spring Awakening, which was really groundbreaking and really cutting edge. It gave a kick in the ass to the whole art form of musicals. The first time I heard they were going to do it, I thought, This is so crazy it just might work. And actually watching it, I was like, This is fucking genius, man. So this goes beyond an award; this is like art. Will any of the songs from 21st Century Breakdown be included?
Yeah. “Before the Lobotomy” is one song, “Know Your Enemy,” “21 Guns,” and I think that’s it. So those three made it into the musical for now. When people talk about 21st Century Breakdown two decades from now, what do you want them to say? For me, people should look at it as a great era for Green Day and a record that people look back on and say, “That was one of the best rock records of all time.” That’s what you hope for, that’s what you reach for, and that’s why we did it—to make one of the best albums ever made. INKED: When did you get your first tattoo? MIKE DIRNT: I got my first tattoo the night I lost my virginity. I was 10. What was it? My first tattoo was a question mark on my ankle. My friend Razzle did it.
Did anyone in your family have tattoos? My mom and sister have tattoos on their knuckles. When I got my first tattoo, their reaction was, “It’s about time.” What was it? My first tattoo was a question mark on my ankle. My friend Razzle did it. Did anyone in your family have tattoos? My mom and sister have tattoos on their knuckles. When I got my first tattoo, their reaction was, “It’s about time.” What’s the craziest Green Day tattoo you’ve ever seen? The craziest tattoo had to be a heart hand grenade on the head of a penis. Who do you go to these days to get tattooed? Mark Mahoney at Shamrock Social Club. Have you seen him lately? My wife just tattooed my name inside of her lip. Mahoney did it. It was the first lip tattoo he’d ever done. He did it once before, but it actually came all the way out—then he did it again. Now he’s done two on the same person.
Your wife must be really tough. She’s a pretty tough cookie. She had an 8-pound baby boy and she’s tiny. So she’s pretty badass. If you got a tattoo in your lip, what would you get? I’d probably just do something like “Punk.” I’m a punk in both senses of the word. I don’t know—I’d probably write my wife’s name. Fair is fair. Why not? I’ll one-up her; I’ll tattoo my eye. What’s the next tattoo for you? I’m gonna get my son’s name on my arm, next to my daughter’s name. We just haven’t had time yet. I’m thinking next week maybe I can fly down. Once you start the tour it’s pretty extensive. We don’t fuck around! [Laughs.]
“That was one of the best rock records of all time.”