When did you first open Grim City Tattoo Club and what is a typical day in the shop like?
I’m from Port Elizabeth South Africa originally. But I immigrated in 2001 to Ontario. I live in Hamilton Ontario now. Travis is born and raised in Burlington Ontario. He bought a house in Grimsby Ontario when he was 25 and then moved to Hamilton when he was 29. He wanted to have his own tattoo shop before he was 30.
We meet when I was 21 and he was 32, we met at my grand opening party for my tattoo shop on February 1st 2014. We hit it off but I was pretty drunk (4 bottles of champagne and playing shot for shot with Jager will do that to you) so we didn’t really talk much. Then Feb 13th he messaged me on Facebook and we decided to hangout the next day. (Ironically enough it was valentine’s day) I went by his shop that night and we’ve been basically inseparable since. We got married on March 31st – the day after his 33rd birthday in Las Vegas by Darth Vader, literally a month and a half after meeting each other.
We came from strangely similar backgrounds, both owning tattoo shops, both previously divorced, both having daughters from previous relationships (we even named our daughters after the same person for the same reason. My daughter is Dahlia and his is Brody – after Brody Dalle from the Distillers because both trav and my favorite band is Rancid) We merged shops on June that year and have been building our shop together ever since.
We bought a new building in February this year and opened our second business Lost Souls in June, selling Sullen Clothing, InkAddict Apparel, Vitaly Design, HustleButter Deluxe Aftercare, h2ocean, Machete Premium Cuts and Clear Eyes Clothing Grim City Tattoo Club started out in Grimsby in 2007 as a one man shop in a converted shed in Travs back yard, friends started calling grim city Slingers and the name stuck. When travis and his ex wife divorced he moved to Hamilton and opened his first shop in 2012. The first artist hired was Drew Buchanan who is now back in the shop with us again. I joined the team in 2014 after merging the shops and we outgrew the first location quickly after that.
A typical day at the shop isn’t typical. That’s the beauty of our industry. Nothing is mundane or repetitive. We come in around 12. Sometimes tattoo immediately sometimes we putter around, hangout, go get food, draw, or go hangout in the basement till clients arrive. We close around 8 at night. Sometimes earlier sometimes later depending. Weve got it pretty good.
Tell us more about – Lost Souls and how did it came to fruition.
Lost Souls started out in 2012 as Travis Tshirt printing hobby. Nothing really came of it so when Ian Pettigrew and I started planning a cross country Photography and modeling tour we stole the name as we already had merch printed. It kinda spiraled into one idea after another for awhile and somehow landed on becoming a side project / blog which then spiraled into an online store for the physical retail space we had decided to put into the new location. Wed worked with all the brands Before And so it was pretty natural to bring them into the shop. It’s now becoming a bigger idea to build a community in Canada to compete with America’s incredible industry. We have so much talent and so many great models and we’re a huge country but the work and shows and industry is always in the states. Wed like to change that.
When did you both start modeling and what was your first shoot together like?
I started modeling in this industry when I was 18 with Suicide Girls. I was in and out for years. I’d shoot a ton then stop for months then go back. Trav never modeled before but he made a joke after seeing a model in the h2ocean Calendar and said he could do that, i told him he didn’t have tits, so he showed me the guy and i called him on it by calling Ian Pettigrew to shoot him. Travis was pretty pissed, but in the end i was wrong, his shoot turned out amazing and got published on tattoo’d lifestyle online. the rest is basically history. Shooting together was pretty organic, Ian caught a few behind the scenes photos of us playing around at our second shoot together at the machine shop and they got super popular.
Who are some of the photographers that you have worked with in the past? Who are some that you would like to shoot with in the future?
We did one shoot with Joe McGuire in a bathtub at this point too, and those bathtub photos are pretty infamous now… we’ve been incredibly lucky with photographers, after the machine shop and bathtub shoot went “viral” (for lack of a better word) Christian Saint messaged me to shoot in NYC, our friend Whitney Heard was off the same week so we met her in NYC and shot in Times Square, Ian Pettigrew is still and forever will be our number one, he’s the best friend and such a solid guy, he is always our go to guy, but we’ve gotten to travel and shoot with incredible photographers across the states like 5th Ace and Max Reed in Miami, Boss Lady in Philadelphia, Dale May and Steve Prue in NYC, Digital Fabrik and D2G in Toronto Ontario, Ewan Phelan in London Ontario, of course Sheri House in Philly was pretty rad too 
we are planning a trip to Vegas and Cali in September and are hoping to shoot with some of our bucket list then but our bucket list includes, Hugo V, Tragic Glamour, Michelle Star, Alvarado Pinup, JellyFish Jones, Andy Hartmark, Silvia Pareri, Ohrandutang, noregrets, isaac maderaxx, kurt selle, ryan & genessa and yellow bubbles.
Tell us a little more about your tattoos and style of choice and why?
My personal style for my tattoos has always been more traditional/neotraditional – i just love the bold style, bright colours and the fact that you can see what it is a mile away, Travis is very all over the place, he doesn’t really have a style, he just enjoys the art, he kind of just gets things cause he likes them at the moment, I’m a lot like that but i tend to keep them more in the same art style, even the ultra realistic portraits i have are going to be framed in with traditional flowers and designs.
What are your favorite tattoos on your own body and why?
Travis’ favorite tattoo changes a lot, depending on the day, sometimes its the matching light sabres on his hand he got in vegas with me, sometimes its his arms, sometimes its his werewolf. My favorite of his tattoos are on his legs, when he was learning to tattoo he practiced on himself and he has 2 that i just love – the one is an Oni mask that looks like tie dye because he didn’t know how to blend colors yet, and then on his thigh he has this dragon dog beast thing, that looks like it was supposed to be the dragon from A Never Ending Story, but he says he tried to tattoo it from memory with no reference and no stencil. it’s pretty majestic. My favorite of my tattoos is either my back piece although unfinished, or my neck piece done by my best friend Jared Dale when he was here for Northern Ink Xposure last year in Toronto.
What is the tattoo industry like in Hamilton Ontario and how has it evolved/ changed – over the past few years?
Hamilton is an interesting thing. For a city with a population of almost 800000 people we literally have like 20 shops give or take. which is really really low, especially considering that its a blue collar, factory city or a university/college town, its like 80% of the population is tattooed, which means that approximately 640000 people are tattooed, which equals about 30k people per shop. the math doesn’t ad up, it can’t. but what the city is doing is forcing tattoo shops out with bullshit bylaws and impossible rules that literally make no sense. (whole can of worms that you don’t want to open but we’re actually planning on taking on the city and fighting for a change of these stupid bylaws). By forcing the shops out of storefronts – the artists either leave and work in other cities or worse, scratch from their kitchens, living rooms, basements etc. Its a huge problem, we run into nightmares daily and spend half our time recommending laser removal, dealing with infections and explaining how to deal with the ramifications of their cheap tattoo or covering up $80 portraits. We have a lot of great artists in the city other than the guys at our shop, and we try and be friends with other shops, unfortunately a lot of times it isn’t reciprocated. Luckily we have one shop we are close too in the area, the owner is a solid dude, and we love having that friendship.
We see that you are traveling to the United States over the summer. Tell us more about your future plans, conventions and bookings…
Travis and I are planning a Vegas / LA / Huntington Beach trip in September to hit the Las Vegas convention, its supposed to be the biggest show on earth – so it’d be pretty neat if it works out being that, we are bringing a few of the guys from our shop along for the trip, we want to shoot, then drive out to LA then end the trip by stopping in at Sullen HQ and spend time with our friends there.
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