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Juan Puente
"Better Than" is "As Good As"
Interview by Crash
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Juan: ...recorder? Or is it a regular cassette recorder?
Crash: No, no. Yeah, it's a little flash card.
Oh, it's a little flash card recorder. Tech.
Yeah. This is my first time using it. It's so simple. — I mean once you get through
the booklet.
Right. I thought it was a little tape recorder. Yeah, it’s pretty sweet.
Yeah. How long have you been tattooing?
This August will be 16 years out of a shop.
Out of a shop? How long did you scratch before that?
Not too long actually. Maybe 1 year, 2 years maybe. One year—year and a half
tops. — Just doing it.
What, uh...did you have tattoos?
You know I got my first tattoo... I would always hang out with my friends and they
had tattoos and I didn’t even want any. And I'd go into tattoo shops and just check
it out. I was into it but not for me, type thing. And then I got one. And pretty much
when people—you don’t really believe people until—I lived it. I got one and I was
like, "Fuck, that was fucking cool. It didn’t hurt that bad. I want to get another one
and another one and another." The next thing you know...Like I'd said in several
other interviews before, I painted punk rock leather jackets.
I did the same thing.
I was like, "This is fucking cool. My tattoos are cool." And then someone else
chirps in, "I think you can do it." And I’m like, "You think so?" "I think you might
be able to. Dude, look at my jacket." "Well, fuck, I guess. I'll give it a go." I just
hounded somebody to give me a break and they actually did after a long time. After
like that whole year almost; really getting the machines,
getting started. He leaked the information
so precisely.
"What's a magnum?"
He had me buying 6 flats and 3 rounds and fucking
all this shit.
"Magnum? This is magic?" Like, you know, "What
is that? Look at this. It's so different." And then
I started making needles for the guy. And, "Oh,
these are good. You can take these and figure out
what's wrong with them."
"Okay great man, whatever."
And this really gnarly, meticulous way to make needles
too. Half the people probably don’t even know
what I’m talking about. But the other half that do
can just imagine like the hardest way to make a
needle, this is how I did it. So I was like, "Shit."
But I mean, it was good. Then slowly but surely, I
kept doing it. I got invited—I heard someplace was
looking for a person. I went in and didn’t get it.
This was the beginning of the summer.
Super busy summer street
shop at the beach. I was bummed.
My friend, who's Corey Miller, was
like, "Don't worry about it. It's cool.
Don't trip. This is just the first of—
You gotta do hurdles. This stuff ain't
easy." I was working for UPS at the
time. So then at the end of the thing,
I befriended Eric Masske. And just
'cause the child—I just had a kid and
the mom lived—the mom’s parents
lived up in the area where Fullerton
was, in Northern Orange County, give
or take. And so I was going ahead
and I tattooed. I tattooed out of my
house. I was that guy, you know,
coming and hanging out at the shop.
And for some reason, he took a liking
to me. I got tattooed by him a
few times. We’d hang out; he’d come
down to my house. He told me he
had this opening coming up at the
shop and it would be perfect. You
could actually do something here,
like really learn something. If not,
just whittle away and just have the
best start ever. And that’s exactly
what it was because he was doing
his traditional thing that he wants to
do. Like he was so into it, he didn’t
want to do the tribal stuff anymore.
He didn’t want to do that. I was there
to do that. He didn’t want to do the
butterfly on the guy's ass. "Juan, you
gotta do that."
"Alright, whatever." And I just got to
tattoo the biggest variety of skin and
customers the first 2 years. Nobody
gets to do that anymore. I see it now
and people go, "You know, I really
want to do this."
Yeah, I want to fucking fly, but I can't.
I don’t have wings. You got to—it's a
means to an end.
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