Flashback interview with a European tattoo legend: Bernie Luther. Carried by a crazy creative freedom inherited from punk, the Austrian marked in the 1990s the tattoo scene by the originality of his style and his graphic experiments. Visions which, if they shook up certain preconceived ideas at the time, have since been widely taken up... A pioneer but also a traveller at heart, Bernie had found, thanks to tattooing, a way to live from his art, while travelling the world. A world that was more open and less controlled, a blessing for tattoo artists more absorbed by the enjoyment of the party than by social networks. Back in Austria in Vienna, Bernie agreed, between tattoos and concerts with his punk band Freaktemple, to share with Inkers some memories of his past lives.
Hello Bernie, how you doing?
Nice question, but it would need a book to answer that. In short words, I’m still stuck in the same situation since a long time. I still have my studio in the same address and I am still busy ; still married and still living together with my wife and our dog in Vienna, Austria.
The tattoo world has changed a lot since you started, how do you see it?
That’s so true and to be honest not in the better way. If I would have to start tattooing now, I think I would not. All these problems we have now, using the new colours, all this rules and so many tattooists… It lost a lot of its magic.
You have 40 years of tattooing behind you, what words would you use to sum it up?
It was a crazy ride and the best choice I could have done. It brought me all over the world and I met tons of interesting people from all the corner of this planet. It introduced me to different cultures and further, it taught me a lot of different styles.
Where and how did tattooing start for you?
I got my first contact with tattooing when I was 14 on a trip to England and later on at 16 in the punk scene in Vienna. A punk from Stuttgart brought this self made machine and made some decent work with it - despite it was built of a spoon, a motor and a ball pen without a mine. A simple construction but it worked. I got my first tattoo from him and I copied the idea of the construction and started to make my first tattoos with it ; the first two on me, and then on some of my friends with really simple designs (Barcadi bat, black star, Anarchy)
What attracted you to tattooing back then?
It was basically what I saw on punks in England or when I saw some bands on stage like One Way System where the singer had fully covered arms - which was rare those days.
In the 1990s you became a real star, seen in all the conventions and your style inspired many tattoo artists. How did you live this period?
This was an awesome time in the 1990s when I had this period of life, where I got treated like a star. At this time there were not so many tattoo conventions and I went to "all", that means when there was a "first" convention somewhere I wanted to go. No matter if it was in Helsinki, Finland (1991) or Berlin (1991) or Paris (1992). And I was eager to bring back a trophy from each one of them. That’s why I got "world famous" during that time. I attended around 200 conventions (all in all) and that left a mark, I guess. That included a lot of interviews, a lot of work and I was rewarded with meeting famous people, writing autographs and getting passes around from studio to studio.
You travelled a lot too. I think you had a shop in Bali but also in Portugal, you travelled around the USA. How important was travelling for you and your progression as a tattoo artist?
To answer the question I have to say that I was looking for a profession that enabled me to travel without any money problems. So I chose tattooing because I just needed a decent bag, to get everything inside, to make me independent. That brought me to the States, where I spent all in all two years, on the East as well as the West coast. I spent another two years in Portugal (1985, 1986) living and tattooing on the beaches of the Algarve. This was a real hippy life, my house was a tipi, my stove was a bonfire, but my working place was in a coffeehouse on the beach were I could have a clean spot and access to sterilization. After traveling to India, Malaysia and Borneo, I ended up in Bali, Indonesia, where I opened a tattoo studio in 1994, which I kept for 10 years until my contract ran out.
Tattooing is a traveller's best friend then?
Basically its true but, in these times right now where they know on the border that you wanna work and with all the hustle with the colours and everything, it’s not like it used to be.
You are a good drawer, how did you learn?
The reason is because my parents as well as my sister, are all good artists and I guess it’s thanks to them that my drawing ability is rather good.
Were comics your main source of inspiration?
I have to answer with a "no". They have been to a certain extent but to be honest, the comics what I was reading were more like "Freak Brothers" or "U-comix" from the 1970s and also the French "Asterix" had some influence in my drawing, but more the "Book of Faeries" from Brian Froud and the fantasy artwork from Rodney Matthews, Boris Valejo and Frank Frazetta in a big way.
You did everything freehand I think at the time, which was completely crazy. How did you manage this risk-taking?
I have to correct, there have been also some designs where I made myself a stencil, like a drawing from Dürer or an airbrush painting from Giger, a simple portrait of a person or a dog, I would had used a stencil. But, most of the time, I was drawing the design directly on the skin, also to use the motion and the muscle structure of the area from the tattoo. There have been some styles where I was not too keen to do so I passed it to somebody more fitting. In that time, it was quite normal to draw directly the design and it showed that people had quite some trust in us, the artists. And I had a big portion of self-esteem during that era.
You used to mix styles, which was not very common at the time. What were the reactions to this experimentation?
The reactions of mixing styles were quite "mixed ". For some, it was a sacrilege to mix a portrait with a tribal or splitting a picture in half and make it in two styles simultaneously, like I did. But most reacted positively or some tattooists even made it to their own.
Who were your influences among the tattoo artists of the time? I think Claus Fuhrmann was one of them, wasn’t he?
There would be a lot of names I have to mention. Claus Fuhrmann was the first guy I met who made extraordinary good work in drawing and tattooing. Also, he had some work on his arms from Filip Leu, which were the best tattoos I saw at that time. So Filip Leu was one of my biggest influences as well as Mick from Zürich, Ian of reading, Ed Hardy, The Dutchman, Horiyoshi 3, Jack Rudy, Guy Aitchison. Just to name a few.
Tattoo artists remember your very creative drawings and it seems that part of your creativity came from drugs. What drugs did you take and what was your relationship with them?
That’s kind of rough to say that a big portion of my creativity came from drugs, but they definitely had an influence in my artwork, in some form. I think my creativity was always there but smoking weed and taking psychedelic drugs definitely helped. I was pretty curious, especially with natural psychedelics like DMT, Ayahuesca, magic mushrooms or things similar, so I had a fair share of experience with drugs, and they had some influence on my drawings. But more in the designs than in my style.
It seems that you abused them a bit too, when you felt you were not on a good path?
I had my times where I reached a time where I changed my perspective to some things or ways I used to do. And I think there is also a good amount of gossip who gave me a certain reputation. The wildest times I had when I was tattooing in the Goa scene in India and Bali and a lot of my clients were Dj's and other folks with access to certain substances. And also the times when I was tattooing a lot of bikers in their clubhouses. They also knew how to party. But I didn’t really had a time that I totally regret, I’ve never been a junky, I always stayed out of trouble, never got arrested or even registered with anything illegal not even a joint.
What happened in the 2000s and up to now?
What I did after the 2000 is also a question that would need a while to answer. In the beginning, I was still in Bali, that was the time when my house burned down, caused by a candle. So it needed a little while to get sorted again. I was traveling to Australia and Japan. In 2013, I got married to my wife Verena, which is a girl from Salzburg in Austria. And since this time, we have a dog too, that made me become more of a houseman than a traveller, since it’s not easy to fly with dog of a certain size. We tried it with the car to Portugal, to warm up some memories and later on to Bosnia, to see the pyramids of Visoko. In 2012, I founded a punk band called " FREAKTEMPLE ", which is more a hobby than a serious crap to the olymp of music, but it’s fun and sometimes we get even some decent gigs here in Vienna. I started up as a drummer, who wrote the lyrics, then as a drummer and singer, supported by a headset was that quite some work, especially live. So, after that I ended up being just the singer and frontman, which was better for my condition than doing both. I also did more artwork than I did before I slowed down traveling. Then in 2016 I started a second job as a teacher in a tattoo course, which was fun for some time but, since tattooing changed so much in the last years, I didn’t want to change all the things I got thought in the beginning.
Music still seems to be an important part of your life, can you tell us about that? Do you still draw posters for concerts?
Yes, music was always a big part of my tattooing and my artwork. It was Punk what made me become a tattooist and during all my career I was making posters for concerts, t-shirt designs for bands and a lot of album covers for different bands and events. I still do that and I am always glad to get some work like that.
Have you tattooed many musicians? I think you did the logo of his band Slash's Snakepit on the American musicien for example.
During that time I was doing this I got the chance to meet a lot of these great musicians and artists I admired all my life. Even when I couldn’t tattoo all of them I still got the chance to even talk to them. People like David Bowie, Lemmy, Kid Rock, Nick Cave and sometimes even tattoo them, like Slash (Guns’n’Roses), Dave Brockie (GWAR), Campino (Die Töten Hosen) and lots of musicians from bands like Machine head, the Lurkers, Discharge, Beasts of Bourbone, Biohazard, Gwar, and many , many more. + IG : @bernieluther
