One that everyone loves is that I have spiders in my skin.
I got my tongue split.
I have tattooed my eyeballs.
That's cool, right?
Freaks a lot of people out, but I like them.
There was never really a time in my life
where I had this realisation or epiphany
that I wanted to be covered in tattoos or heavily modified.
It just kind of came to be, like, it just happened.
The first tattoo I got, I was probably about 12 years old
and it was a home job.
We just got a tattoo machine of our own
and we started doodling on ourselves.
My first professional tattoo, I was probably about 15.
A lot of people ask me how many tattoos I have all up,
but it's so hard
to answer that question
because on my face alone, I've probably have, like,
30 tattoos,
just- You know what I mean?
Like, layers on layers on layers.
But it would definitely be upwards of, like, 150, 200 times
that I've had sittings.
If those sittings go for eight hours
or those sittings go for 15 minutes,
it's whatever, but yeah.
I guess my first modification was my stretched ears,
which I started when I was 11 years old.
Yeah, so they're a bit like calamari.
Delicious.
But I think my more, like, full-on mods
was when I was maybe 17 or 18.
I got some scarification on my face.
Who doesn't love a bit of slicing?
Kind of like the sides of my face.
My forehead, I've had branding,
so there's some indentations and stuff.
All of that.
I've had scarification on my jaw
so you can see, like, the lines and stuff.
And I also got my nostrils punched out
so they get, like, a corkscrew and kind of like... yeah.
It's nasty stuff.
I have tattooed my eyeballs.
So that's cool, right?
Bit nifty.
Freaks a lot of people out, but I like them,
so that's all that really matters.
You lay down and you hold your eyes open
while the person who's doing the procedure
pretty much gets saline and tattoo ink
and sucks it up in a syringe.
And then very gently kind of injects it
in certain spots of your eye.
They're kind of cool.
Hurt a lot, lot of stitches. Lot of pain.
Had stretches inside my ears. Very cool, very cool.
One that everyone loves is that I have spiders in my skin.
Everyone kind of wigs out about that.
Yeah, everyone wigs out about that one.
These are just silicone implants.
So it's just, yeah, just silicone in the shape of a spider.
They just kind of shove it in there.
I've got a little baby one in my thumb.
Everyone's, like, is that a real spider?
I've got my tongue split.
You get a scalpel, you get your tongue,
and someone cuts it in half and stitches it up.
And then you have, like, a week of,
for me personally, not being able to eat properly or at all
for two or three days.
Couldn't take pain medication.
I tried even getting a baby syringe and sucking it up
in a baby syringe and trying to get it in the back
of my throat. Wouldn't work.
I had to sleep sitting up
so I didn't choke on my own saliva and blood and die.
I got my belly button removed,
which is kind of, like,
very 'Kyle XY'.
And the whole procedure behind it is pretty much
cut around your belly button and in.
And the grossest part was that during getting it done,
the guy was, like, "Do you wanna have a look?"
And I was, like, "Yeah, I wanna have a look."
So I sat up a little bit and looked down
and he's, like, you know how you tense your ab muscles?
He's, like, "Tense your abs muscles." And I pushed
and you could see pretty much my stomach lining,
sort of thing, protruding through this hole
just a little bit.
No, it wasn't like that, it was more like that,
but it was kind of gross, so yeah.
I've had stretches in my top lip.
I had a big stretcher down here.
You can see the scar from it running horizontally there.
There was a big stone in there.
Oh, and I had my gums tattooed.
Yeah.
I really haven't paid that much.
Most of the people that have tattooed me
or done most of my work were very close friends of mine.
So things for friends, you know?
If I had to put
the industry standard on it,
I'm sure you'd be looking upwards of, like, 60,000
for everything, like, modifications and tattoos included.
Yeah. Modifications aren't cheap.
Modifications are expensive.
I think your eyes alone are about $1,500.
Yeah, being heavily tattooed and heavily modified
definitely kinda restricts a lot of things you can do.
Unfortunately.
Obviously, that can be from going out
clubbing with your friends, or trying to use your iPhone
to unlock it with your face,
which is not a great time.
I think for a long time,
people have been way too focused
on what other people are doing.
You know, Karen from California,
the way I look or what I do to my body
is never in a million years going to affect her
or her family or anything like that.
So I just think it's, yeah... We're all guilty of it.
We're all guilty of passing a little bit of judgement
here and there.
But I think in the scale in which people do it now
is just ridiculous.
Yeah, I guess you could say I regret some tattoos.
Not just regret. I think there's a difference
between regret and wanting to be perceived differently.
I don't know if that makes sense.
Wanting to be able to take my daughter to school and stuff
and not have her friends freak out,
or other friends' parents freak out and stuff.
If my daughter ever came to me being of age
of when I roughly started getting modifications
and heavily tattooed,
I don't think I have so much a problem with tattoos,
especially not visible,
like, clothing can cover, sort of thing.
Or even, like, throat and stuff I'm okay with.
But I think it's where when you touch on the face,
the face is a big thing that can lead to so many,
for some people, not everyone,
but for some people lead to a lot of problems for yourself,
which I probably wouldn't want my daughter
to have to deal with until she was a bit older.
I wish that I may have not had gone
as hectic as I did on my face.
Yeah, so I'm getting laser or have been
for pretty much 12 months.
And I've probably gone over my full face; we do in sections,
but I've probably gone over the full thing
maybe, like, six or seven times.
And it's starting to really drop out.
This was all solid, everything was solid
and now it's kind of really not that-
like, I had big stripes on my chin and stuff,
but yeah it's dropping out quite nicely.
I started getting it done [due to],
like, the anxiety and stuff I was getting.
And I don't know if I can contribute,
mental stuff is a funny thing to try and pin down,
but I want to think that a lot of the anxiety
was from just having a face full of tattoos.
Starting over and having a fresh face
will be a really nice feeling, so.
I'm happy with the way I look,
but I'm also happy with the mentality
that in, over the next two years,
my face tattoos are gonna become less and less and less.
I'm just clearing the canvas, realistically.
I can paint over it again, but I'm just clearing the canvas
and you should be able to do whatever you want
with your body.
And honestly, I've done the hectic face tattoos,
I've done this, done that,
and it's just another chapter in what I'm doing to myself.
It's just clearing part of the canvas,
that's all it really is.
And it just kept getting worse and prolonged.
And I just remember the rising tension in the cabin.
No one was saying anything,
no one was screaming or anything like that,
but it was palpable, you know?
Just the feeling in the air
that we're all thinking, what the heck is going on?