GODOY INTERVIEW - AUSTRALIA INKED MAGAZINE - READ IT. THIS IS THE STATE OF TATTOOING.

For our readers who haven't heard of the Godoy Twins, could you each give us a brief description of who you are?

-- Well, there's a lot to tell… we are identical twins, bilingual - English and Spanish, we were born in Mexico City and lived in Venezuela, Puerto Rico  as kids - because our dad was from Argentina and always was handling business in Latin America. Though, we have lived mostly on the east coast USA since we turned 6 years old, we have had the travel bug since we were kids and it has stayed with us to this day. We have been tattooing since 1985, were pro skateboarders, from the Tony Hawk generation. We were rated 15th or 16th out of 75 professionals on the pro circuit. We are also punk rock musicians. We  play with Deniz Tek, founder of Radio Birdman, we have been playing with him for over 19 years!! We also founded the Exploding Fuck Dolls with Duane Peters, we have toured as members of the Vibrators, Gary Lammin, The Visitors reunion… We tattooed EXCLUSIVELY Julia Gnuse, the Guiness Book of World Records' most tattooed woman. We have been in tons of magazines and TV- Guiness Prime Time, You Asked For it, Pro Sieben (Germany), Fuera de Serie (spanish speaking countries), Larry King Live… and More. We hold 4 international patents on coil and tube vice technology and one for a totally revolutionary health compliant power supply. We wrote a book  called Tattoo Machines & their Secrets which was translated into 6 languages and copyrighted - this industry text book was then made into an ebook so tattoo artists from ANYWHERE could pay and download it. Security was cracked and the book  was illegally downloaded over 990,000 times from torrent sites - and that was just the English version! We started our machine company with the goal to improve and perfect the electromagnetic tattoo machine. It evolved into the trajectory of raising standards in the industry. We believe that education is imperative in this business… so we offer everything any artist of any level needs to be the best AND to protect the industry from frauds, myths, superstitions and bootleggers. We teach seminars globally on tattoo machines. Art owns Funhouse Tattooing in Vancouver Canada and Steve work for Kari Barba at Outer Limits Tattoo in Orange California. We are accredited with being the "godfathers" of marrying the skateboarding and tattooing lifestyles as documented in the Bart Saric film "Skinned Alive". 

What introduced you into the tattoo world - age, time, influences? Was it something where you both decided to do it at the same time or one went into it first?

-- We moved to the USA at 6 years old. That move was integral in how we turned out and how we perceived the world. We moved to Lancaster Pennsylvania. That town was very conservative and clannish. We were victimized by prejudice against 'foreigners'… as spanish speakers we did not fit in even though we spoke perfect English as well! So, as you can see, we were perfectly set up to be into individual lifestyles and forms of expression - what could say "fuck you" better to the world than not being part of it? skateboarding,  punk rock and tattooing! As for the tattooing, we were exposed to the Cockney Rejects record "the Power and the Glory" which depicted them on the back cover showing their tattoos. We were around 15… maybe it was 1982. We are started skateboarding in 1976, and got into the original British punk from 1977 - after being into KISS…hahahaha, and that was exactly the time period we started to come into our own… these lifestyles really spoke to us!!  skateboarding taught us 'individuality', Punk taught us 'rebellion' and tattooing taught us 'creativity, self expression and freedom'. Nothing else could compare. Team sports? no way… We have always had an attitude to be individuals and non conformists from an early age. We started together… did everything together.

Was it hard to get tattooed when you were younger?

-- It was hard to get tattooed. It was 18 and over. We had done tons of home made tattoos on ourselves in 84… so since we were already 'tattooed' we could get em done. There weren't that many shops in Dallas Texas, where we had moved to… let's go back a bit.. we were in Pennsylvania til we got kicked out of school in 82 when we moved to Mexico City with our dad. Skating all over the place.. totally on our own. We moved to Dallas where we got sponsored for skateboarding in 1983. We carried our attitude with us and our musical soundtrack… we ended up back in Pennsylvania for the last 6 months of high school…went back to Dallas in 84 / 85 where we started to get professional tattoos from local artists ( Robert Hackney, Ken Cameron and a guy named 'Patrick") and started tattooing ourselves with professional equipment. … and as pro skaters, we would take our per diem money and get tattooed wherever we travelled for contests and demos.. and surprisingly, age restrictions were observed by these old school shops. 

Do you think that the difference of availability has changed what it means to get tattooed?

-- Availability? We think that society generally "moves" when things are acceptable. It's not surprising that it has boomed!! It is totally 'SAFE' to get tattooed now. When we started getting tattooed, it was not, we were the most heavily tattooed skateboarders from our generation and our sales in the market showed it. Market research showed that the mothers of 14 year old kids were buying the boards so the companies didn't see value in marketing tattooed punk rock twins. You see, we didn't care about what was acceptable and we would have done it regardless. Now, tattooing is readily available for anybody, any style is available to anybody… along with this has come a lack of ethics in the industry - health compliance, suppliers selling to 'just anyone', … what does it mean to get tattooed now? I don't think things have changed that much.. i think more options as far as artistic availability are greater and better, as far as being a rebellious statement, that is not so much of an issue - unless you are getting full facial tattoos or gang tattoos. There are still pockets in the USA where tattooing is still taboo… but not as off limits as it was when we were growing up.

Were you creative kids - did you draw and create when you were young?

-- We have always been creative. We have our mom to thank for that. Whenever we'd bitch about being bored, she'd put a pencil in our hands and tell us - "draw!" We would do crafts, wood carving.. clay, sculpting.. paper mache!! We built ramps to skate… we painted our ramps and skateboard decks.. so, yes we have always been creative.

Was it inevitable but with skating and music as your passions from an early age that tattoos would some way work themselves into the mix?

-- It was inevitable with the music we were into. You could see the evolution from rebelling with spiky hair and spiked wristbands and listening to the Sex Pistols, to being more extreme - shaved heads and tattoos… getting tattoos was next and then DOING tattoos. For us, it seemed to be meant to be. We never wavered. We have been listening to the same music for decades, been skateboarding for the same and tattooing also… we have serious credentials as a result of these passions. The mix of these things were easily absorbed because of the fact that we were misfits in this world.. when in reality, the conformist pigs were the misfits in OUR world.. most kids were scared to rebel or be different or thin for themselves. It was not an option… our roots, our filters and our determination helped us to accept and embrace these lifestyles and persevere and succeed in each one. We redefined these lifestyles to suit OUR needs, we made our own rules - as we didn't conform to those established punk rock and skate standards either… 

How did you become tattooists - did you follow a traditional apprentice? together/apart etc?

-- We decided that tattooing was something we wanted to learn and excel in. We tried for apprenticeships but due to our extensive travel schedules as professionals skateboarders, we couldn't commit to a full time apprenticeship. We tattooed each other, learning all we could by watching the artists that tattooed us. We watched technique, we observed sterile practices, we did the best we could ON EACH OTHER before we practiced on friends.  We are totally self taught. 

Which artists inspire your work?

-- None now, currently each other,  in the past, we have always liked the work of Greg Irons. He was doing tattoos on tattoos! Fine lines! that was what we liked - precision, realism. We liked the original black and grey guys too like Jack Rudy, Mark Mahoney… most of the others seemed rudimentary to us. I'm talking about 'then'. Now, there are a lot of impressive artists. We have taken more of an interest in our machine innovations over artistic inspiration in tattooing. After 28 years tattooing, our interests are a bit different than they were in the early days. Many old inspirations have become very distant upon re inspection.  The obsolescence of certain old school mentalities and styles, the realization that we had been disillusioned by their mystiques so now it's about finding value in our own endeavours - inventions, innovations and so on.

What drove you to develop your own machines?

-- The drive to develop our machines was a result of the dissatisfaction we had with machines we would buy from reputable companies, not to mention boredom. The real reason we found for the dissatisfaction was our own ignorance at the time. We used to listen to other artists who were more experienced yet we couldn't understand why their work was so substandard. We have played with our machines for a very long time. The development of our machines was sort of accidental. Trying ideas and then perfecting them. Simply at first and then more and more complex! Building a better mouse trap. We started to understand magnetic field and permeability, we got a real grasp for spring tension in combination with stroke… type of wire and specific gauges and turns on a variety of coil geometry and alloys - enough to saturate the coil at lower voltages. It was our need for knowledge too, to figure out the whys and hows of the machine's function and to logically and scientifically resolve how we can apply that toward techniques like super fine lines, smooth giant patches of even greys with the machine staying cool, without loss of power, without skips. Just smooth consistency.

Do you feel there is a lack of understanding and knowledge from some sections of the tattoo community about the importance of good machines and treating them well?

-- Lack of understanding in SOME sections? Try all sections! The lack of knowledge is blatantly obvious in this industry from the top to the bottom. Two plus two doesn't equal four in this business. There is so much superstition and myth, people barking up the wrong trees. Standard business models do not work in tattooing, Customers are not always right! Complaints about the Chinese coming in and selling their cheap products. suppliers who are not accountable for the products they sell, artists thinking the supplier knows about what he sells… when the real problem is ignorant artist population. Artists like to complain and act like they know… a good machine? define that… is it brand name? NO, there are specific manufacturers who have a 'name' who tattoo like 10 year old kids.. obviously they do not understand artistic technique, they have no clue on how to make a machine do what is needed, much less set up a machine to be able to handle this! A good machine?? the bottom line is that any electromagnetic tattoo machine CAN BE MADE INTO A GOOD MACHINE. Understand function, understand components, specifications… parallelism. There are basic characteristics a machine needs to be 100%. The goals is to understand this and it's relation to technique and modify it to YOUR needs and NOT to have to adapt to whatever you buy out of the box. Do not accept that the machine you buy are already set up. Who built it? who sells it? do they really know what YOU need, and what the machine needs to do to be able to facilitate your artistic technical requirements?

Artists can control the industry, we can decide who stays and who goes and who will be let in. There are a lot of people coming into OUR industry who's credentials are questionable. We say OUR industry because there are people getting involved just to make money, who do not tattoo, who have not paid their dues in this business. Just because a supplier can buy bulk Chinese products and re sell them DOES NOT mean that he knows anything about what he sells.

The ignorance of the magazines trying to create and define the 'tattoo culture' as a bunch of freaks dressed as 1950's ghouls with day of the dead paint on their faces taking pictures in a graveyard, is so off the mark… these 'tattoo lifestyle' magazines, and in fact almost all the tattoo industry magazines show pictures of artists tattooing without bags on their machines and 99% of artists look at that photo and think that this is a normal and acceptable STANDARD just because they see it in the magazines! … IT IS NOT! It is NOT health compliant. This art depends on science and physics - technical and mechanical systems - and the observance of health conscious procedures because the clients ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENTS in our equation. They come into shops innocently to get tattooed  and are sometimes greeted with egos and attitudes, sold on images that are substandard, are dissuaded from their original ideas because the artist is not competent to do the job THE WAY THE CLIENT WANTS IT, occasionally he tattoos them with untuned machines and unrefined amateurism.

This is a customer service job, it is a minor surgery and as such there is no room for 'tattoo kits' or any kind of 'entry level' apparatus. Sadly, it's there, it's everywhere and magazines advertise full page ads from suppliers who sell these types of 'kits', who sell these amateurs their new identities… ads in these mags for clothing that says 'bitch' or 'tattooed white trash', is this what we as 'professional artists' want to be associated with?  The reality is that suppliers do not have to be accountable for what they sell. They do not take responsibility to understand the products they carry, it's not their job.  Pigment recalls, needles which may have several different types of tapers in one grouping. They accept returned machines sometimes covered in biohazard from clients who do not bag their machines, and re sell them. NOT ALL DO THIS, THERE ARE SOME HOWEVER WHO DO… Yet the artist puts his complete faith in these suppliers. Come on, really?  it's an epidemic and the fucked thing is that there are huge numbers of artists who do not care because they are so busy grooming their images and maintaining their egos that they do not even know that there is a problem, those who do realize there is a problem don't know what it is or how to attack it!  We  are clients of suppliers as well, we buy pigments, we buy loose needles and make our own groupings, we are concerned about quality and safety.  We control the tightness of our needle groupings instead of conforming to a "Chinese standard" as the are the ones selling pre made inconsistent groupings...We try not to buy from anyone who is not part of the solution. We have done tons of interviews stating these facts. Because of tattooing's growth in popularity, it's huge earning potential and the immediate 'rock star' status an artist gets, tons of new beginners are entering our work force. They are being sold products without a second thought by suppliers who do not see the harm in it. There is a fine line between lack of understanding and blatantly ignoring what is really going on.  No magazines had the balls to print any of our interviews because they didn't want our content to offend their full page advertisers, their back cover advertisers or anyone who supported these types of ethics knowingly or un knowingly, NOR did THEY THEMSELVES want to be called out on the substandard ethics they help  to perpetuate.

Do you tattoo when touring or is their a segregation between the many sections of your life?

-- we tattoo at our respective shops. We tattoo 6 days a week so when we go on the road, we don't tattoo. We would rather just play music or do seminars. We separate these sections of our lives because realistically it's hard to be operating at 100% when you are doing too many things at one time.

Do you always work together when tattooing or have their been times/years when you've been and worked apart?

-- We live a 3 hr plane flight apart… so physically we work together when we get together, on building machine runs and physically designing new prototypes. When we are not in the same place, we talk on the phone everyday working discussing ideas and plans. When we get together these days, we don't always tattoo. Our whole lives, we did everything together, skateboarding tattooing and playing in whatever bands we are in. 

Do you find your art and tattoo styles are similar not matter what you're working on?

-- yeah, they are very similar. There are slight differences, but they're very similar. Our approach to tattooing is not as planned out as it is for some, we draw on the skin with a pen… lots of freehand work. Our clientele knows that that's how we roll. We also do lots of realism, cover ups and real small detailed work that most people would not touch.

You've really had a full life, you seem to have taken on everything you can, what passions continue to drive you?

--  haha, it's true, we have also taken on more than we can sometimes. The passions that we've had as misfit kids, which had formed our personalities and characters continue to drive us. These things are ingrained in us at such a deep level that we can't sell out. They give us drive and direction. We still love to skate and surf. We love to tattoo and be creative in music. We love to travel and see new places. We love to teach machine seminars that actually teach and gain great satisfaction when we  see people 'get it!'. We love to tour and play music! All these  things have brought us so much satisfaction and success. We do not define success as monetary gain, we define it as happiness and fulfilment.  We have a world full of friends and artists on the same page who want to make positive changes in the industry, seeing people like Brett Fischer and his family, from 2Evolve tattoo supply in Cape Town, do what they do for tattooing further motivates us!! We get inspiration from so many things. 

INTERVIEW WITH BRETT FISCHER - 2 EVOLVE TATTOO SUPPLY - CAPE TOWN, S. AFRICA.

2EVOLVE IS A SOUTH AFRICAN SUPPLIER, HEADED BY BRETT FISCHER, WHO'S FORWARD THINKING AND ETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES SHOULD SERVE AS AN EXAMPLE FOR ALL SUPPLIERS TO ASPIRE TO. HIS SENSE OF COMMUNITY, ACTIVE SUPPORT OF EDUCATION AND PARTICIPATION IN RAISING HEALTH STANDARDS AND PRACTICES IN TATTOOING / PIERCING, HAS  ESTABLISHED THIS FAMILY OPERATED BUSINESS AS SOUTH AFRICA'S SUPREME SOURCE FOR QUALITY PRODUCTS, SERVICES & ACCESSIBLE EDUCATION TO ALL ARTISTS.

GIVE US A BRIEF LOOK IN TO THE EVOLUTION OF 2 EVOLVE - WHAT THE GOALS WERE WHEN YOU STARTED AND HOW THEY HAVE 'EVOLVED' UP TIL NOW.

We moved from the supply of piercing to include tattoo when approached by studios for assistance in sourcing supplies. Unfortunately it was a case of naive sourcing by price, demand and availability, the intention was never to rape the industry but the gross naivety of how a Pick n Pay (mini Wal-Mart) type supply concept creates total havoc, never totally sunk in until clients and willing ethical manufacturers such as yourselves better educated us on the affects. That disconnect a supplier and manufacturer can have from the person walking around with a new tattoo is often the source of ignorance in the modus operandi of a supply chain.

When we changed our company name to ‘2evolve’ it was kind of a mission statement in itself – the evolution of our business in its commitment to the community. Our livelihoods are 100 percent linked to the survival of the street shop and their ability to produce quality work with quality supplies.

Today we are drastically improved in many respects but our goals now are;

- Improving supply vetting, monitoring as well as ensuring we maintain it.

- To drop many items from our supply range, replacing them with better quality. This is the one benefit of hindsight in supply- the real end cost of cheap products to both us and the client.

- More selective about manufactures, if they don’t understand our local issues or engage with us on dialogue over it, they no longer interest me.

- Being able to hold larger stock volume to compensate for quality items that are not mass produced, manufacturing lead times frustrate local artists and their increasing ability to parallel import is what is keeping us on our toes right now.

BRETT FISCHER (RT)  - CAPE TOWN TATTOO CONVENTION.

HOW CLOSELY DOES THE S. AFRICAN 'TRENDS' IN SUPPLYING FOLLOW THE NORTH AMERICAN MARKET? - HOW POPULAR IS THE ROTARY COMPARED TO ELECTROMAGNETIC?

20 Years ago supply trends were limited to the release of new catalogues from suppliers like Spaulding or information shared by artists returning from Europe and America. Today with manufacturer web-sites, social media platforms and blogs, artist are being exposed to supply trends almost immediately. This equates to an artist demand for certain items ultimately driving the suppliers to source accordingly.

To a large extent a lot of what is going on right now, matches North America in terms of flavour of the month or ‘endorsed’ products. There is a demand we can directly correlate to endorsed / sponsored products appearing in blogs, online advertising and technique related DVD’s by the more internationally recognised artists. The upside is good endorsements give confidence in the products where there is no history and the downside is bad endorsements are creating a fad consumer culture in the community.

Right now we sell way more electro-magnetic machines than rotaries; however, the demand for rotary machines is definitely on the rise.

HOW MANY COUNTRIES, PROVINCES IN THE CONTINENT DO YOU HANDLE?

Currently we supply throughout South Africa and her nine provinces. We also supply Swaziland, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Botswana.

THE DYNAMICS OF THE TATTOO INDUSTRY HAVE BEEN A HURDLE FOR US AS FAR AS COMMUNICATING THE MUCH A NEEDED CHANGE IN ETHICS DIRECTION AND EDUCATION.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE THIS? HAVE YOU SEEN CHANGES SINCE THE BEGINNING,? AND IN HOW LONG OF A PERIOD, WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE ARTIST POPULATION THAT YOU SUPPLY "GET IT"?

The challenge has always been an adoption of unified best practices, getting to a point where there is a unanimous consensus on issues like studio hygiene, cross contamination etc. We lack national laws and where by-laws exist we lack enforcement, this has lead our business to adopt internal standards we expect clients to adhere too, however I don’t believe this is ideal….

In terms of ethics, suppliers have a commitment to the products they supply and whom they supply them to. But right now those ethics are meaningless in stopping the wave of supplies that are readily available on almost every online auction site! Many manufacturers have gone a long way to removing their products from this sales domain, but it’s been a needle in a haystack approach to cutting off the supply to minute made artists….

All in all, I am not going to lambaste other suppliers as we have our own history and faults to be critiqued – but we do all need to up our game in this regard. Much like the artists that lack a consensus, the same applies to the suppliers and manufacturers. However it’s important that the artists realise that they themselves hold the key to supplier ethics by virtue of funding. A simple case of not purchasing equates to a vote of no-confidence in the suppliers ability to maintain their ethics. Personally I don’t think artists realise their ability to control the supply is in their hands and that the ethics they exude are basically mirrored in the suppliers they purchase from.

GODOY SEMINAR - JOHANNESBURG

 WE KNOW THAT YOU PROMOTE EDUCATION, WE HAVE SEEN IT - ORGANIZING SEMINARS AND PAYING PART OF THE FEES FOR ARTISTS WHO HAVE POTENTIAL AND HAVE ECONOMIC DIFFICULTY - THIS IS UNHEARD OF IN THIS SELF ABSORBED INDUSTRY… WHY DO IT AT ALL?

When we started our company in 1987 it was done with R200.00 (about 100 dollars at the 1987 exchange rate) and zero resources, because of that we understand the hand to mouth nature of many small studios as they build a client base. On-going education should be a core focus and being able to assist with that meant a great deal to us.

When we had the opportunity to host you in RSA it was a huge deal for us, it was largely because of you that we progressed to be the supplier we are today. Hosting your seminar was also an opportunity to learn from you while here and also to see that information parted among artists locally was a fantastic experience for us.

WHAT KIND OF CHANGE DO YOU SEE THIS TYPE OF ACTION BRINGING TO THE S. AFRICAN INDUSTRY?

I don’t think I can overstate the importance of getting peers into the same room, to get them chatting and sharing ideas in an educational setting. To be able to share information is pretty much the only way the community moves forward. North America is spoilt in this regard – attracting global skills and dispersing them through seminars and conventions. To have seminars brought here, to see internationals arriving on our shores to guest or participate in conventions like the Cape Town tattoo convention, is fantastic. It up’s our game but the fundamental is the dynamic of peer participation and shared skills development.

WHAT ARE DISTRIBUTOR ETHICS? IS THERE SUCH A THING? ETHICALLY, WHAT ARE SOME REQUIREMENTS WHICH SET YOU APART FROM OTHER SUPPLIERS?

I think the simplest definition for me, would be the understanding of the end impact of supply choices: what the product impact is as well as the impact in the hands of the person whom you have sold it to.

There are suppliers with great ethics, some maybe better than ours. But my personal concern is to eliminate poor products from our range as well as the poor usage of our products.

YOUR PRODUCT STOCK HAS PROBABLY CHANGED ACCORDING TO THE NEEDS OF THE ARTIST? DO YOU FEEL THAT THERE ARE UNFOUNDED DEMANDS FOR PRODUCTS THAT ARE NOTHING BUT HYPE? ARE YOU LOOKING OUT FOR ARTISTS AND INVESTING IN PRODUCTS THAT ACTUALLY DO WORK?

I find this all the time, the ‘flavour of the month’ products that come and go so fast these days. Every second person is making tattoo machines these days it seems. There is massive pressure on suppliers to keep up with the demand or be seen as ‘behind the times’. It’s a double edged sword for us, we prefer to invest in lines of substance and not in trends but it even goes into the issue of cheap vs quality. I think quality manufacturers also need to be more progressive in pricing structures to assist smaller countries like ours where scales of economy are not factored in on the ‘bulk price’ and moq’s.

HOW MANY OTHER SUPPLIERS ARE 'YOUR COMPETITION? 

It’s a good question, not so long ago you could count suppliers on one hand, today there are 20 odd in Cape Town alone that I know of. But in terms of quality supplies and not just a stock holding of straight up Chinese only products, around 3 to 4 only.

THERE IS A SAYING 'IF YOU DON'T BUY, THEY CAN'T SUPPLY" THAT MEANS WE AS ARTISTS CAN POTENTIALLY CONTROL WHO IS ALLOWED 'INTO' OUR INDUSTRY AND WHO CANNOT COME IN. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE INFLUX OF THE CHINESE LOW GRADE PRODUCT?

It’s not an easy answer, we were one of the suppliers who went this route when we started, the problem as you have stated is not with Chinese product, it’s the demand for cheap Chinese product. More worrying though is the demand for dangerous products like counterfeit inks.

Ultimately it’s based on demand – We have been trying to phase the cheaper needles out, but find we hit a brick wall with demand for them. Again here we are stuck between demand and ETHICS of knowing the product supplied is not of the production standard it should be. The middle ground route we have undertaken is to get an improvement on the production of the product whilst still keeping the pricing reasonable for local artists and our much lower buying power. Here again like you have mentioned – the demand is created by the artist, if you don’t buy it – they we won’t supply it….

WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT, AN ARTIST'S EDUCATION OR THE ELIMINATION OF THE CHINESE MACHINE - THERE ARE TONS OF OTHER 'REPUTABLE' MACHINES WHICH ARE ON PAR? WE FEEL THAT WITH A REAL EDUCATION ON MACHINE FUNCTION AND TECHNIQUE, AN ARTISTS CAN SHOP WISELY AND REPAIR OR MODIFY ANY PRODUCT HE ORDERS. HOW DO YOU SEE THIS?

Education, education, education. The elimination of an inferior cloned product comes down to the education surrounding it. Having the ability to modify and repair is still a major issue locally and fuels the ‘full draw of useless or problematic machines’.

2E MACHINES  - BY GODOY MACHINES

IS THERE A STANDARD? DO YOU SEE THAT THERE IS A HOMOGENIZED STANDARD ON PRODUCTS, OR IS IT A FREE FOR ALL ? OR IS THERE A MADE UP STANDARD' WHERE A REPUTABLE MACHINE IS REALLY NOT AT ALL WHAT THE HYPE SAYS IT IS? AND NEEDLES TOO?

I think there is repetition above all else, a copy of standards created years ago. We see it with machines out of China as well as new ‘machine builders’ who pretty much clone others and modify the side plate to create a sense personalisation. I think most would agree there is a lot of copying above all else.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE.. YOU SPONSOR ARTISTS WITH THE 2E PRODUCTS, DO YOU SEE THAT THE TORCH IS GONNA BE PASSED DOWN TO UP AND COMERS OR WILL IT DIE WITH THE GREAT ORIGINALS LIKE DEREK BAKER, RASTY… RYAN BOLTOON,, DAMIAN MARTINS…TAMAR THORN… ARE YOU LOOKING AT SPONSORING ANY OTHER TALENT?

I am very upbeat about our future locally and the attention our country is receiving, recently after the very successful Cape Town Tattoo convention, I had the privilege of getting tattooed by Bob Tyrell at Metal Machine – next to me tattooing in quest spots were– Rosanna Demadona and Randy Englehart…..

Our local artists are creating an outstanding calibre of work and are being invited to travel to conventions in Asia, Europe (recently: Derek Baker) and Australia (recently: Tamar Thorn) as well working as guest artists throughout the USA (recently: Ryan Bolton and Tyler B Murphy) – to name but a few.

There are planes in the works to sponsor some very talented new up and coming artists, but I don’t want to give away too much on that just yet ; )

IF YOU COULD HAVE YOUR WAY WITH THE INDUSTRY IN S. AFRICA, WHAT WOULD IT LOOK LIKE?

I wouldn’t like to meddle to much outside of my role in the community, but If I could have one wish, i would like to see the total eradication of counterfeit goods, namely the cheap toxic knock off pigments coming out of China.

WE WERE SO IMPRESSED WITH YOUR OPERATION, THAT WE OFFERED TO DO A GREAT MACHINE FOR A GREAT COMPANY… HOW DID THE 2E AND THE A2E IMPACT YOUR BUSINESS?

ALUMINUM 2E MACHINE - BY GODOY MACHINES

You guys have been the first manufactures to honestly take note of us and South Africa, the fact that you built us a quality custom machine still amazes me today. The 2E was important to us for two reasons; it offered us a brilliant quality machine at a very reasonable price to local artists, as well as showing your trust in us with your brand. The A2E was just the crème on top, a super light-weight aluminium frame with no sacrifice on the typical super smooth Godoy machine performance.

SOUTH AFRICA F*CKING RULES. - GODOYS

SHOP RENOS! WE ARE READY NOW!

WE HAVE BEEN REMODELING  - DESTROYING THE MIDDLE WALL. MAKING THE PLACE MORE OPEN... IT'S READY TO GO NOW.. COME SEE THE NEW FUNHOUSE!!!! 

FUNHOUSE UPDATE!

WOLF BY ART - ON ALEX'S ARM.

WE'VE BEEN DOING LOTS O GREAT SHIT HERE AT FUNHOUSE... GREAT TATTOOS, WATCHING MOVIES,  EATING BBQ... NON STOP FUN.

SCISSORS BY ART