InkSpired Magazine Issue No. 34 | Page 58

Shop: Native Rituals
City.State: Oak Forest, IL
Number of Years Piercing: 19
Interview: Sean Dowdell

Sean Dowdell: Why did you want to learn to do body piercing?
Johnny Velez: I wanted to get into body piercing after getting my tongue pierced. I know it
sounds cliché, but true. The piercer, Jerry, who pierced me was great. He had an amazing
bedside manner. I started hanging out and talking with Jerry about body piercing. At the time,
he said he was not in a position to apprentice anyone, which I respected, but that wasn't
going to keep me from trying to get into the industry.
SD: When did you start body piercing, who taught you, and where?
JV: Being primarily self-taught, I visited the few other studios in the Chicagoland area at that
time and spoke to the piercers while trying to dig for information. I started in '97 with most of
my learning coming from The Zone.
SD: What piercers did you look up to while learning and why? Currently, who do you admire
in the industry?
JV: The people I looked up to at that time were Hank, Mad Jack, Jerry, and Jake. Bob "The
King of Chicago" Jones, Oscar Sandoval, Rudy Carrillo, and myself were the ones who were
getting into the industry at that point.
Today, there are so many people I admire and look up to who try to make our industry better
for future generations: Derek Lowe, Jef Saunders, Cody Vaughn, Ashley Misako, Luis Garcia,
Ed Chavarria, and Brian Skellie, to name a few. There are many I did not name, I apologize,
but the list is ongoing.

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