Interview: Raph, Body Seasons Authentik Tattoo Studio

As cliché as it might sound, hardcore is much more than music. It might be a lifestyle centered around music, but it goes deeper than that. Started by a bunch of angry kids, the culture has spread to so many things over the years. Important ideas and politics of all kind have been introduced to the scene, but also more down to earth stuff like fanzines, dance, books, tattoos help to preserve the spirit and identity of the movement. We’re going to focus on the tattoo aspect right now. Here’s interview with Raph, French tattoo artist working for Body Seasons Authentik studio whose style and vision is deeply rooted in old school tattoo fashion.
As cliché as it might sound, hardcore is much more than music. It might be a lifestyle centered around music, but it goes deeper than that. Started by a bunch of angry kids, the culture has spread to so many things over the years. Important ideas and politics of all kind have been introduced to the scene, but also more down to earth stuff like fanzines, dance, books, tattoos help to preserve the spirit and identity of the movement. We’re going to focus on the tattoo aspect right now. Here’s interview with Raph, French tattoo artist working for Body Seasons Authentik studio whose style and vision is deeply rooted in old school tattoo fashion.
Hello Raph, well first of all can you quickly introduce yourself ?

Well my name is Raph (Raph M. not to be confused with another French tattoo-artist), and I've been tattooing at the BSA (Body Seasons Authentik) studio in Aix-en-provence for five years now, I had been doing it for a few years at home before that but I really started my formation here, with Mr.Biz.

How did you come to the tattoo world ? What motivated you to go this way ?

I've always drawn, and I've always liked tattoos, and since I graduated in art studies, at one point I thought “why not combining the two and make it my job ?” so I started looking into it and basically that's how it happened ...



Any artist that influenced you maybe ? Not necessarily tattoo artists, people who inspired you ?

Well to say the truth, what kind of drew me to in the first place is music. Originally I didn't really have any tattoo culture, but when I was a kid I listened to quite a lot of hard-rock and metal, and every guy in every band was tattooed, and I liked it so much, that's what got me hooked up on it. So I have plenty of memories of the old shitty tattoos of Slash and Axl Rose that I liked at the time, then Kerry King, Phil Anselmo were pretty inked too, yeah that's how it started.

Any style of predilection ? Themes maybe, what do you like tattooing ?

I love old-school, I also like the chicano style a lot, but yeah I just love working on old-school pieces.

Musically, I know you're a major hardcore fan, how did you encounter this style ?

I come from hard-rock, when I was really a kid, and metal too, I'm from 83, when I started listening to hard-rock I must have been about six, because of my big sister, my friends' big brothers and everything. In secondary I started listening to stuff like Testament, Obituary, a bit of Deicide and Cannibal Corpse and all these things, but mainly I was really into the Guns'n Roses and Metallica, it was all through the big brothers actually, we would get the tapes from them, it was a bunch of old school metalheads, with patch-jackets and stuff. Then when I got to high-school I met a guy who was from a punk background, listening to a lot of skatecore and punk-rock, Pennywise, NOFX … and he was the one who introduced me to hardcore, he gave me my first tapes, Backfire, Discipline, the firsts Hatebreed … I immediately got hooked up on it, I really thought I was corresponding me perfectly, the brutal aspect of metal with this little kind of “ghetto” touch, it was perfect. Then the firsts shows, fucking shit up …



What link do you think exists between the two cultures of hardcore and tattoo ?

Well the two have always been linked I think, it is part of the culture, with origins in punk and metal, both always had been linked with tattoos so guess it's quite logical.

What does it represent to you, hardcore music ?

To me, it's all about the music, at least before anything else. I've always been deep into music. Today it's way more shared and many people, I mean I don't want to be an old cunt, but they discover this and they dig the looks, the ink, all that, but the music goes after that. For me, hardcore is music, it's passionate music. Passion before trend, that's the main value I think.

Check out: http://bsatattoo.com/