美国国家公共电台 NPR How Tattoo Artist Bang Bang Is Leaving His Mark On Celebrities

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: 

And now it's time for another installment 1 of our series My Big Break. And this one starts out with a bang.

KEITH MCCURDY: My name is Bang Bang, and I'm a New York City tattoo 2 artist.

MARTIN: His given name is Keith McCurdy, but the world knows him as Bang Bang. And while you may not know his name, if you follow music or sports or fashion at all then you've probably seen his work. He inked a chest piece on Justin Bieber on a plane mid-air, he tattooed 3 Katy Perry backstage at the Super Bowl, and he worked a portrait of LeBron James's daughter onto the basketball star's back. But Bang Bang's big break...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BITCH BETTER HAVE MY MONEY")

RIHANNA: (Singing) Yayo (ph), yayo, moo-la-lah (ph).

MARTIN: ...Was Rihanna. Bang Bang has designed and inked most of Rihanna's tattoos 4, including the one captured in so many photos, an intricate Indian henna pattern that dances along her wrist to the tips of her fingers.

MCCURDY: I'm not the only person that's tattooed Rihanna, but I'm the only one that tattoos her again and again and again and again and again.

MARTIN: Years before Keith McCurdy's needle touched a Grammy-winning artist, he was a struggling high school student working part-time at Red Lobster 5. But he craved 6 an artistic 7 outlet 8, so...

MCCURDY: I ordered a tattoo kit 9 online.

MARTIN: He was 18 years old.

MCCURDY: It came and I walked from the front door with the box to my mom's kitchen, set it up and started to tattoo. And every day since with that enthusiasm and diligence just loved and continued to tattoo.

MARTIN: McCurdy says he was hooked immediately. He tattooed his friends, his cousins, himself, eventually gaining enough experience to get a job at a local tattoo shop.

MCCURDY: In hindsight, it was a terrible decision. I mean, it worked out. But man, you know, I dropped out of high school to tattoo outside of a trailer park. And I tattooed guns on my neck so that I would have no choice other than to succeed at it.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TATTOO")

VAN HALEN: (Singing) Tattoo, tattoo.

MARTIN: And he did succeed. Within a year, Bang Bang was out of the trailer park and in the Big Apple.

MCCURDY: New York City just has more people. I'm going to go where the skin is. So if that's my canvas, I'm going to go there.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TATTOO")

VAN HALEN: (Singing) I've got Elvis on my elbow.

MCCURDY: I'm meeting people and saying hey, I'm this 19-year-old tattoo artist and I moved - just moved here from Delaware. I'm looking for a job. And they're looking through a book that's years beyond what a 19-year-old should be doing. And some of them didn't believe that it was my work.

MARTIN: Bang Bang eventually landed a job at a tattoo shop on the Lower East Side. It was cramped 10 - four tattoo artists working elbow to elbow in a grungy basement. And then...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PON DE REPLAY")

RIHANNA: (Singing) Come, Mr. DJ, song pon de replay. Come, Mr. DJ, won't you turn the music up?

MARTIN: ...She walked in.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PON DE REPLAY")

RIHANNA: (Singing) All the girls on the dance floor wantin' some more, what. Come, Mr. DJ, won't you turn the music up?

MCCURDY: I didn't know who she was. All I knew was she was a singer.

MARTIN: It was Rihanna.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PON DE REPLAY")

RIHANNA: (Singing) It goes one by one, even two by two. Everybody in the floor, let me show you how we do. Let's go, dip it low, then you bring it up slow. Wind it up one time, wind it back once more. Run, run, run, run.

MCCURDY: My friend came and told me, you know, there's this singer who wants a tattoo, and so she wants to know the best guy was. And I always tell people that he lied and said it was me. And so I got the opportunity to meet her. And when she walked in, she walked in with a group of, like, 6-foot-tall beautiful women. And I didn't know who was the famous singer because they were all - just looked like celebrities 11 to me. So I peeked 12 my head up and said, hey, who's getting the tattoo? She raised her hand and I was like, all right, cool. So what do you want? And she's like - shows me a necklace. I really want this. And I really want it on the back of my leg. And the reason she was really comfortable getting tattooed by me was she saw a tattoo that I had made on my then-boss. And it was a tattoo of Freddy Krueger.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER")

ROBERT ENGLUND: (As Freddy Krueger) Tell them Freddy sent you.

MCCURDY: Rihanna loves Freddy Krueger, so she lost her mind. She wanted to take pictures with the tattoo. She really fanned out about it. And so she came in the next day, gave me a really big hug. And she came in with a reporter. So we're tattooing 13 in the window of the storefront and there's people outside watching, we're doing an interview. And she's moving because she's extremely ticklish 14. And for me, it was very difficult to make that tattoo. She's talking, and she moves a lot when she talks. She's speaking with her hands. And I'm like, here's this girl that will not sit still. And everyone's watching me. And I'm stressing out. It finished. It went really well. We got along really well.

MARTIN: That delicate line of Sanskrit text that Bang Bang tattooed on Rihanna's hip 15 kicked off his superstar career. He became Rihanna's go-to tattoo artist, and soon other stars came to his shop looking for his unique blend of fantasy, artistry and precision.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DIAMONDS")

RIHANNA: (Singing) Shine bright like a diamond.

MARTIN: Bang Bang now owns and manages his own shop, and moments like that first encounter with Rianna are now business as usual.

MCCURDY: I'm preparing myself all the time for that call because I know that Justin Bieber may call me at 3 in the morning and I have to tattoo him at 6. That has happened. I may need to fly across the planet because LeBron calls at 9 p.m. and I have to fly on the first flight the next morning. And I have to sort out my whole world to get it done, but saying yes and making sure that I'm available to do it is what really kind of laid the foundation for the opportunities that came.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DIAMONDS")

RIHANNA: (Singing) I saw the life inside your eyes, so shine bright tonight...

MARTIN: That was tattoo artist Bang Bang describing his big break, a tattoo for soon-to-be superstar Rihanna.