“When you’re walking down the streets of New York … I’ll be walking with one of my female friends and I’ve noticed that women do this thing where they look at each other. They kind of scan up and down. It’s not a judgmental thing at all. It’s almost like they’re taking in their look and they’re applying it to their life. Like, “Do these shoes fit my life? Does that shirt fit my life? Does that hat fit my life?” I think with piercings, it’s the same way. People see them, and they look at them and they’re like, “Is that my thing?” It’s out there, and it’s really just selling itself.”

On realising piercing was it:

“I think I had an a-ha moment. Actually when I moved to New York, I was on the fence as to whether I was going to keep piercing or do something totally different. Moving to a new city is a chance to, I don’t know, cleanse you of anyone who knows the old you. You can really become somebody new. As soon as I got there, I started looking around at other things. Somebody had said, “We know a place that’s hiring if you want to keep piercing”, and I was like, “I’ll check it out because I don’t really have anything else going on.” That was New York Adorned, which I’ve spent the last 11 years working with. The rest is really history.”

On the piercing experience:

“It’s different for every person, and I think people find me for different reasons. I think I can in a lot of ways teach people something about themselves that they didn’t know. I tend to meet people in this really vulnerable, raw state. I think I see them in a way most people don’t, even some of their closest friends. I’ve lived in New York for a long time, so I’m extremely honest with people. If I see something I like, I tell them. If I see something I don’t like, I tell them. My ideal experience is just coming together in the middle and creating something beautiful.”

On being vegan:

“I’ve been vegetarian most of my life. I think I began being vegetarian when I was probably 13 or something like that, off and on. I always felt a little sensitive about it because I always had a hard time understanding the difference between a pig or a dog or a cat and a cow. They all just seemed like the same thing to me, and nobody could really explain it to me by one was food and another was a pet. As I got older, I got involved with underground music scene and there was really a lot of literature out there about being vegetarian. Back then, it was like, “Vegetarian, vegetarian, vegetarian.” Vegan was a really, really obscure idea at that point. Then in about ’94, I became vegan. 

On healing:

“I consider myself to be somewhat of a healer, not to get too corny. [If I wasn’t piercing] think I would probably do something along those lines —something to help people, with some kind of healing aspect. I think I work right now in a little more vain aspect of it, but through the interactions, I’ve learnt a lot about myself and also a lot about people. I think that we all have something to share with each other and a way to help each other. I’d be some kind of healer — maybe acupuncture or reflexology — if I wasn’t piercing. I’ve always thought that stuff was really cool.”

On finding the right jewellery:

“Everything I try to do is on the very minimal side. I always consider myself pretty boring when it comes to this stuff because a lot of people put this jewellery in and they leave it in for 10 or 15 years. I need it to look good today, but I need to look good 15 years from tomorrow. I pick materials like rose gold or yellow gold because they’re the softest and the most subtle on the skin. They also just have a little bit of an elegant touch to it, which I think helps sell the piercing a little bit better to friends or family, to strangers, all those kind of things. It makes it digestible when people look at it.”

On age limits:

“Even if you’re a mother, there’s this weird perception that all of a sudden, you can’t have fun or you can’t be cool or you can’t be chic. I really like seeing mums with their babies come in, and their friends are like, “You’re too old for that.” They’re like, “Nah, I’m still living. I’m not giving up yet.” I don’t think there’s an age, but I think your jewellery needs to be appropriate to your look. All I’m doing with piercings is I’m just extending the look into the ears and other areas. I don’t want to make it seem like something you wouldn’t wear. I want it to seem like something you actually would wear. It’s just a natural extension.”

On his skincare routine:

“Every once in a while I like using Aesop. They have a really nice face wash that … I have pretty oily skin so it’s nice. It really cuts it back and makes it feels tighter, which makes me feel younger or something. I travel a lot so I’m pretty much a bar and soap kind of guy. I have pretty resilient skin so I really could wash my face with motor oil and it would be fine. I’ve been pretty blessed in that department.”

On his fave vegan spots in LA and New York:

“There’s so much good food to eat in LA. I think one of my favourite spots would have to be Gracias Madre. It’s in West Hollywood. It’s on the higher end of vegan food in LA, I think. They do a really bang-up job of bringing a lot of flavour to the dishes. Where do I like in New York? You know what I like is, I like vegan food that’s not necessarily vegan food, so say a Thai dish or ramen or Mexican food or Venezuelan food — things that are without trying too hard.

On choosing the right piercing:

“It’s a little bit of everything. Some people come in and they love a piece of jewellery, so it’s about finding the right place to put that jewellery. Some people really love a particular type of piercing so we find the right kind of jewellery to fit that piercing. These last five or six years, I would say 90% of my clients walk in with no idea at all of what they want to do. That’s really fun just because it leaves it really open to … It’s almost like if they expect something so much, by the time they actually get it, they’ve thought about it for so long that it is almost like they’ve always had it. It doesn’t have that great of an impact, versus if we really are just flying right at the seat of our pants. I think when they look at themselves in the mirror, I think that’s really exciting for them and new and different and not what they had been anticipating at all. I like that. I like just winging it.”

On his fave tats:

“My lucky number is 108. I have that on my knuckles. That’s one I always look at, and I’m always really, really happy with that one. I have a lot so you forget that they’re there and then you rediscover them and different times, they’re the subject of … Or like, “Let me show you this thing that I have.” 

I like my knuckle tattoo. I like my throat tattoo. I have little barnacle shells on both sides. Then it says, “Live free,” up on my neck. I feel like it suits me very well.”

On why he loves his work:

“I would say that it’s not the piercings themselves —it has more to do with the human interactions. I consider myself pretty lucky to be in a career where my job is to interact with people every day and all different types of people, every race, religion, sex… That’s really kept me going, and I like jewellery and aesthetics and all that kind of stuff, but it’s just a bonus.”