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Whereabouts in the world are you now?I’m currently living in Brisbane, Australia. I moved here in February 2012 and was previously living in Singa-pore.

How did you start tattooing? Was there a natural progression that lead to this?

Well, I’ve been drawing all my life and studied painting, photography, graphic design, music and film. I’ve worked in various positions in all those fields and people who knew me knew i could draw and they started asking me to draw up tattoos for them to take into shops and get them tattooed on themselves. It got to a point where I would be hanging out in my close friend Jim Losario’s tattoo studio in Kota Kinabalu with an Australian band my band was touring with, Driven Fear and i was drawing up all their tattoos since we were rushing for time, Jim would tattoo the stencils i’d made up exactly as it was drawn, even yelling from inside his space for what colors to use etc. It was at that moment where everybody in that room convinced me that I might as well start tattooing. I’d gotten tattooed since i was 19 and had been hoping for a chance to start Feroze McLeod

JULY 2012

“Welcome to the first of many features that we call “Macbeth Stories”; a picture or

video interview/story that we run on some of our brand’s most loved supporters and influencers

in Singapore and South East Asia. This inaugural issue we get to know Feroze McLeod, whom

we got to know from the Singaporean hardcore music community whom we feel has a unique

story to tell. Over the next few “issues” you’ll get to know people from all walks of life, but all

intrinsically related to what Macbeth is all about from musicians to tattoo artists and bespoke

pedal makers to BMX riders.”

and that incident was what motivated me. I started focusing and slowly studied the craft and picked up a tattoo machine in 2009 and never looked back.

You had your own t-shirt label for awhile, how did that go?

I have had basic knowledge of screen printing and had been taught the craft by my step-favther in Singapore in 2002-2003. The first tee shirts I’ve ever printed myself were for my high school band and we called ourselves Spongebone and i had printed Spongebone on shirts and we would wear them as proudly as ever on the streets. People thought it was our work uniforms. I started to design tee shirts for fun while in school and mainly for school projects in my graphic design class in 2003-2004 in New Zea-land. After high school I moved back to Singapore in 2004 and started Friday Clothing semi-seriously and tried to help get bands noticed and vice-versa. Help-ing skateboarders out making them feel ‘’important’’ having a sponsor and co-hosting skate competitions. It was quite popular as I was the first kid who just started putting a brand on shirts and hats by hand and selling them at shows and through record stores in Singapore. Seeing people walking around wearing tee shirts that I’d designed and printed myself on the street not knowing the maker was walking past them was an incredible feeling. I then got enlisted into National Service and was stripped of my time. It was the end of an era.

In your opinion, how is the the music scene in Singapore different from that around the world?

The scene that I was ‘’brought up’’ in was the New Zealand hardcore and straight edge scene from 2001-2004. I had gone to shows in ‘99 and 2000 but I was very young and really didn’t know what the fuck was going on. But the New Zealand scene was really huge at that point and the internet still hadn’t fucked everything up. I really believe that the introduction of free music demolished that sense of pride, love and commitment towards the music you’re into. There’s nothing like buying a CD or cassette based on what you read in a maga-zine or by word of mouth and it was the best thing you’ve ever heard. And saving money for weeks to buy something that’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard and you just feel so shitty for spending that precious 30 bucks. Nowadays you check bands out on Myspace or Facebook, if it’s good enough download it from Mediafire, and you dont re-ally care about it cos it’s free and it doesn’t mean anything to you. I went back to Singapore at the end of 2004 and soon realized that there was no hardcore scene because everyone in the first gen-eration who grew up with band such as Stompin’ Ground and Social Integration  had moved on with their lives and didn’t really pass the torch to anybody. I then started a band with some close friends and tried to promote hardcore music to kids going to shows at the time. And at this time no one had heard much or any hardcore. We were doing comeback kid covers and just tried as hard as we could to push this music. Slowly we created a small scene that was to be the second coming and we hooked up with Overthrown and released a split CD. Over time the Singapore hardcore scene grew slowly. There were many trials and tribulations to get where it’s got to now, but in my opinion, Singapore has one of the strongest and unified hardcore scenes, judging from the hun-dreds of descriptions from touring bands that I’ve

There’s nothing like buying a CD or cassette based on

what you read in a magazine or by word of mouth and it was the best thing you’ve

ever heard.

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met, compared to other countries and is as strong as the scene in most european countries such as Sweden etc. I notice more and more kids turning up to shows and Jai from Overthrown is extremely hardworking and it’s great to see kids show sup-port and be passionate about something that shape hundreds of thousands of people. If not millions.

Bands that inspire you? Local heroes? Bands that inspire me to play shows and write re-cords are bands such as Hot Water Music, Alkaline Trio, Earth Crisis, Bad Religion, Cro-Mags, No Warning and so on and so on. Local bands that I find are hardworking and deserve a global stage are Over-thrown, The Caulfield Cult, Ruins And Remains, Plain Sunset, After The Sky and Paris In The Making.

Who influences your work? What is your style?

Films, photographs, fashion and pretty much any-thing from the 1920’s-1930’s really influence me and old carvings and drawings from the 16th century inspire me a lot to draw and paint and tattoo. I like to draw gentlemen from that era and sometimes it bleeds into real life and I start wearing my trousers really high. I don’t know how to describe my style but my execution is western traditional electric tattoo-ing and I try to keep it as traditional as I can. With heavy black shading and rough gradients. How I could describe that style of rough shading is Rhythm Amongst Chaos which is almost a perfect descrip-tion of hardcore/punk music in the sense that it is loud, chaotic and is anarchy but at the same time it’s controlled and organized. 

What problems do you encounter?

When I started getting tattoos I could never find anyone in Singapore that did really good proper old school or western traditional tattoos which resulted in me getting work that I was not very happy with. I felt that someone needed to start doing proper old school and traditional tattoos and when I started tattooing I did exactly that. I concentrated on learning how to do proper old school and traditionally executed tattoos with solid color and bold outlines. I was the only tattooer at the time who specialized in that style of tattooing. 

I’m not saying that no one in Singapore could do old school tattoos but I am saying no one in Singapore was 100% committed to old school and western traditional style tattoos and anything of that nature. 

I would paint how they painted and tattoo how they tattooed. Which was painting with saliva instead of water and not watering down my black ink for shading. I then started working for a tattoo shop that was extremely busy with walk in traffic and didn’t get to do much old school style tattoos. Which was great for me because I learnt to do a lot of different style stuff and I’m pretty much an all rounded tattooer now. The only problem for me was that old school and traditional tattoos were unpopular in Singapore and I had travelled a lot and found myself moving to Australia where it is hugely popular then hence here I am now.

What advice can you give someone who wants to get in your line of work?

GET TATTOOS. Find a tattooer that suits the style you LOVE and create a bond with the artist. After a con-siderable amount of work had been done on you ask him or her for an apprenticeship and struggle for how many years it takes you to learn the craft and the his-tory. Don’t sell out and don’t lose touch with the tattoo culture. RESPECT the tattooers who have been doing it longer than you have and even those who have just started. 

How does music go with your profession?

I know I’m speaking for most tattooers in the world that if I didn’t find and get into punk and hardcore mu-sic and been in and amongst the music scene, I would have never gotten tattooed and fallen in love with it and would have never even thought of doing it for a living. To the music that i love, i owe it all to you. One life one chance! PMA all day!

Meeting tattooers and bands that are just starting out put 200% into what they do and love it to bits and meeting tattooers and bands that have been doing it for 15-20 years and still put 200% into what they do and love it to bits. 

What kind of tattoo WOULDNT you do, or would reject?

If someone came to me for a realistic portrait, I would direct them to who would do it better than me accord-ing to their budget. I do old school portraits with rough shading though.

We hear you play some sick drums. And your band isn’t even in the country. Care to tell us more?

Our band started out based in Kota Kinabalu and I was the only member that was residing in Singapore. We toured with Driven Fear the first time around South East Asia and slowly based the band in Singapore by 2009. We played a ton of shows and have 3 releases through my label Vandalisma Records, the last release being a split 7” with Driven Fear. In that time we’ve toured and played in South East Asia countless times and supported tours for Antagonist AD (nz), Ruiner (USA), No Turning Back and our last tour was with Driven Fear again and locally we’ve opened for bands such as BOLD (usa), AYS (ger), Ghostlimb (usa), Miles Away (aus) and many more. Our vocalist lives in Kota KInabalu now and travels a lot for work and we are on a hia-tus now due to him and I being away.

Having lived in mainly two different countries - what are the differences between the two?

I went to high school in new zealand from 2001-2004 and was skateboarding most of my life. I was sponsored by a local skates hop called Cheapskates Skateshop and through them was lucky enough to get on bigger companies like 88 Footwear and Girl Skateboards. Life there was extremely carefree and all I ever needed in life was my skateboard and my scooter to get to hardcore shows. The difference to me about Singapore, New Zealand and now Aus-tralia from living in these countries is that I find that Singapore has a cloak of negativity that hangs over the entire country. I think that the climate has a lot to do with that. The good thing about Singapore obviously is how affordable consumer items are. It’s amazing that for the same price as a regular project housing apartment you can buy a majestic house in a good neighbourhood in Aus-

tralia or New Zealand. People outside Singapore also are more polite and courteous. The one thing I love about Singapore that no other country in the World can beat is the amazing public transport system and the clean streets.

What are your dreams?

It is important for dreams to change and to have goals constantly throughout your life so that you have things to look forward to and that makes life worth living. And at the moment my dream is to open a my own shop in Singapore but at the same time live and work in Australia. My shop will hopefully bring a sense of nostalgia and it will be unique and boutique so keep your ears on the floor, Singapore.

What does Macbeth mean to you?

Getting support from Macbeth Footwear motivates me a lot because by supporting my work, my art and my ideas, Macbeth makes me feel appreciated and in an industry (and World) that is so judgmental and under the pressures of fitting in with the crowd and doing something you don’t enjoy doing so life could be “easier”, Macbeth Footwear tells me to shut the fuck up, ignore the naysayers and do my own thing. To be successful, you’ve got to constantly push your ideas and your vision. And macbeth fuels me for that mission.