He&rsquo;s the founder of LA&rsquo;s iconic Shamrock Social Club, the godfather of contemporary tattooing and he&rsquo;s fresh from a residency at Ibiza&rsquo;s<a href="https://www.paradisoibiza.com/"> Paradiso Art Hotel</a><a href="https://www.paradisoibiza.com/">.</a> Cult tattoo artist <a href="https://instagram.com/markmahoney_ssc?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=">MARK MAHONEY</a> speaks to L&rsquo;OFFICIEL IBIZA&rsquo;s Maya Boyd about a life lived on the edge.

David Beckham is covered in your ink. Johnny Depp calls you family. Jared Leto, Angelina Jolie, Rihanna and Lana Del Rey all line up to go under your needle and you tattooed Notorious BIG just days before his death. How did an icon of LA&rsquo;s Sunset Strip end up in Ibiza?
Ibiza! My god! Now that's a little slice of heaven right there. How did we end up there? Well, that&rsquo;s thanks to our dear friend, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/rupertbairdmurray/?hl=en">Rupert</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/rupertbairdmurray/?hl=en"> [Baird-Murray]</a>, who is always trying to put people where they belong. You know? Trying to find the right place for his friends. Rupert first brought us to Ibiza a couple of years ago to the other side of the island, to Hostal la Torre. I fell in love with the owner of that place! Javier Anadon - man, he&rsquo;s like a Spanish Marlon Brando. He&rsquo;s a beast! I was honoured to give him his first tattoo at like 70 years old. So that first visit went swimmingly and then Covid happened, so we didn't get to come back. And then this year Rupert hooked us up with Diego Calvo and his dazzling array of properties. My god! We stayed in one and worked in the other and it was like a dream, you know what I mean? It's like an American fever dream! We're staying in hotel that&rsquo;s like Las Vegas. We're working in one that&rsquo;s like Miami a couple blocks away. It was crazy beautiful.

Mark Mahoney by Bart Keykens

Your career began in the biker scene and you&rsquo;ve ben involved in everything from the punk movement to the West Coast '90s rapper gangs. How did that all translate in Ibiza?
You know, a kind of funny, beautiful thing happened on our second day in Ibiza. I was just looking around where I'm setting up and Paul, the tattoo artist who has the little shop in Paradiso says, &lsquo;oh yeah, by the way, there's a tattoo convention going on. Do you wanna go?&rsquo; What, like, yeah! Right. You think I would've known? Somebody would've told me? But so, I'm like, yeah, fuck it. Let's go. So, we go, and it was run by the Hell's Angels who he introduces me to, and they were so gracious and so kind and that's where I started out 45 years ago with those guys! Because tattooing was illegal in Massachusetts where I was from, and not for nothing in the seventies. Sailors, bikers and gangsters - that&rsquo;s who got tattooed back then. And if you wanted to tattoo people, you had to do it in those fishing holes right there. But I happened to know some biker guys and was lucky enough to get into their clubhouse. They introduced me to the Hell's Angels and ever since I&rsquo;ve been doing different motorcycle clubs. But I don't do 'em as much as I used to. So,it was really nice to be around them again in Ibiza. Getting back to my roots. And now I consider those Ibiza Hell's Angels my friends.

Johnny Depp once said that &lsquo;Mark is amongst&nbsp;the finest tattoo artists to have ever plied the trade. I&rsquo;ve known him since forever and I&rsquo;ve got the ink to prove it. He&rsquo;s my brother.&rsquo; With this in mind, do you still feel connected to your grassroots background?
Well, I'd like to think that I still have my place in both camps, you know what I mean? And I think the key to that is that I just like people. And I think that that made me very suited for this business. I pretty much like everybody. The slogan of our tattoo shop &ndash; which we hijacked from a British tattoo artist from around 1920 &ndash; says &lsquo;Where the elite and the underworld meet.&rsquo; This artist was from London, where he had tattooed Winston Churchill's mother and a whole bunch of society people at that time. And it&rsquo;s a fact that tattooing is an art that transcends social barriers. I think it has to do with an intrinsic tribal desire that&rsquo;s built into everybody. I know that if you give a kid a magic marker, he's probably more likely to write on himself than he is on the paper. I think it's just a natural thing and has the same personal meaning, whether it's an indigenous African culture or a teenager in London or a 30-something in LA. Body art is a rite of passage and it appeals to that human desire to belong to something greater than just ourselves. When I tattoo people at the Shamrock, I tell them they&rsquo;re now a part of the social club. They&rsquo;re a member of the gang.

Ibiza is famous for the bohemian imprint left by the hippy movement of the 1970s. Is that a lifestyle that appeals to you? Or are you more rock&rsquo;n&rsquo;roll?
Well, certainly my oldest sisters were around all of that flower power and I was exposed to it and affected by it. The spiritual nature of the Ibiza hippie culture certainly appeals to me. It&rsquo;s about seeking a connection with a higher power. About making peace in your own life, and I think that's a beautiful thing, you know? Listen, Ibiza has scenes, same as anywhere else. It was certainly different in San Antonio to where I stayed last time, and I met a diverse array of people. And I think that's cool. I tattooed some guys who were in their fifties who were definitely old rock&rsquo;n&rsquo;rollers. And then I tattooed some young people who were there on the vacation party side. I think that&rsquo;s the best part of my job, that I meet all these different types of people. And that's what makes Ibiza so special. The different crews that rub up alongside each other, that&rsquo;s what creates the energy. If everyone was the same it&rsquo;d be a drag, man! Listen, my life has seen more rock&rsquo;n&rsquo;roll than you could possibly imagine, but I&rsquo;m peaceful these days. We live in a tranquil spot, half an hour north of Los Angeles. I do four days a week at Shamrock now - that's my old guy's schedule! But I&rsquo;m here. I&rsquo;m moving and grooving. Life is good.

Mark Mahoney: From LA to Ibiza

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