00:00So how many tattoos do you think you have now?
00:04I see it as one tattoo, so I wouldn't be able to count.
00:08Yeah, people always say I look like I melted crayon.
00:16I grew up in a household.
00:17My parents, they worked in art,
00:19and I was surrounded by colorful paintings.
00:21My mum painted our bedroom, like, bright colors,
00:24and I was surrounded by creative, bright-colored things,
00:27and when I first started getting tattoos,
00:29I was just like, I like color.
00:33My first one was this little paw print.
00:36Christina Perry, it was in her brother's tattoo shop,
00:39and I had no idea, we actually ended up making music
00:41together and touring together in the future,
00:42but it was in her brother's tattoo shop in 2010.
00:45I'd just turned 18, and I was legal to get a tattoo,
00:48so I walked into this shop.
00:49I'd drawn this paw print on me for about three or four years
00:52every day with permanent marker,
00:54and I was like, that's gonna be my one tattoo,
00:56and I'll get no more.
00:58Obviously, that didn't last.
01:01Actually, I got these with Christina Perry.
01:03I was just about to play
01:05Madison Square Garden for three times.
01:07I was told by my dad, like, if you can make it in New York,
01:11you can make it anywhere in the world,
01:12and it's quite a significant thing for me
01:14to come here and play three nights.
01:16My grandfather was a boxer and worked in boxing as well,
01:20and Madison Square Garden is sort of synonymous with boxing,
01:23so that's why I got three boxing gloves.
01:25My grandfather had also just passed away,
01:26so it's kind of part and parcel of that.
01:31This was 2012, October.
01:34I featured on Taylor's album, Red.
01:36I got it to signify that.
01:37It was actually before,
01:38I think I hadn't been asked to be
01:40on the Red tour at that point.
01:41Maybe this clinched it, and then I went on the Red tour,
01:43and that was a year of my life living in America,
01:46so it's quite a significant tattoo of that time.
01:50What did she think of the tattoo?
01:53I can't remember, actually.
01:54I imagine at the time being like,
01:56why are you doing that?
01:59My favorite tattoo, my daughter drew a little bunny rabbit,
02:03and I got that tattooed,
02:04so that's probably my favorite one at the moment,
02:06just because it's always covered up,
02:07no one else sees it,
02:08but it's something that I look at every day.
02:11I've got my kids' footprints on my back.
02:14When they were born, we got their footprints,
02:16and I put them in little squares.
02:19After going to Antarctica,
02:22which is possibly the most amazing place on the planet,
02:26it's really blew my mind.
02:28Seeing the orcas for the first time
02:30when they come out of the water
02:31is really breathtaking.
02:32Also, when you're going into Antarctica,
02:34you see the first penguin,
02:36and you're like, oh my God,
02:37and then by the end of it,
02:38you're just like penguins,
02:40they're just everywhere.
02:40It's just like, oh, it's another fucking penguin.
02:43But that is what my daughter is named after, Antarctica.
02:48I mean, they're all kind of meaningful,
02:50but in terms of most meaningful,
02:52this little number one finger
02:55for my friend Michael, who passed away,
02:56and then this little SPTV
02:57for my friend Jamal that passed away.
02:59And I wanted to have them on my guitar playing hand,
03:01just so they're always there,
03:03because they've both been involved in my career
03:04in quite big ways.
03:09I met Damien Rice when I was super young.
03:12I'd gone to an under-18s show
03:14with my cousin in Dublin.
03:16I met him afterwards in the bar.
03:18He was just there having a pint,
03:19and I went up and spoke to him,
03:20and it was before I'd started writing songs
03:22or really taking that seriously,
03:23and that was like the turning point of my life, really.
03:27Have you seen the album cover photo?
03:28Anyway, it's like two little stick drawings,
03:30and then it says Damien Rice over,
03:32the two little stick drawings,
03:33and he took my album and signed it,
03:35and then drew a little stick drawing of me
03:38with a plane above me,
03:39because I'd flown over with my dad to Ireland.
03:41That's essentially stick drawing me with the plane.
03:43Kind of where my career started, essentially.
03:47There's something that I wanted to get for a while
03:48was the lyrics,
03:49everything that happens is from now on,
03:50from Reece Stacks.
03:52I'd spoken to Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol about it,
03:55and we were both like,
03:56that's our favorite lyric,
03:57we should get that tattooed,
03:58and I was like, if I ever meet him,
03:59I'll get to write it in his handwriting.
04:01He was playing in Suffolk,
04:03which is where I live,
04:04and I managed to get to meet him,
04:06and so I got it in the handwriting,
04:07I got it tattooed,
04:08and Gary decided that he didn't want to get it done.
04:11But Gary doesn't have any tattoos either.
04:12I think I'm a bit more free.
04:14Yeah, I think he's tattooed over his.
04:17It wasn't so much matching,
04:18I got the little Pingu penguin,
04:20and he got Pingu written.
04:22But I think he's covered it with an anchor,
04:24which obviously looks a bit cooler.
04:28I was doing the video for Galway Girl with Sir Sharon,
04:30and she tattoos me in the video,
04:32and I said to her,
04:33it'd be funny if we misspell it, Galway Grill.
04:38I think I'm a bit more free with skin.
04:40I think I'm a bit more free with skin.
04:44I think I said in an interview that she'd spelt it wrong,
04:46and then that went round that she'd spelt it wrong,
04:49but we had planned it.
04:51Saoirse did actually tattoo me.
04:52I don't think she's given a tattoo since,
04:53I think this is the sole Saoirse tattoo.
04:58I'm a big fan of the TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,
05:01and I was making this sleeve,
05:03and getting tattoos in significant places
05:05that I was traveling,
05:06so I got the Heinz ketchup in Pittsburgh,
05:07and the koala in Australia.
05:10I was like, what do I get for Philly?
05:12I got Prince.
05:15I was on tour with Rickston.
05:17They're four lads, and we were on tour,
05:19and in Great Britain, there's a phrase
05:22of when you're going out drinking with the lads,
05:24you're lads on tour,
05:25and I was like, oh, we're lads on tour.
05:26We should get lads on tour tattooed.
05:28Yeah, it's about as basic as it can be, but yeah.
05:34I was playing Wembley Stadium.
05:37Wembley Stadium is the biggest stadium
05:39that we have in the UK.
05:41I didn't know I would be playing a stadium ever.
05:43I didn't even think I'd be playing arenas.
05:45I thought I was a theater artist,
05:47and I sold out three Wembleys in 2015 for the first time.
05:51The Wembley is the home of English football.
05:54The crest of English football is three lions,
05:57so I wanted to get something connected with that.
05:58I still think it's the biggest achievement of my life,
06:00playing Wembley Stadium.
06:03So I got plus, multiply, divide, and subtract
06:07tattooed around my wrist.
06:08I had the plan of the mathematics from like 2010 in my head.
06:13That was the plan of the albums that I was gonna do,
06:15plus, multiply, divide, and subtract.
06:17Equals came in there a bit later,
06:19but the next symbols have been on my arm
06:21for 13 years as well,
06:22and I saw that series next year.
06:24I guess that's kind of prison break of me, isn't it?
06:26Just clues.
06:27Most painful tattoo by far was Sagrada Familia.
06:32Eight hours of just like, you know,
06:34they do the tattoo needle with like 20 needles,
06:36and it's just scraping in.
06:38It was grim, like grim.
06:42I think tattoos hurt more the more you get.
06:44Like your first one, I remember getting this
06:46and being like, oh, that wasn't that bad.
06:48And I feel the older I'm getting,
06:49maybe it's just because I'm getting older,
06:50but someone said it's the more you get tattoos,
06:53that your body is saying, please stop doing this.
06:57And the more you get it, the more it's saying,
06:59please just fucking stop doing this.
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