Chopper's Tattoo Tour

7 Identity, Community and Embodiment: Chopper’s Tattoo Tour Dave Snell Darrin Hodgetts Colin McLeay University of Waikato Heavy Metal fans have a unique style of dress, music and interaction via which a sub-cultural community is formed and maintained. This article explores how this community is embodied through tattoos and the display of cultural symbols associated with the shared identity of Metallers. We employ the concept of metonym as a means of exploring the bodyscape of a particular Metaller and his interactions with others. The concept of the bodyscape is used to theorise links between community and identity as enacted at sub-cultural events. In a dark and crowded Heavy Metal bar, the portrait. The tattoos comprise a tribute to surrounded by drunken bar patrons and loud Dimebag who was shot and killed by an music, a mutual friend introduced Dave to obsessed fan on the 8th of December, 2004, Chopper. It is important to note here that this is a while performing with the band Damageplan, self-selected pseudonym that is used in this Not captured in Figure 1 are the lyrics from In article. It comes from the infamous Mark This River (Black Label Society, 2005, track 5) ‘Chopper’ Read from Australia, a murderer and and three headstones depicting the other victims violent criminal, who our participant physically of the shooting, who are also tattooed onto resembles. Our participant has no connection to Chopper’s arm. Chopper’s lower right arm the actual Mark Read. contains tattoos celebrating Zakk Wylde, Chopper was aware Dave was conducting guitarist and lead singer for the Heavy Metal research into Heavy Metal culture. Chopper band Black Label Society, the composer of the stated that when he had first heard of Dave’s song In This River (Black Label Society, 2005, thesis he knew, sooner or later, he would be track 5) (see Figure 2). The tattoos feature Zakk approached to take part. When asked how he Wylde’s face and an autograph – having got the knew this, Chopper rolled up his sleeve to reveal musician to sign his arm, Chopper had it his heavily tattooed right arm (see Figures 1-3). tattooed as a permanent sign of fandom. As Chopper is heavily tattooed with a variety of with Zakk Wylde, Chopper’s inside lower right different images of Heavy Metal bands, the New arm displays an autographed portrait of Vinnie Zealand flag and the Holden car logo. The tattoos Paul. Along with being the brother of Dimebag, depicted in Figures 1 to 3 relate to Darrell Vinnie Paul was the drummer for the three ‘Dimebag’ Abbott who was the guitarist for the bands of which Dimebag was a member, as well Heavy Metal bands Pantera, Damageplan and as the Heavy Metal band Hellyeah. In the Rebel meets Rebel. Chopper’s upper right arm background of this section of the tattoo is a displays lightning bolts and a portrait of Dimebag Confederate flag. (See Figure 1). Below this image is the logo The current article draws upon Dave’s employed by Pantera for Cowboys from Hell interactions with Chopper. A core aim of the (CFH), the band’s first commercially successful article is to develop an understanding of the album (Pantera, 1990). The lower third of the ways in which tattoos and associated tattoo features the bass line to In this River, a descriptions can render into view community song written by the Heavy Metal band Black assumptions, practices and relationships. Label Society and later dedicated to Dimebag Choppers tattoos are colourful and embodied (Black Label Society, 2005, track 5). The arms statements of membership and community. By and hands of Heavy Metal fans are seen saluting focusing on the dialectics of tattoos and their The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 23 No 1 April 2011 © The Australian Psychological Society Ltd Chopper’s Tattoo Tour 8 Figure 1. Chopper’s upper right arm Figure 3. Chopper’s lower inside right arm transported by ‘explorers’ to Europe, tattoo wearers were characterised as being exotic savages. A well publicised example of this was Omai, a heavily tattooed Tahitian man who became an exotic curiosity in eighteenth century London (Back, 2004). Subsequently, for many Europeans having tattoos became “a mark of daring, masculinity and adventure” (Te Awekotuku, 2004, p. 78). During the 1960s and 1970s there was a ‘Tattoo Renaissance’, when tattoos were still associated by wider society with ‘deviant others’, such as bikers and hippies. However, tattoos began to gain more Figure 2. Chopper’s lower right arm widespread acceptance as an art form (Polhemus, 2004). While there are many other metonymic relationship with a Heavy Metal forms of body art, such as piercings or community, we explore how this participant’s brandings, tattooing has now become the most sense of self as a member has been imprinted established form of body art in the West (Pitts, upon his flesh. Our analysis moves beyond the 2003). For example, since the 1990s white description of specific representations to broader suburban females have been the fastest growing observations about the ways in which social tattooed demographic (Donovan, 1997). It has relationships and community are rendered also been estimated that in the United States as meaningful through mediated and interpersonal many as 15% of all people have tattoos (Sever, communication featuring these tattoos. 2003). Tattoos, identity and community The popularity of tattoos in Western Indigenous scholars writing about tattoos society has not detracted from their function in have noted that people live their lives through indigenous societies, where tattoos remain as their bodies, and in the process bodies become icons for community affiliation and identity sites of negotiation over the meanings one has for (Nikora et al., 2007). For many indigenous one’s self and the meanings other people have for societies, carving markings into one’s skin us (Nikora, Rua & Te Awekotuku, 2007). When comprises a powerful way of drawing together The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 23 No 1 April 2011 © The Australian Psychological Society Ltd Chopper’s Tattoo Tour 9 places, people and events and of asserting one’s discussed a distinction in the self between the relationship with a community (Te Awekotuku et ‘I’ and the ‘Me’. He described the ‘I’ as the al., 2007, p. 150). For example, in their work self-as-knower, which represents a sense of concerning moko, or Maori skin adornment, Te personal identity, consisting of experiences of Awekotuku and colleagues (2007) discussed the continuity of self over time and across contexts, use of indigenous tattooing practices to link a sense of individuality in being distinct from wearers to their culture and heritage. others, and personal agency. The ‘Me’ is the Furthermore, wearers link themselves to broader self-as-known and consists of everything that group affiliations, with their tattoos coming to the person can call their own such as their body, represent wider social identities, relationships possessions and other people with whom they and communities. interact. This conceptualisation allows us to One group that has come to utilise tattoos recognise our identities as not simply located as markers of community affiliation are Heavy within our minds, but also as extending into the Metal fans – often self-identified as Metallers material and social world (cf. Hermans, 2001). (Snell & Hodgetts, 2007). Having a ‘Metaller The implication of James’ (1980) and tattoo’ has come to mark the wearer as loyal to Hermans’ (2001) conceptualisation of self is the music and community (Weinstein, 2000). that there is an interactional aspect to our very Heavy Metal tattoos often include symbols and being (Charon, 1979; Hodgetts et al., 2010). As images that are unsavoury to other societal Silverstone (1999) noted, what it means to be a groups. These ‘alternative’ markings, such as the person lies in our communing with others. Confederate flag or a human skull, represent Further, sharing social identities with others Heavy Metal’s association with expressions of through common practices and the display of rebellion and the darker side of the human shared symbols can constitute community (cf. condition (Weinstein, 2000). Heavy Metal tattoos Charon, 1979; Ethier & Deaux, 1994; McMillan may also represent relevant bands or musicians, & Chavis, 1986; Wenger, 1998). Material as shown by Chopper (see Figures 1 – 3) and link objects, and the interactions surrounding these, the wearer to specific concerts and festivals. can function as signs of community members’ Despite tattoos being described by ties to a larger system in which the individual is Weinstein (2000) as “key trademarks” (p. 129) of a part (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton, Heavy Metal, this art form has largely been 1981). In other words, identities can be viewed ignored by sub-cultural researchers (e.g., Kahn- as ongoing cumulative projects, developed Harris 2007; Walser 1993). Indeed, even through embodied interactions with other Weinstein (2000) devoted only a single brief people (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton, paragraph to tattoos. Tattoos and tattooing are 1981; Kaufman, 2000; Mead, 1934). People also ignored in literature about other forms of often experience themselves as simultaneously music and identity (e.g., DeNora, 2000). individuals and as members of communities Community psychologists have also only paid (Arnow, 1994). Such conceptualisations point passing interest to tattooing and issues of to not only the individual as part of a embodiment in the context of community (Snell community, but the importance of the & Hodgetts, 2007). Given the permanent nature community in the development of personal of tattoos and their relevance to identity, these identity. In this way, communities are absences omit key elements of many peoples’ conceptualised as social networks offering identities and experiences of community. support and a sense and means of displaying Contemporary ideas regarding identity, identities that are derived from social community, materiality and embodiment, which interactions within everyday life (Obst et al., are central to our exploration of Metaller tattoos, 2002; Pretty et al., 2007).

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