Gill "the Drill" Montie

Gill Montie was born in Traverse City, Michigan on December 18th 1954, and grew up in Detroit; "I was raised a poor black child", Gill reminded me. "But then I moved to southern California about 1968."
 Gill “the Drill” Montie is a well known tattoo artist, having traveled across the nation and tattooing all over the world. He has opened several tattoo parlors including the famous Gill Montie’s Tattoo Mania on Sunset Blvd, Hollywood California and Palm Bay Florida. Gill has worked the Tattoo convention circuit since the early 1980s and founded the original world renowned Inkslinger’s Ball, which has evolved into the Pirates Ball and Tattoo Gathering. 

 As a youngster, Gill became interested in tattoos and began poking them in by hand. “I’d basically take some kind of instrument – a Popsicle stick or a pen– and string a needle to it. You put a little ink on, and poke it in.” At sixteen he was already tattooing all the neighborhood kids on the block. At eighteen he joined the Marine Corp’s, and got his first professional tattoo. “It was from Diamond Tooth Smittie in North Carolina. I was stationed in Camp Lejeune, so I went over there and got it.” Gill got out of the Corps in 1974 and started his apprenticeship in Los Angeles with Tony "Doc Dog" Baker in the San Fernando Valley. “He was the first guy to open up a tattoo shop in the valley, on the corner of Van Nuys and Victory. I worked with Howie "The Hand", Asa Lee Crow and a bunch of great guys. It was right next to a massage parlor, and there was a hole in the back of the tattoo shop that led right through to the massage parlor. It was crazy times. Not the best learning spot. It wasn’t necessarily about doing great tattoos, you just wanted to be accepted by these fellows. But to be one of those characters, you needed road miles, you needed experiences.” 

 After his son, Shane, was born, Gill took a job as a janitor at Lakeview High School in Oregon and tried to settle down. “I was getting a salary, but I couldn’t stay away from tattooing, and I started poking them in by hand again. That’s when I realized tattooing was in my blood.” He met Mike LeCure who was in a motorcycle club, and owned a tattoo shop in Reno. Gill stayed with him, tattooing for a while, but circumstances found him loading his wife, pregnant with his daughter, and Shane then heading up north to Talent Oregon, where he ran a tattoo shop next to a radiator shop.

 When Doc Dog opened the only tattoo studio in Las Vegas on the strip, he went down to work with Doc Dog again. He stayed there a few years before heading back to Oregon again to open up his own little tattoo shop. Living in a trailer in applegate, then Coos Bay, it didnt have the mojo Gill was looking for and he eventually landed back in Vegas with Dog in the late 70’s. The Vegas tattoo life was fast paced and intoxicating. “We’d stay awake for three weeks at a time, tattooing. It was the life.” Eventually realizing he needed to clean up his act. “In 1980 I left there and went out to Hutchinson Kansas. I heard it was a good place to put weight back on. I was gonna make Kansas the tattoo capital of the world. I was full of myself at the time.

 Gill and F.E. Craig, whom he had met in Vegas got into business together. “He was the local there in Kansas, and me and him would run around town in his ‘62 Impala, lowered, wearing trench coats, cowboy boots, and sunglasses. They were used to Craig but they weren’t used to the new skinny guy.” “We owned a couple of bars, he was the chef and I was the bad dishwasher. But everything we did was fueled through tattooing.”

It was here that Gills friendship and conversations with Benny "Mr Tramp" Keith sparked a light of the future in Gills mind. Tramp was, at the time, the epitomy of the Biker Tattooer - legend in the making. He was tattooing at rallies across the country and attending early conventions. His vicarious lifestyle and boisterous nature complemented his love and  enthusiasm for the tattoo business and his ability to connect with and entertain people. Tramp was being photographed for all the magazines of the day and we all knew that he had something special. Tramp had a famous skull with flowing red hair tattooed on his ribs by Peter Poulos and one day he asked Gill to tattoo his other side. It was guaranteed to give Gills career a shot in the arm, at a time when Gill was sincerely considering another course instead of tattooing. "Tramp told me then... You know this business is going to be huge, you dont even know how huge its going to be. You are going to be at the top of this movement, I'm not kidding, Bro - this is going to be one wild ride. Tramp saw where it was going and I still didnt see everything, but I had the passion and desire and a new vision." They started doing motorcycle rallies in Sturgis and Daytona. “Back in those times there was no tattoo magazines, there was no culture, so we started doing these motorcycle rallies with him and Crazy Ace, Randy Adams, and all the guys on the motorcycle circuit.” Not having a shop, Gill had to make do with what he knew. “The first time I tattooed in Sturgis, it was in an alley behind a gas station tattooing a drunk standing up.” 

 By chance a year later the photographer, Billy Tinney, was working on a magazine shoot. He was taking pictures of bikers but could not help noticing all the tattoos he was shooting. People seeing the magagzine noticed them too and wanted more. The magazine later had to add a tattoo section. This gave way to the first tattoo magazine. "My career did start to take off, I traveled and met more artists and the tattoo bandwagon was on its way. I do still think about Tramp often. He was one of the most real and down to earth people you could meet. He had talent and charisma and passion but he didnt get to see the dream come true that he predicted so well. Tramp was killed on his motorcycle by a drunk in 1984." In the early '80s Gill the Drill made his way to Bike Week in Daytona to tattoo “motorcycle guys.” He hooked up with “Tattoo Tony,” who worked out of his house. It wasnt long before lines started forming to get in there and ultimately, they opened a full-blown tattoo shop with artists from all over the world coming to work there. “Daytona Beach underground gained notoriety throughout the world” Gill says. “We paved the way for what it is now. We tuned it into a multibillion-dollar industry.”

 Gill left Daytona Beach in 1989 and went to Hollywood to open Tattoo Mania on the Sunset Strip where his fame soared. It was the 1990s and tattooing was becoming socially acceptable, Gill reflects on how Hollywood helped bring tattoos into the mainstream. “When I first got to Hollywood it was all about the big hair and the atmosphere was electric. I had this shop on Sunset Boulevard across from the Viper Room, between the Whisky-A-Go-Go and Tower Records.” With a prime location like this, Gill quickly gained a large celebrity fan base. “My friend Fred Saunders toured with Motley Crue, and I did all the Poison guys. The more public exposure the better,” explains Gill. “When your heroes are tattooed, you want to get ‘em too. It was the beginning of MTV, so it really helped for people to see these rock stars all tattooed up. Rosanne Barr, the domestic goddess, made it OK for girls to get tattoos. I put a lot of tattoos on Roseanne.” Gill was as hot as Mr Tramp had predicted, appearing in movies and on television and traveling around the world, promoting and tattooing.

   

 Gill was in high demand from all corners of the burgeoning tattoo industry but at the same time he was worried that tattoos were becoming to mainstream. He orchestrated tattoo conventions at the Hollywood Palladium where people attended from all over the world. He has been featured in numerous magazines over the years as well. “I wanted to throw an unconventional convention, a kind of pirates ball, so we threw a big party at The Central, which is now the Viper Room, with Chucky Wice and the Goddamn Liars, and it was huge. We had people from all over the country. The next time, we moved it to the Troubadour, and we’d have big bands playing like Poison. We finally ran out of room and moved it to the World Famous Palladium in Hollywood. We did the Inkslingers Ball for what, 14 or 15 years. It was the ultimate rock and roll, pirate tattoo gathering ever been, ever will be.” It was the peak of tattoo culture and Gill was riding the crest, conventions, appearances, films and still on his unique adventure as the one and only motorcycle outlaw, pirate tattooer and man of the world.

 The mid 2000s found Gill a little unsettled as he had moved on from Hollywood and worked in a number of shops and places trying to find his footing again. In addition to this instability, Gill was also fighting with cancer and other health issues. From bad to worse it was an uphill battle that many didnt think he could surmount. Trials and tribulations - it aint nothin but a thing for Gill the Drill Montie. Gill is no stranger to adversity nor to success and when Gill met Gemma it was the beginning of a renewed success for the both of them. Gemma was married to well known tattooist "Jack Hammer" Dave Shore, who had passed away earlier. In a whirlwind of change, Gill and Gemma were married on May 17th, 2014 and as Gills health and outlook improved they embarked on a slew of conventions and appearances across the USA. Soon the power couple moved and reopened their premier studio, Tattoo Mania, in Palm Bay Florida. Gemma Montie maintains her Permanent Cosmetics studio inside of Tattoo Mania. In August of 2019 Gill resurrected the Inkslingers Ball as the Pirate Tattoo Gathering and brought the "unconventional" convention to his old stomping ground, Daytona Beach Florida.

-Gill Montie