Music

Gaze In Horror And Awe At These Truly Hideous Band Tattoos

"It's is my life" is a classic.

by Joseph Earp  4 July 2019
Bad Band Tattoos photos

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A few years ago, I got a tattoo of Daniel Johnston’s Hi, How Are You frog on my right wrist. When it was done, the tattoo artist asked me what I thought of it.

“I love it,” I said, and I really did.

“That’s great mate,” the artist replied. “Some of my favourite tattoos are the really ugly and dumb ones too.”

Listen. There are only two types of tattoos more risky than band tats, and those are tattoos of your lover’s name, and tattoos of small children/babies. Romantic tattoos are dangerous because there’s every chance your dearest will break your heart and leave you with two tonnes of emotional baggage and ‘Karen’ or ‘Derek’ written in some shitty scrawl across your chest. Tattoos of children are dangerous because no artist has ever been able to render anyone under the age of six without making them look like a goblin.

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Band tattoos are a different kind of risky. Of course, there’s always the significant chance that the band in question will do something heinous, and you will be left with indelible markings indicating your allegiance to noted right-wing dipshit Morrissey, or actual criminal Ian Watkins of Lostprophets.

But it doesn’t even take something so dramatic to ruin your photorealistic Blood Sugar Sex Magik back tattoo. Sometimes, bands can just start apolitically sucking — as everybody out there with the winged Weezer ‘W’ daubed across their hip can attest — or your tastes can ever-so-slightly shift.

Chances are, the group that meant the world to you when you were of early tattooable age won’t be quite as important ten years later, when you have to explain to your children that the lead singer of the act you have emblazoned on your upper right arm used to front a band called ‘Rapeman.’

Even less explicable is how often band tattoos just turn out bad, for no rhyme nor reason. It’s like Tupac lyrics or Dave Grohl portraits are kyrptonite to artists, attacks on their nervous system that cause them to go into full on creative toxic shock.

To that end, please spend the next few minutes feasting your eyes on these, some of the worst band tattoos of all time.

This Affront To Queen Fans Everywhere

This is the biggest smear to Queen’s legacy since Adam Lambert joined the band.

This Horned Horrorshow

Turns out the overlap between ’90s rap fans and people who find the unicorn aesthetic endearing is bigger than one might have been led to think.

This Melted Face Frank Iero

This tattoo is the reason why MCR refuse to reform.

This Poor, Innocent Tupac

 

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Seriously, what is it about Tupac tattoos?

This Assemblage Of Horrors

Getting a Fleetwood Mac lyric tattooed on your ass is bad even if the lyric doesn’t get horrendously mispelled, for the record.

This Very Badly Timed Lostprophets Tattoo

This tattoo became A Problem just under five months after she first got it.

This Conversation Starter

Drake Forehead Girl 2020, tbh.

This Probably Fake Michael Jackson Tribute

That quote down the bottom is the thing that tips this right into the annals of illegitimacy.

This Tribute To Adam Duritz Of Counting Crows And Sobriety

Two crows, one stone.

This Poor, Betrayed Miley Cyrus Tribute

Miley, you did not have to drag my man like that.

This Internet Legend

The bad Jon Bovi tattoo is older than at least 20 percent of you reading this article.

This Yawping Horror

Karma police, come collect this man in particular, please.

This Legendarily Inventive Piece of Shit

I mean, you have to hand something to them, if not ‘it’.

This All Time Low Tribute

True dedication.

This Ronald Reagan/Elvis Mash-Up

Do not look him directly in the eyes.

This Your Dad/Elvis Mash-Up

This hound dog is on his last legs.

These Three Seers

Meet them at a crossroads at moonlight and they will tell you exactly how you die.

And This, The Most Egregious Band Tatt Of Them All

Horrifying.