Bang Bang has tattooed in some pretty unique locales, from stars' homes to vacation villas, but the setting of Justin Bieber's "believe" tattoo takes the cake because he did it on a moving airplane. "It's the most impressive tattoo I've ever made," Bang says.
Bang Bang got a phone call out of the blue from an unknown number, and it turned out to be Bieber inviting him to Panama. The tattooist assumed he meant Panama City, FL, not Panama, the country in Central America — but he still went. While there, Bang did a handful of tattoos, like the cross on Bieber's chest and a couple of designs for his friends. The day they left, Bang Bang was invited to fly with the group on a private jet. "I had never been on a private jet, so of course, I just said yes."
One thing led to another, and before he knew it, he was setting up to tattoo on the airplane. "Airplanes are quite shaky super hard to tattoo. There's no great lighting there," Bang Bang says. "We had to make sure the pilots were OK with me plugging something into the power, and that was a little scary. I was like, 'All right, let's find out if we shut this plane down when I turn this thing on.'" That's the story behind Bieber's "believe" tattoo on his inner arm.
