Tattoo Stories with Travis Mills

Travis Mills has been hard at work on his new album coming out later this year, but in the meantime, we have his latest single, "Young & Stupid" featuring T.I., to tide us over. The song is a bit of a transition from the music Travis has made in the past, and his something, he tells iHeartRadio, is very proud of. 

Mils tells iHeartRadio of the meaning behind his new song, "Something that might remind you of all the dumb but fun sh*t that you did when you were growing up. Everyone's been stupid. It's not an insult to intelligence or anything. It's just, you go out, you have a great time, sometimes you do stupid sh*t. Young and stupid, living life, waking up in the morning, be like, 'What the hell did I do last night?'"

If there is one thing to notice about Travis, is that he is COVERED in tattoos. And lucky for us, he told us all the stories behind all of his tattoos. Read on below.

On his first tattoo: the phrase "Stay Young" on his thighs

Travis got his first tattoo when he was just 16 years old. And funny enough, it says "Stay Young." Little did he know that years later he'd have an amazing song with T.I. called "Young & Stupid."

"My very first tattoo was on my thighs. Ironically, it says, 'Stay young,' and my song is called 'Young & Stupid.' I didn't plan that. I was 16. I got tattooed in my friend's kitchen at his table, and I traded the tattoo artist my Sidekick at the time to get a tattoo. Remember Sidekicks? I got it, so I could cover it up if I got out of the shower, and just put boxers on. It didn't hurt. It was just a crazy sensation, but I was addicted to it. I just loved it. And then, I started getting more and more."

Travis's parents didn't know about his tattoos ... until they caught him about a year after he got his first one. And lucky for him, they reacted better than most parents would. The tattoo they caught him with on his foot was a gypsy skull, and Travis tells us it's his least favorite tattoo. He got it in someone's garage. He explains:

"When I got my foot tattoo, I was maybe 17, my parents saw all of them. They didn't really care. I think I came home, and took my shoes off, and my mom was on the couch, and my foot was just out. And she's like, 'What is that?' And I was like, 'Ma,' and then I showed her the tattoos on my legs. But she was super cool with it. She didn't get mad or freak out."

On the zombie fly best friend tattoo on his right wrist:

"This is a best friend tattoo. Davis has the same one. Mine says, 'Eat sh*t and die.' So does his, but he was too scared to get "sh*t" tattooed on him. So he did a bunch of symbols. It was midnight, we were in Long Beach having dinner, and I had a couple drinks. And we just were like, 'Yo, man, I'm so bored. What do you want to do?' He's like, 'Let's go get tattoos.' I was like, 'All right.' I hit my homie up. I was like, 'Yo, we're gonna come through. We just want some little tattoos.' He was like, 'All right. Like, what do you want?' I was like, 'I want a fly. Just like a weird zombie fly. I want it to say, Eat sh*t and die.' And that's exactly what I got. I've known him since I was 14. We had already been friends for a long time."

On the bitten apple tattoo on his right palm:

"It was solid black. If you look inside, it's actually half of a heart in here. So this is what it was first; it was just half of a heart. I flew to Vegas, I met this girl online [and] I knew her for two days. She was from Canada [and] was trying to get her citizenship, so she was like, 'Let's get married, so I can become a [citizen].' I was just out of my mind. I was like, 'All right, cool!' I go down there, land off the plane, she picks me up, and then I'm just like, 'All right, I do not want to get married.' So I'm trying to spin this off. I'm like, 'Yo, let's just go get tattooed.' But I heard palm tattoos fall out. Never had my palms tattooed before. So I got half of a heart. And then, on her hand, she got the other half. I'm sitting here, I get this tattoo, I make up some crazy story after I get mine that my sister runs away or something, and I gotta leave. So I have my friend drive from LA to Vegas, pick me up, and I just dipped out. And as soon as I got back to LA, I covered it up with a huge apple. Solid black."

On the red Canadian leaf and state of California tattoo on his right hand:

"I'm half Canadian, half Argentinian. I'm the first one on my dad's side to be born in America, but my whole dad's side of the family is from Canada. So I got a maple leaf for him, and then I got a state of California on my thumb. That's where I'm from."

On the letter tattoos written on his knuckles:

"My top knuckles say, 'Won't quit.' This says, 'Patience,' which is probably one of my favorite tattoos. Because before I had it, I had not seen anybody with it on their knuckles. Now kids have gotten it, and they'll come to shows and show me. I'm just all over the place that every time I look down, it just reminds me to chill out, and take a deep breath, [and] just let things happen as they come."

The bottom of Travis's knuckles say "Timeless," reminding him to not get caught up in fads. He tells us, "My bottom knuckles says, 'Timeless.' [It means] just make classic sh*t. Don't get caught up in fads. If you love something, love it because you love it. If I was just getting tattoos to be cool, that'd be super whack. I remember being 13 years old, sitting with my mom at the kitchen table and telling her, 'I'm gonna have my whole body tattooed' and almost saw her start to break down in tears, hearing her 13-year-old son say he wants his face tattooed. I just fell in love with it at a very young age. And the irony is that I'm the first one in my family to really have tattoos. My parents have no tattoos, and I don't come from a tattooed family."

On the gramophone on his left hand/wrist:

"Record player on my hand because music is what I do. [It's] what I love and what got me here in the first place. But my sleeve, it's like 40 hours of work. You can see all the color. I've had this for eight years. And the color, I mean I've never gotten [it] retouched or anything, which is pretty rare. What's cool is that my skin takes color really well. I'm made to be tattooed."

On the word "Changes" tattooed along his left thumb:

"I have my favorite Tupac song tattooed on my thumb, 'Changes.' I got that the night that I moved out of my parents' house, when I was moving out for the first time. I was 17 years old. I was kinda scared sh*tless, but I was really excited. I finished high school when I was 16. So I've always had a good head on my shoulders. My parents are the most supportive people in my whole life. I have 'Mom' tattooed on my right ankle. And then, I have 'Dad' tattooed on my left ankle."

On the cassette player/robot on the top of his left forearm: 

"My whole sleeve is based on all my passions in life. Up here, these are actually two paintings from my favorite artist. His name's Jeff Soto. He's from where I'm from — Riverside, California. And he works on all different mediums, but he's not a tattoo artist. I just think his work is really incredible. So my whole sleeve represents everything that I'm passionate about. Music, art, film. So it's robot tape player. He's playing a Tupac tape. It says 'Thug Life' in there. You can't really see it. It's funny. He has a paint roller."

On the red movie projector robot on his left bicep:

"Up here is a movie projector robot kinda taking over the city. And he's shooting out reels of film."

On the "How am I not myself?" graffiti tattoo wrapped around his left arm:

"This says, 'How am I not myself?' Just another way of saying, 'Unique. One-of-a-kind.' And it's also from the movie American Psycho. It's one of my favorite movies."

On his elephant with the phrase "Remember Always" and giraffe tattoos on his left leg:

"My great-grandmother passed away in 2013. I was on tour. I didn't get to see her before she passed, and her favorite animal was an elephant. So I got an elephant, and it says, 'Remember me always.' That was for her. That's still not done. I gotta go finish it. And my power animal is a giraffe, so I got a huge giraffe on my whole leg, so we're together. I did [the elephant] first. I loved it. And then, I wanted to be next to her."

On the heart tattoo with the roman numeral on his right wrist:

"That's my Friday the 13th tattoo. It's a matching tattoo with my girlfriend. We both got it. It's just a little heart with a 13 inside of it. In tattoo culture, anytime it hits Friday the 13th, [in] a lot of tattoo shops, you can [go] in and get tattooed for $13. And they'll do quarter-size tattoos."

On the triangle tattoo on his ears:

"I got two triangles tattooed on my ears. They just represent balance. It's nothing super profound. I just liked them. And I don't know that many people that have their ears tattooed."

On the green Medusa tattoo on his neck:

"I was really into Greek mythology, and I just thought it was always interesting how if men would make direct eye contact with her, you'd turn to stone. And how a mythical creature could have that much power over somebody. I gravitated towards it. I just wanted it on my neck. I just thought it was really cool. I'm a big fan of placement on tattoos. I feel like my tattoos are all really well-placed. It's like putting stickers on a skateboard or something. So I just felt the placement of it, the way that it fit on my neck [is] just what I wanted."

On the spider tattoo behind his right ear:

"I'm deathly afraid of spiders. I hate spiders. [I got the tattoo] just to kinda come face to face with it, and just have it on my body forever. If there's a spider in my house, I can't kill it. I'll make everyone else before me. I just can't do it. Don't ask me to kill insects or anything like that."

There isn't always a method to the madness of Travis's tattoos, but Travis loves that about his tattoos. In fact, he tells us they're like memories he can always look at to remember whatever he was going through at the time. He explains, "Some of the tattoos I have, I just woke up and like, 'Okay, cool. It's on me for the rest of my life.' But that's what I love about tattoos. It's almost like a stamp. You can go back, and I can look at a tattoo, remember where I was, remember how old I was, remember who I was with, remember how I felt at that time, what I was going through." So what's next for Travis? Well, he's saving his back for something really special, and he plans to get his right arm inked when he goes to Europe. 

On his plans for future tattoos:

"My back would be the last thing that I tattoo. I want to be kind of an old man when I do that, and almost tell my whole story on my back. But I want to save my back for something really special and really big. I'm saving my right arm for when I go to Europe. There are so many good tattoo artists now. They're just so much easier to find than when I first started getting tattooed because of Instagram and things like that. So I really want to do this when I'm on the road and where I can go to somewhere in Europe. Somewhere super cool, and just have an amazing experience, and just go out there for a week and finish. Just knock it all out at once."

Photos: Rachel Kaplan