We were lucky to catch up with Chris “Suicide” Sanchez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chris “Suicide”, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

First of all, being successful in life, I believe, is from the moment you are born. Success begins there. Logically, as one grows, one has dreams and ideas. I have been very fortunate to realize some of my dreams. Immigrate to another country, another culture, another language. Coming without nothing and believing in yourself and starting to see how your dreams develop, that has been the best thing that has happened to me. Since I was 5 years old I always wanted to be a rockstar and be a vocalist in a band. I achieved it by coming here in 2001. Being the Vocalist of Chencha Berrinches from Los Angeles ca. Recording 4 albums and doing tours around the world has been a great satisfaction, I have been tattooing for 13 years and I specialize in (American Traditional) and with my business for 8 years, I am proud to be Mexican and have a tattoo shop in the most famous boulevard in the world, Hollywood and being able to support my family doing what I like the most. Tattooing and singing is a very great satisfaction for me.

Chris “Suicide”, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Old Tradition Tattoo was born in 2015 and it was a dream that my wife and I had, old tradition tattoo is a custom shop where people come with their ideas and we make them come true trying to make something original since a tattoo is forever. I am fortunate to have a very good work team that I call my second family. I specialize in American traditional fat lines solid and bright colors, Frosty specializes in Chicano black and gray realism, Justin specializes in pointillism, fine line, Joe does all types of tattoos with his own touch and we have guest artists from all over the world once a month.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I believe what’s helped me the most in this industry is to make sure I’m doing solid work, quality work, have excellent customer service and word of mouth. Follow up with my clients after their tattoo, to make sure everything is healing nicely and attend Tattoo Conventions to get my name out there.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

My business partner is my wife. We meet in one of my concerts. I was on stage singing and out of all the beautiful ladies out in the audience, she stood out. I saw her and kept pointing to her after the concert was done she disappeared. The following weekend we had another show in a bar and I she was there again. I saw her with a guy and when the guy went to the restroom, I went to talk to her. I asked her who the guy was and it turned out to be her brother so I knew I had a chance. hahaha That was in 2007 and we’ve been together since. She was the person who pushed me to learn to tattoo and was all in when I was ready to open our own shop. She’s been a very important part of Old Tradition Tattoo and I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.oldtraditiontattoo.com
• Instagram: @oldtraditiontattoo @chrissuicide
• Facebook: @oldtraditiontattoo @christianmerlin
• Twitter: @oldtraditionta2
• Youtube: @oldtraditiontattoo
• Yelp: Old Tradition Tattoo
• Other: @chrissuicide

Image Credits
Joel Baldovines