For a long time, Deran Hall was a big fish in a small pond. It wasn't that the tattooers around him weren't good, it was just that he was ready to be in the tattooing mecca of Southern California, and not every tattooer in North Carolina is prepared for that kind of competition.

Earlier this year, Hall decided to make the move and take a spot at the famous Timeline Gallery in San Pedro, California. Now surrounded by some of the best in the business (like Carlos Torres and Sergio Sanchez) on a daily basis, the former musician's art can finally be seen among hundreds of the top artists in the world. Myspace sat down with Hall to talk about his beginnings, his passion for music, and what it's like to work with legends.

How did you become interested in being a tattooer?

I was in the engineering industry doing civil engineering, and I've been an artist my whole life. For a long time after high school, I was focused on music. I wanted to be a guitarist, but I got tired of the whole band thing. I decided to start pursuing art again as a career, and I just fell in love with tattooing. I grew up in a really small town in Michigan, and I didn't really consider tattooing then because no one was doing good tattoos there. It was just little Tasmanian Devils and Superman logos, not at all the type of art I was into. Then tattooing really began to take off, and I decided maybe it was worth getting into.

In what ways are music and tattooing related in your eyes? 

It's very similar, actually. I would say about half the artists I know are also musicians. It's a cool creative outlet. It's hard to really explain, but they're really similar in a lot of ways.

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