Billy DeCola (00:00)
All right. We’re with Alex Corona, SMP artist. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the Faded podcast.

A.Corona (00:06)
Thank you for having me, bro. I appreciate it for sure, For Billy DeCola Yes, sir.

Billy DeCola (00:08)
Yeah, thanks for coming on. Yeah,

so tell me a little bit about your path into SMP. I know you’ve had a journey here. I watched some of your Instagram stories where you were talking about how you had SMP done. I know you had laser done. And I think you’ve even reached out a couple times asking me a couple questions about the removal process. Was it?

Was it before or after your SMP experience that you got into SMP?

A.Corona (00:40)
It was after my SMP experience like so initially I got SMP done. I think my first session was the end of 2019 Excuse me, and uh, honestly, I didn’t know I was like pretty much like every other client I really didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what good work is versus bad work because there’s not a lot There’s not a lot of uh of work out there with the details zoomed in healed work

But you know how I be showing my work, man. I like to, even if I don’t like my work, I’m just really transparent with, hey, this is the work. Because every artist is going to see what they could or should have, maybe could have did better at the end when everything’s all said and done. But at end of the day, I post it in a way that I would have really preferred to see my work, how it heals, what it looks like. Because as a client, you really just kind of just go in, you’re like.

Billy DeCola (01:12)
Mm-hmm.

A.Corona (01:35)
the artist that did the work, you’re like, yeah, that’s, he’s like, that’s how it’s supposed to look. And you’re like, you don’t really have now with Reddit. There’s, mean, yeah, there’s much more examples out there of a good and bad work. But at the same time, at that time, there wasn’t anything like that. And there wasn’t any artist advocating also what they were, even those artists, they weren’t advocating. They only were advocating what they know. You know what I mean?

Billy DeCola (01:46)
Yeah.

Yeah, so you went into getting SMP, you kinda didn’t know what to expect, but you went with an artist that you thought might be able to pull off what you were looking for. You got it done, and then at what point were you like, this isn’t what I expected. Was it like after the first session, or was it after it was completed and healed? Like at what point were you like, man, I gotta deal with this?

A.Corona (02:23)
Well, let me answer

your question. The first one is I knew I was going to do SMP almost immediately after getting my first session done. You know, I’m one of those people that just always dream really big and was like, Why not? You know, I just I brung my ass all the way to Miami for I was living in Savannah, Georgia at the time. I’m an aircraft mechanic by trade. So I flew standby for free. You know, I saw this is a one way flight to Miami.

hopped on it and went and got it done. Just between this and another artist, was between two artists and I just picked this one because he had better reviews, better marketing, you know? And so like I said, I was like, man, this is an awesome thing, you know? I felt really good initially. And I was like, I could definitely, because I’ve always been somebody who chased like happiness. I didn’t always just chase the money. And I was like, well, I know I could make some good money doing this, making people happy. You know what I mean?

Billy DeCola (02:54)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

A.Corona (03:16)
So there was that. so, ⁓ you know, I think initially I’ve still just really didn’t know what to expect. So it wasn’t until I maybe did like the first shave, like a week later, maybe like two weeks later, something like that. I was like, man, like it looks okay. But like me, I’m also like, are very autistic in a way, or very OCD. Like I said, did sheet metals, like fabrication, things like that, you know, in aviation. So it’s very like the details really matter.

Billy DeCola (03:32)
Mm-hmm.

A.Corona (03:44)
I’m looking at like, man, this doesn’t look like my hair though. You know, like it doesn’t look bad, but it just doesn’t look like my hair, you know? And so I just trust the process and the second session, it just made it darker, you know? It wasn’t really much of like a big difference between the first session and the second session, I would say.

Billy DeCola (03:45)
Yeah.

A.Corona (04:06)
I always noticed that it just didn’t look like the hair initially, right? So that was my first like response to getting SMP. Was passable that people I interacted with every day not notice or until I told them and they’re like, wow, that’s crazy. You know, like, it’s cause I think we as humans just think people pay attention to it way more than they really do, honestly, man. And I was telling people, I’m not mad, I didn’t even notice it looks good though, you know, or whatever the case may be. Cause they don’t know what to compare it to either.

Billy DeCola (04:26)
Yeah, yeah.

A.Corona (04:34)
And it wasn’t until maybe six months or a year later, I started seeing just these blotches, just big green blotches all throughout the treatment, you know, where I guess maybe the artist went too deep just in that zone. Maybe the skin was just thinner in that area for some reason. And blasted it, you know, and we just little spots like that all over. Still, though, it wasn’t. I was like, man, what am I going to do? You know, it’s on my head. guess at that point it was like.

Billy DeCola (04:35)
Yeah.

Yeah.

A.Corona (05:02)
It was still passable. was still in my 20s and I still had a hairline, you know, at end of the day. So I was like, okay, at that point. in there, I see this like the algorithm does, you know, the Instagram showed me somebody else’s work and like, man, this person’s dots are like way tighter, way smaller. You know, they just looks much more homogenous, I would say. I don’t know if the word I was looking for. It just looked like, wow, there’s a lot more, much smaller, much finer.

Billy DeCola (05:22)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

A.Corona (05:31)
So I reached out to this artist, was like, hey, can you fix that? Or can it be fixed? was like, oh, 100 % we can fix it. Come in, we’ll do a session. No, no, like, aw, bro, you should go get that laser, man. It would be better if you did this. None of that. Just, yeah, we could fix

Billy DeCola (05:32)
Yeah.

Just I’ll add some

more pigment to, I’ll add more pigment to the problem and that’s gonna fix it.

A.Corona (05:50)
⁓ 100 % and as you and I both know, that’s not it bro. You can’t spray some for reason shit and make it be roses, you know what I mean? So, yeah.

Billy DeCola (06:00)
No, that’s

not the solution. So you went and you had a touch up done or whatever you want to call it, a fixing. And then that just added more to the problem. It just made it darker.

A.Corona (06:09)
It

made it so like I said at this point I still wasn’t an artist, you know, so I didn’t really know what I was looking at He made it he made it to where those dark spots weren’t as noticeable But overall like I think it became much more cooler at that point, you know me being the artist I am today I recognize now like that point it was it was much more had much more of a bluish bluish green you to it depending on the lighting, you know, and

Billy DeCola (06:26)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, just

too deep then just too deep.

A.Corona (06:38)
This guy probably just did too concentrated and too tight. You know, just no negative space at all to try to blend out those, those blowouts from the first artist. so, like initially I was like, man, this is, he saved me, you know, I didn’t know what I was like, man, I was saved, you know, he saved my life. This guy on Instagram with all these hundreds of thousands of followers, you know what I mean? Worked on all these celebrities and all this.

Billy DeCola (06:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ha!

A.Corona (07:07)
man, I’m saved. And he did though, he did work on celebrities and he, in his honest opinion, which is fucked up, he thinks he saved me, right? But me being the person I am today, come on now, man, bro, eventually, and mine was not even that. It was bad, in my eyes now, I’m like, my brother got SMP done by his brother. This is very fucked up by the second guy’s brother, right?

Billy DeCola (07:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

A.Corona (07:40)
grow. It’s odd. It’s bad.

Billy DeCola (07:41)
Was it bad?

bad.

All right, so you’re living with this problem, you’re looking in the mirror, you know that you had an issue, you’ve already had several sessions of SMP. At what point did you decide, because I know you went and got laser, ⁓ and apparently you had what, several sessions? Was it like six or something like that? you only had two, okay. Okay, then it must, yeah, yeah, well.

A.Corona (08:05)
I did my research on the laser clinic for sure.

Billy DeCola (08:12)
You can have the best laser sometimes like SMP won’t come out. Like if it’s too deep or too saturated. Sometimes we see clients that we’re just like, I’m sorry, man. Like I can’t get that out or like.

A.Corona (08:22)
I think in

no specific situations that if you did something like saline or LiFt with like a certain type of mag it would bring that pigment up more to the surface and then you could pop it out once it heals. I’d be percent of it. I’ve pondered that, bro, trust me. It encapsulated deep into the dermis layer of the skin. You can’t reach it. So if you bring it, you dig it, yeah, it’s fucked up, but yeah.

Billy DeCola (08:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I do do saline sometimes.

Yeah, dig it up. Dig it up.

But that’s what it is really you’re digging it out. But yeah, so two sessions you’re not you’re not bad then if that’s all it took. I’ve seen people come in here who have needed like six to eight sessions and they’re still like deep blue. Like I have some pictures I’ll post some pictures here so we can see. But if you get a chance I’d like to see some of the photos that you have of your work so we can include this here so people can see like what you were dealing with if you’re okay with that. But then so you had

A.Corona (09:17)
Thank you.

and I’ll you next time.

Billy DeCola (09:22)
You had laser done and then ⁓ How did you so did you get it redone I haven’t even like caught up on you did you get SMP done again?

A.Corona (09:31)
You know, so yeah, this

is just after two sessions of laser. So you can see, I still see, kind of still need a little bit more done right here. Where this is at, but I just haven’t, I’ve just been putting it off, man, you know, because me, I’m just such a OCD artist that I feel bad for the person who’s going to do mine, you know? I really did. So I like, I just want to go to somebody who’s, who I trust and that, you know, they even, know nobody’s perfect. You know what I mean? But somebody that I personally know, not just somebody who

Billy DeCola (09:39)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

A.Corona (09:59)
wants to do it and say, I did it. Somebody who’s gonna be in their sweat just like I would.

Billy DeCola (10:06)
Yeah, it’s tough. also if you’re trying to cover up some dark spots too, it kind of affects the way you’re going to do the session. Because if you came in and you had some big dark blue spots on your head and I’m trying to blend it out, I might end up going darker to try to blend that out. So you can’t see it as much as I would if you had like a clear canvas. So your best bet.

A.Corona (10:26)
yeah, 100%.

That’s why I’ve just been putting off the last session of laser. I’m still going to go get the last session of laser before getting that SMP done, I’ve just been, you know, I’ve been trying to come to terms now with being bald, you know, as it stands, because it only looks good right now with lighting because it’s just a little lighting, but anywhere else, man, I’m going look, Hey bro, whenever you’re working, man, I’ll hook your shit up, bro. I know a lot of people say that to you, but shit, I know they do.

Billy DeCola (10:29)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, look at me, man. I never had, I never had SMP. You know how many, you know how funny it is though? Like when I, when I was, when

I was heavy into like doing SMP, I was doing like two, three clients a day at one point. Like I was busy and I remember.

A.Corona (10:58)
I’m gonna do one try in a day.

Billy DeCola (11:00)
Yeah, I remember people would come in and I’d be doing the consultation and like halfway through the consult I would see sometimes I would see like a light bulb go off in somebody’s head and they would look at me and they get all suspicious and be like, hold on a minute, man. Why don’t you have it done? Because I don’t want it like I’m not the one who wants to get my head tattooed like you’re here wanting to get it done. But I don’t care, you know, but I remember like I had this one.

A.Corona (11:26)
And that’s kind of where I’m at

with it too, you know? I’m really just coming to a point where I don’t care about it. Now I will say after having had SMP and being content, you know, not like fully content with how it looked at that time, but with a hairline versus now not having a hairline. mean, do this barely hairline, man, trust me. It’s a big difference, bro. I will tell you, I 100 % want to get my SMP redone. That’s why it’s just so important.

Billy DeCola (11:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

A.Corona (11:55)
to go to somebody I trust. You know what mean? At end of the day. think I do like, yeah, fuck that shit. I like having a hairline, bro. I like having a nice frame to my face. As long as I trust you, does it, and the work’s good. Fuck who they’re talking about, Just me having SMP and not having SMP kind of now. That’s my opinion on it.

Billy DeCola (11:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah

Yeah, and you know what, if-

And honestly, like if it’s done lightly enough to where it’s not deep into the, you know, down to the bone or whatever, even if you decide at some point you want to remove it, it’s easy to remove if it’s done properly. Like if it’s a nicely done.

you know, a couple layers with some space in between and it’s not too deep. It comes right out one session of laser. comes out. It’s not hard to take out. It’s only the times when you see like the deep blowouts where it’s like, it’s a mission to get it out. And we have guys coming in who even I’ve done people years ago and it kind of, you know, SMP it’s just a natural thing where it’s going to spread over time. Like there’s no fine dots on the top of your head that are going to stay there for years.

I’m sorry, like it just doesn’t happen. So over time, no matter who does it, I don’t care if you’re the best artist in the world, it’s gonna spread. That’s just the nature of any tattoo, including SMP, eyebrows, tattoos, whatever. So I’ve had clients come in who I’ve done before and I did, I thought I did a pretty good job. Like everybody makes mistakes, but I thought I did a pretty good job and I blasted it. You know, one session of laser and then

A.Corona (13:10)
Thank

Billy DeCola (13:30)
do another SMP on top of it and it works. mean it’s nice when it’s easy to remove, you know. It’s just when it’s like really dark and deep and over saturated, those dots don’t come out easily.

A.Corona (13:43)
And like I said, mine

was, I’ll make sure I get some photos to you. Mine was very dark and deep and oversaturated. So the person that I actually went to, they’re located in central Florida in Tampa, matter of fact. Shout out to Erasable MedSpa Go ahead and enlist them, because there’s a lot of people dealing with that in Florida. And I know this person has removed a lot of bad SMP. So I got recommended to her by another SMP artist who sees a lot of clients in Tampa.

Billy DeCola (13:50)
Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

A.Corona (14:13)
I it’s been a good experience. was her and then it was the same clinic, but it was a woman named Loretta and then Lauren. And they’re both very knowledgeable man two sessions. And it looks like this. Most people, like you said, I talked to, they’re like, there’s four sessions, five sessions. especially if you go towards Europe, because they, I think they intentionally lower the wavelength to drag it out a little bit more, but also maybe to try to

Billy DeCola (14:29)
Mm-hmm.

A.Corona (14:41)
prevent some hyper-hypo pigmentation, but sometimes, man, I think they really do drag it out, because I’m hearing people over there doing 10 sessions and all type of crazy.

Billy DeCola (14:44)
Yeah.

Well, you know…

Coming from like a laser perspective, when I see a client, my number one priority is like, I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to damage their skin. I don’t want them to have scar tissue or know, blister where it’s going to leave hyperpigmentation or hypo whatever. So my number one priority is never to like damage the skin. ⁓ Number two would be I want to remove the pigment, but I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna put number one above or number two above number one, because then you’re gonna have

clients who are burnt or whatever so I get the slow and steady thing some people may say that we try to drag it out that’s not the case but I just try to make sure that when people come in here their skin is gonna be intact when they leave so

A.Corona (15:38)
And I guess maybe

you’re right though, at the same time, that may be the most, a majority of the clinic’s intentions, right, is to do it safely. But I mean, ⁓ I’m talking about the clinics who have removed a lot of SMP, you know, and they know what they’re doing. For example, this spa has removed a lot of SMP. So if I would have went in there and, you know, she would have not done what she needed to do, she would have been doing four or five sessions. And maybe here in America,

Billy DeCola (15:47)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

A.Corona (16:07)
They would, I would have left. Somebody would have left a negative review, me not personally, because I don’t know what to expect. Right. But somebody would have went in there. man, they’re dragging this shit out. So people in America are very, ⁓ entitled, right? So we, we over here and myself included, right. Cause I have clients that are also sometimes like that have to push the boundaries and make mistakes along the way in order so we can build that knowledge bank and say, okay,

Billy DeCola (16:13)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

A.Corona (16:37)
Now we’re not going to put the machine up this high, but we can also, you know, don’t got to be so low with it. You know what I mean?

Billy DeCola (16:44)
Yeah.

Find a happy medium. And that’s usually

what we try to do is like skate right on that line. But if anything, I’m going to err on the side of being too light rather than going too strong. It’s just that laser is dangerous, man. Like it’s it’s dangerous. So you could hurt people. And that’s not what I’m trying to do. ⁓ Okay. So you had you had laser done after getting SMP ⁓ How did how did it feel once you got it lasered off and you and you felt like, okay, I’m back to my normal self almost.

A.Corona (16:55)
400.

I agree. ⁓

Billy DeCola (17:15)
it like such a relief.

A.Corona (17:17)
Honestly, the first session of laser, it just left the treatment very patchy. You know, very patchy. could see a lot of little circles where the, you know, whenever you can kind of see patterns in the residual pigment from the first session of, you know, from the laser, right? So that first one, and I think I took eight weeks, maybe 10 weeks to go back for my second session, because I wanted to see how much it was going to lighten up.

Billy DeCola (17:29)
yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

A.Corona (17:48)
And from there I was okay. But it was a bad ugly duckling stage for that first two, three months. know, like, man, this looks like shit. I felt like literally how I felt when I was losing hair. You know what I mean? You know whenever you were losing hair, you were in a hat the whole time. was, ah shit, let me grab my hat, because my head looks fucked up right now. And then after the second session of laser, what a relief. But man, that first session was.

Billy DeCola (17:57)
Yeah.

Hahaha.

Yeah.

A.Corona (18:17)
It looked like shit for a while,

Billy DeCola (18:17)
tough. Yeah.

So you had the second session and then how long after that experience did you decide like, Hey, I’m diving into this and I’m going to actually do SMP for myself and like, I want to provide this service.

A.Corona (18:31)
It’s fucked up, man, because it… I would say within a year of getting a touch up from that second guy, I went back to him and paid him $5,000 for a training. Right? Exactly, because I didn’t know any better at the time. I thought he saved me, bro. You know, wasn’t until I… I didn’t know who the hell you were, bro. But anyways, I paid… So like, this guy has all these followers on Instagram. mean, a large following base. He’s done a lot of celebrities.

Billy DeCola (18:48)
I would have charged you four,

Yeah.

A.Corona (19:00)
And so I paid him $5,000 for a three day training and it was one model with 10 students, myself included. And we all worked on the model for 10 minutes apiece.

Billy DeCola (19:10)
That’s a killin’ that dude made off of that.

A.Corona (19:13)
Bro, I’m trying to tell you, right? ⁓ that’s scamming people, bro. That’s all it is is scamming people. mean, that’s the business. Because that’s not training. Because then you might fuck around and have somebody who takes it personal and becomes really good at it and puts you out there. You know what I mean? And I’m not going to do that because I hate making people’s names relevant. But at the same time, ⁓ what I do is real SMP.

Billy DeCola (19:16)
I need to get into that business again. Damn.

Yeah. No.

Yeah.

A.Corona (19:40)
You know, whenever I train students, I think that’s your personal. I, they’re like an extension of myself. So if I, if I feel like I didn’t do the. Trained you to become better than you were when we, when we first came together, then I felt like I didn’t do my job. You know what I mean? So that being said, ⁓ because I’m ADHD, ADD, you know, I immediately hyper focused on, ⁓ okay, my girl’s shit. I’m just kidding.

Billy DeCola (19:41)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

A.Corona (20:10)
But I immediately, I immediately, nah, bro, that’s good.

Billy DeCola (20:10)
Couldn’t help it man.

A.Corona (20:16)
I immediately hyper-focused, you know, and dove into SMP. And I just sit there for hours on these Facebook forums, keyword searching, just looking up everything, following all the artists from everywhere else. I found you, bro. mean, like, there’s people all around the world that I kind of started to network with just because I just…

Billy DeCola (20:29)
Mm-hmm.

A.Corona (20:38)
didn’t have anything else better to do. I hated my, I wouldn’t say I hated my day job, but I just knew that was what I was there for. So I spent a lot of time growing in the beginning and I just realized like, the work that these guys do, that I trained from, I realized, damn, I got gypped. In other words, I got gypped, bro.

Billy DeCola (20:55)
Yeah, yeah.

Well, you had a full bad experience. Like you’ve had the worst experience. You had bad SMP done. You had a bad savior. Then you had a bad training. And then you had laser. And then so you’ve had the worst of the worst pretty much like no matter what aspect of this industry that you’re talking about.

from being a client to being another client to being a student. ⁓ And then you ended up getting laser. And now you’re kind of like, think having all of those negative experiences has made you who you are now as an artist. And I think that’s a great place to come from because you know what to avoid. You know, when you’re teaching a student,

you know what the right way to teach somebody and you also know the wrong way because you’ve had you’ve had that experience firsthand. So I think that you know it speaks for itself when you look at your work and you see how much pride you take in you know what you do and how transparent you are online because I watch your posts and I see like you’re doing the ultra zoom and all that stuff which is it’s great because a lot of people don’t do that.

And I think it’s awesome that you’re taking so much pride in your work and you have so much passion for it. You you’re traveling the world and you’re training with people and you know, trying different things and it’s great to see that, you know, young buck coming up and putting in some effort. So good job for you, man.

A.Corona (22:22)
I appreciate

you, man. I really do, man.

Billy DeCola (22:24)
When you had bad SMP, how much did that affect your confidence when you were just walking around? Like, how did it make you feel?

A.Corona (22:36)
would say because I’m Hispanic and it was boxed up, it didn’t look as bad on me as it would look, or say on you, right? You know, let’s just be transparent with that, right? So maybe, you got some, you got some gray, some salt and pepper, it might look all right, you know? But at the same time, I didn’t get as much negative from like the public as I thought I would because it just, ⁓ it was like, I would say it was like a bad passable job. You know, it was one of those, that’s the reason they got.

Billy DeCola (22:46)
you

A.Corona (23:05)
most of those followers and everything like that is because the job is passable, but it’s still not good, you know?

Billy DeCola (23:07)
Yeah, so it

didn’t destroy your confidence like you weren’t like waking up in the morning all depressed or like

A.Corona (23:15)
Only,

no, no, no, nothing like that. Only, it actually really did help my confidence. Like I said, cause I had a frame, you know, at the end of the day, it was, you know, I will show you what it looks like, but most people have had clients come here whenever I had it done, oh man, I love yours. It looks so good. Or I would have people come here and say, I mean, I want it just like that. Where I would show them what it used to look like. And they’re like, I actually like that. And I’m like, damn bro, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to work together at this point, you know?

Billy DeCola (23:35)
You’re like…

All right, let’s do it. Just tap them out.

A.Corona (23:45)
Sign this way.

But yeah, so honestly, it really wasn’t that bad until like maybe if I was hanging out with a new chick or something like that, because like I said, I got it done in my my 20s, bro, you know, and so like if I were hanging out with a new girl or something and she was rubbing my head, I’m like, damn, is she going to look at my shit too hard? Or if I was at dinner or something like in a bright setting and I’m like this, it just made me feel like uncomfortable. like my my goal has always been, I mean, in the beginning.

Billy DeCola (24:00)
Yeah.

A.Corona (24:15)
In the beginning, I used to tell my clients, like, I want you to be out, you know, like on a date with someone new and be eating your dinner like this and not feel uncomfortable with them, like your head being down and them looking at it, you know, and not being able to tell the difference. And I just think if more artists really strive for that, the entire industry would just elevate as a whole, you know.

Billy DeCola (24:30)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it’s tough though because if you think about this industry, there’s a lot of money to be made and it’s an easy entry into it. How much effort do you have to put into jumping into the industry? You don’t even have to take a class. You could go online and take my online course or whatever.

A.Corona (24:56)
We’re gonna buy it. Oops.

Billy DeCola (24:58)
trying to plug it in there, right here. ⁓ You could take an online course or whatever, or you could just go on YouTube and try to figure things out, which a lot of people do with tattooing too, like all around here, man. People are popping up with like these private studios.

A.Corona (25:11)
And it is true.

Billy DeCola (25:15)
They have no experience whatsoever. And that’s the beautiful side of like for me for having a laser. I used to, I used to look at that and I’d hate it. I’d be like, man, you guys are ruining the industry and you know that there’s no room in the tattoo industry for you guys. And now when I see new studios or private studios popping up, I’m just like, hell yeah, man, bring it on. Give me some work, you know.

A.Corona (25:38)
And that’s true. I should

embrace that more, right? I really should because…

It’s going to make me ⁓ more desired as an artist and more sought out because I said the work speaks for itself. I’m very transparent. So a lot of my clients, they like that about me. You know, I want to, I want to give you the most information that you need to make an informed decision. Right. I’m not just going to say, I’m not trying to get irritated with them and all this. I mean, trust me, I do got some clients that are red

Billy DeCola (25:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

A.Corona (26:10)
Most artists would consider them red flags, but they’re really just curious. They’re about to get their hair tattooed, bro. They don’t even have most, I would say more than half of my clients don’t even have tattoos. This is their first tattoo, you know? so it, mm-hmm.

Billy DeCola (26:16)
Yeah.

It’s a scary thing to get into. I

would be if I was getting SMP, I would be scared. And I know a bunch of good SMP artists, and I still would be nervous, man. I don’t think I’d be able to sit there. Yeah, man.

A.Corona (26:32)
Why you think I’ve been waiting a year to get this last session, bro? You know, trust me, I’m

not saying, I’ve strongly considered doing my own SMP on the front.

Billy DeCola (26:41)
You

can’t. I don’t know, man. That would be too hard to do. I think like controlling the depth would be…

A.Corona (26:45)
I mean, bro, I’m a difficult.

It’s real. I bro. Trust me, that’s not the problem. I can draw the hairline on myself. I could do it even. It’s just probably when I get to this side would probably be a bitch. You know what I mean?

Billy DeCola (26:59)
Yeah, you’d be coming in at the wrong angle and it would be all you. Trust me. I don’t think you’d be able to pull it off. I’d like to see you try, but maybe. I don’t know. Have you ever seen those rollers where people roll the dots on their head? Get the roller man.

A.Corona (27:04)
I think I can pull it off. I think I can pull it off.

off, you I’m not doing nothing like that. But this is one of those things, you know,

where even then I say all that, but I still most of the time as any artist, man, I always criticize my own work more than anybody could criticize my work. You know, it’s like the Mona, every treatment like the Mona Lisa, I felt like I’m trying to take forever to do it. And at the end of the day, it’s no treatment is ever going to be perfect.

Billy DeCola (27:26)
Well.

Yeah.

day you stop criticizing your own work is the day you’re just gonna fall off. I think you always gotta be critical of your work. It’s those guys who think that they’re the best or they don’t have to improve anymore, they don’t have anything more to learn. It’s those people that I feel like their level just drops. You can’t sustain with that, because everybody else is gonna continue to go up. They’re gonna learn new things, use new tools, use new techniques.

A.Corona (28:00)
So what they’re

hoping for, man, is to try to create a monopoly to where the only information out there in the industry is what they put out there. You know what I mean? So then they’re not gonna know what better work is gonna be like. They’re just gonna say, oh, grab this tiny ass needle, this dark color and put your machine very high. I I see you all the time. It’s only gonna be when quality work gets out there and is more…

Billy DeCola (28:09)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

A.Corona (28:27)
readily available for other students to see who had trained with these people because those are the students that are going to be like, damn, they’re going to feel how I felt. Like, when I seen other artists work compared to the person I paid $5,000 of my hard-earned money to and learned nothing, I was like, wow, you know, and it’s going to create this negative outlook towards that person and what they stand for, who they initially trained with. And those are going to be the type of artists who

Billy DeCola (28:37)
Yeah.

A.Corona (28:57)
Hopefully they have better, higher quality work. Because like I said, don’t think, I mean, a lot of people charge small amounts for SMP. And they say, everyone’s doing it. And I get it, but not everyone’s doing it good. It’s just like tattooing, man. It’s just like tattooing. You can charge whatever the fuck you want. It’s your work.

Billy DeCola (29:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly. So if somebody wanted to, if somebody wanted to find you to get SMP done or to get a training done, what’s the best way of them getting in touch with you? Do they find you on Instagram? Do they go to your website?

A.Corona (29:31)
Yeah, I think

the best way to get in touch with me would be on Instagram, which is SMP ⁓ underscore by Alex. I’ll give you the links because there’s a lot of underscores in that bad boy, right? But it’s SMP by Alex Corona with a bunch of underscores in between each. ⁓ And then or it’s my WhatsApp, which is going to be my number is going to be on Instagram as well. So you know, text on WhatsApp is probably the best way as well. I’m like real heartland with my work.

Billy DeCola (29:43)
Okay.

Okay.

And you do,

yeah, so you do in-person trainings as well? Do you do like group trainings or is it like a small group, like two or three people, or do you do single people? How do you prefer to do it?

A.Corona (30:08)
I prefer personally right now to do master’s trainings because I think there’s a lot of artists out there who just need more to upscale their own work. know, they’re right there, but they were, they’re only, they’ve trained with a lot of artists, but maybe it’s just, I feel like as every artist trains with more artists, I’ve trained with multiple people. I always take one thing and I always think if I can just give you one thing that you walk away with that was that thing for you, then I think I did my job. You know what I mean? But at the same time,

Billy DeCola (30:36)
Yeah.

A.Corona (30:37)
I do, I’m in the process of trying to develop a beginner’s course as you and I spoke about where a majority of them be out online. And then once they did the curriculum online, I’ll be able to see everything where they’re at with, with each, each subject, basically, then I can maybe hit that harder with them in person and say, okay, now you can come train with me, in person for this much more, you know, but I know now I don’t have to wait so much time with you going over.

Billy DeCola (30:47)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah

A.Corona (31:07)
the small stuff,

Billy DeCola (31:08)
basics.

Yeah,

it’s nice when I found when I train, like somebody who’s never touched a tattoo machine before, I feel like it’s really important to have that in person right away. Because holding a machine and just having like the basic mechanics, it’s so hard to figure out even if you’re watching something or somebody’s giving you like very precise instructions. It’s like swinging a baseball bat or like shooting a basketball or something like you can watch it online, but you’re not going to be able to get that

flow unless you’re like really, you know, being coached in person. That’s how I feel anyway. ⁓ I do have the same, it’s okay, I do have the same thing where I have that like online course too and I think it’s a great prerequisite before people come in so they get the basic concept but. ⁓

A.Corona (31:45)
No, I agree. I’m sorry I made a joke. Go ahead.

Billy DeCola (32:02)
like all the mechanics and everything, that’s gotta be in person. There’s no substitute for the in-person thing. So I think that’s good what you’re doing, where you’re mixing it up, you’re giving like the basics first online or however you’re gonna do it and then have them come in for the in-person stuff. I think that’s the way to do it.

A.Corona (32:22)
Yeah, I appreciate it. You just said the same thing, you know, like a a prereq basically to the to the training because there’s a lot that when it comes to the size of the needles, the pigment, the just wrapping the machine, just every all the small stuff that when somebody’s there, you don’t want to waste time teaching them or you just it’s just so small that it goes overlooked. But they’re going to keep on asking you all these little itty bitty questions if they’re a beginner.

Billy DeCola (32:47)
Mm-hmm.

A.Corona (32:52)
because they haven’t developed their own way of doing it. So the only thing they’re going to be exposed to is your way of doing it. Right? So I just want to make sure that they have the best way and they always have access to it and don’t have to blow me up all the time, you know? But it’s still okay.

Billy DeCola (32:58)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah

for sure.

No, it’s tough teaching because it’s a big responsibility and I know people, you know, when they leave the class or whatever, they go and they start doing stuff and then when they’re on their own, that’s when they figure out they learn kind of what they don’t know. It’s after you start doing it. And that’s good for you. Like if you’re doing like a master’s class or however, whatever you want to call it. ⁓ People who have already experienced SMP and or any type of tattooing for that matter, you don’t really know what you don’t know until you try.

And then once you try, you’re gonna figure out like, hey, this is my weak spot, or this is something I just can’t figure out. Now I got some questions for you, and then you go into the in-person class. So that’s good to see you’re doing that. I’m excited to see, ⁓ I’d love to see when you do put that online thing together. I’d love to see what it looks like. So send me that link when you get it. ⁓

A.Corona (33:38)
exactly.

I got you bro. Appreciate

it man.

Billy DeCola (34:03)
Yeah, it’s been great talking with you. Thanks for sharing your story. I’m happy that we could finally chat. I know we’ve been in contact. We’ve been in contact online for a while, and it’s finally good to. Yeah, man.

A.Corona (34:11)
What’s wrong? What’s wrong, man?

Florida Boys in the house, you know?

⁓ Yeah,

sure. It’s been honestly a pleasure. Thank you for having me, man. It’s an honor to be speaking with the legendary, Billy DeCola, you know, that’s what’s up. So I do plan on Vancouver, though, man, hopefully sometime this year. You know, there was somebody that was wanting to do a master’s training there. Maybe maybe I’ll put on a a beginner’s training. But, you know, me it has to be small. It would have to be small. And even for me, like beginner’s training, I like to be like

Billy DeCola (34:29)
Yeah, man.

Yeah, three, four students.

Yeah.

A.Corona (34:49)
Do like three or four days, man. Or two days is… You know?

Billy DeCola (34:52)
Yeah.

I like to do three days and then two days of models and then the first day is just all like fake skin or whatever and just like basic stuff. But yeah, if you come up here, let me know. Maybe we can do something together. But yeah, let’s keep in touch for sure.

A.Corona (35:07)
For sure bro.

Yes sir man, you have a good night bro, I appreciate you.

Billy DeCola (35:12)
All right, ladies and gentlemen, Alex Corona, thank you very much for coming on the FADED podcast. Appreciate it.

A.Corona (35:12)
know bro.

Thank you, Billy Manning. Take care.