Phantom Tattoo Owner Sean Lindseth Keeps it Old-School

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When Sean Lindseth, owner of Phantom Tattoo in Centralia, began tattooing at 14 years old in 1984, tattoos were for the outcasts, the outlaws, the bikers, the punk rockers. Now, soccer moms, college students, hipsters, basically everyone and their dog are getting tattoos.

After 36 years in the business, he’s watched tattoo culture shift from the fringe to mass commercialization. 

In the 80s, tattoo artists were tattooing maybe 1 percent of the population, Lindseth said. It wasn’t profitable to have two or three shops in the same area. There just weren’t enough customers to support it. Now, about 38 percent of young people ages 18 to 29 have at least one tattoo, according to a study by the Pew Research Center.

“It was a different world back then,” Lindseth said. “Now they’re like coffee shops. One on every corner. But we’re also tattooing a wider base of people.”

He was originally going to be a pressman running offset presses. Back in high school, he would see pressmen with tattoos and it was one job where he could have tattoos and still make a good living. Tattoo shops were few and far in between and opportunities to work at one were difficult, to say the least.

He started out at Capitol City Press in Olympia, but because he didn’t have a college degree they were going to put a broom in his hand. He said he told them to shove it.

Fortunately, Electric Rose Tattoo studio was opening up in Olympia at the same time. It was 1989 and Lindseth was 18 years old. He started getting tattooed there and within a couple weeks the owner offered him an apprenticeship. Lindseth took the offer and never looked back.

“I always knew I was going to do something with my art for a living and I knew I really hated school, wasn’t interested in going back to college and this was an opportunity to do something I loved,” Lindseth said. “And somebody was handing it to me in a silver platter.”

By 2004, it was time for Lindseth to open his own shop. He was choosing between either Tacoma or Centralia. In the end, it was cheaper in Centralia. Plus, there were few shops between Olympia and Portland, Oregon along Interstate-5 at the time. People were driving from Lewis County to Olympian to get tattoos at the Electric Rose, which was the only shop in Olympia at the time.

“And then it just stopped,” Lindseth said. “So I came down to figure out why and I noticed there was another shop that had opened, so people had a stopgap and I came down to restake our claim. These are our customers. We’re getting them back.”

So Lindseth opened Phantom Tattoo in Centralia in 2004. It’s a satellite store, a collection of “family” of shops centered around Pete Stephens’ Seattle Tattoo Emporium. Electric Rose is also a part of that family of shops and Phantom Tattoo, which is co-owned by Pete Stephens, is the southernmost location. Lindseth runs Phantom Tattoo and Stephens is more hands-off.



Over the years, Lindseth has watched tattooing go from the back alleys to plastered on mainstream media and television.

It was always popular, just not with a wide-base of people. When Lindseth was a kid, star athletes like Julius “Dr. J” Erving didn’t have tattoos. Once professional athletes and musicians were displaying lots of tattoos, like LeBron James, it began to catch fire. 

“It was like, ‘Wow, look at that dude. He’s got a full sleeve,’” Lindseth said. “You’d never see that before. It brought it to a much wider spectrum of people. People started coming in that you wouldn’t normally see get tattoos.”

It’s been a bittersweet transition for Lindseth, who is old-school through and through.

“I liked it when it was anti-social,” Lindseth said. “I didn’t get into tattooing to be popular. I was an anti-social, punk-rock kid. I liked the fact that people were afraid of my heavy tattoos. It kept them away from me. It was social armor.”

Lindseth got into tattooing so he could wear jeans and a T-shirt to work, listen to Motorhead all day, make people happy and still make a good living. It’s his life. He’s been tattooing since he was 14 years old and he just turned 50. He doesn’t know anything else. Does he wish the tattoo scene was still what it was back when he started? Yes. But he was also younger back then.

“When things start happening that change a person’s life, it’s going to meet a bit of resistance,” Lindseth said. “I do wish it was a little more like it was in the 80s and 90s, yes, but I don’t know I would be able to afford to buy a house and open my own shop had it remained like that. So I’m kind of on the fence about that.”

Artists used to never be able to get tattoo supplies unless the company knew who you were. The Internet didn’t exist when Lindseth started. One couldn’t just go online and order stuff off of Ebay. Unless you knew somebody you weren’t tattooing and opening a shop. Now it’s a free-for-all. You can get supplies from anywhere delivered to the shop.

Customers to Phantom Tattoo won’t see any plaques or awards on the walls of the studio, not necessarily because Lindseth hasn’t won any, but because he’s chosen not to enter any contests. That’s now what he does it for. It’s not a competition, it’s a lifestyle.

“This isn’t a contest for me, this is my life,” Lindseth said. “I do this for the smiles on people’s faces, not the plaques on the wall. I love tattooing but I still view it differently than the modern tattooer.”

He doesn’t need thousands of followers on social media, though he does have over 1,000 followers on both Facebook and Instagram. He even has notifications muted on both. He’ll post updates for his shop and a photo of a tattoo that he likes every now and then, but that’s about the extent of it.

There are currently five tattoo shops in Centralia, but Lindseth doesn’t see them as competition.

“I’m just a pirate on a ship, sailing through the waters and taking on all comers,” Lindseth said. “And it’s going to take an awful lot to knock me off my perch. People open up across the street from me and it doesn’t affect my business. It just pushes me. I don’t trash talk them, I just out-tattoo them.”