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            How does a small-town tattoo artist end up inking one his favorite rock bands? Ask Harry Aron from Danville, Virginia, because that is exactly what he has been doing. And he isn't done yet.

    Harry always knew he was going to be an artist. He began professional oil and acrylic painting at age 9 (!), started studying pencils at age 10 and by the time he was in High School, he says it was just "a sea of awards". Festivals, art shows and contests -- if you attended them, you knew the name Harry Aron. In 1984, he enrolled at the VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University) and graduated in 1988 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree. After dabbling in some art design, doing some air brushing on the side, and constantly looking for a job in his chosen field, He was offered a position at a tattoo shop in North Carolina, and that is where he found his niche. In 1997, he opened his own place, Harry's Tattoo Shop in Danville, VA, where he is known for his custom work and he will gladly tell you when you come in the door, that "yes, he is the most expensive shop in town" but, "you get what you pay for". And when you are talking about something that is going to be on you forever, why would you want to compromise? "You'd be surprised," says Harry. A big chunk of his business comes from people that have had a tattoo somewhere else, and come to him to fix it or in some cases, completely cover it up. You'll see an example of it later on in this story.

So where does Def Leppard come in?

    One of his large pieces that recently took fist place at the Richmond VA tattoo convention, was a leg sleeve done all in Lord Of The Rings. "It just started as a small calf piece of one of the ring wraiths and moved upwards from there". It now stretches from upper thigh to ankle and is a collage of Lord Of The Rings characters and elvish script. This piece was seen by Malvin Mortimer at the Def Leppard show in Roanoke VA, and the owner of the leg, Trampas Alderson, is a mutual friend of Malvin's and Harry's.

    Malvin quickly called Ricky Warwick over to check out the work on Trampas, and seeing what a huge tattoo buff Ricky is and how impressed with Harry's work he seemed to be, Trampas told him that the artist that did the work would be coming to the Raleigh, NC show with him (April 18). Ricky told Trampas to bring him a day early and for Harry to bring his tattoo machines. When he arrived, Harry started by tattooing several members of the crew (Wolfie, Baggy and Eric). Several people were waiting in line, but time was limited, so they invited Harry to Charlotte the next day. Of course he went and did more work there.

    However, up to that point, there were so many members of the crew that wanted work, that Harry still had not gotten to do Ricky. So, he was invited to Tampa, Florida a week later, where he finally got to work on Ricky's arm.

    Now if that wasn't exciting enough, after he got back to Virginia, he got a call at his shop from Wolfie, who not only found some more skin on himself that he wanted done, he had a request from Joe as well. "Joe needs some cover-up work and wants to fly you to Kansas to do it for him". Upon arrival in Kansas, Harry did a Celtic knot on Joe's left arm. Harry: "Joe was great, a really cool guy and an old pro at getting tattoos. He probably could have slept through this!".

And there was more. While in Kansas, Harry found out that Sav wanted his first tattoo: "He was quite nervous I think, having never had one, but he did fine and took it like a man!"