JM Brenner explains the significance of music and how it has affected his choice in tattoos. Photo by Drew Kosmak.

HARRISON PRYOR | STAFF REPORTER | hrpryor@butler.edu 

“Tattoo Tales” is a series in which The Butler Collegian speaks with a Butler community member about their tattoos and the stories behind them. 

Content warning: Mentions of self-harm.

Music saves people. Whether it is a peppy pop bop to lift one’s spirits or emotionally driven melancholy tunes to relate to, music is always there for everyone. This is especially true for sophomore strategic communication major JM Brenner, whose growing collection of tattoos symbolize albums and artists that have strengthened his love for life. Brenner spoke with The Butler Collegian about what each tattoo means both to the musicians and himself.

THE BUTLER COLLEGIAN: You have some cool tattoos to show off. What have you got? 

JM BRENNER: I’ve got one Mac Miller tattoo [that] says, “I love life,” [and] “Thank you,” three times — it’s his posthumous album. I’ve also got a butterfly. It’s a self-harm awareness tattoo. I’ve got “blond” by Frank Ocean; that’s my favorite album of all time, [and it] just means a lot to me. I’ve got one on my chest as well. It’s a Daniel Caesar tattoo from “Pilgrim’s Paradise”, which is his 2015 [EP]. 

TBC: You have a lot of music-based tattoos. Does music have a big impact on your life? 

JMB: Oh, it absolutely does. It’s gotten me through the worst times of my life, honestly. I put on a pair of headphones and just listen. It’s the best thing in the world. I feel like music is a universal language. I’ve been playing the drums since I was a little kid, and I’ve got an ear for it, so it’s a big thing for me. 

TBC: Starting with the first tattoo you mentioned — the Mac Miller one — how do you think that album and artist specifically impacted your life? 

JMB: Well, Mac struggled with substance abuse for a long time in his life, and I’ve struggled with things like that as well, especially mental health issues. He just spoke to me through his music. This album specifically means a lot to me because of the way he talks about life, especially with [the album being] posthumous. It means a lot to me because I don’t want to die; I want to celebrate my life as much as I can.

TBC: Can you explain the Frank Ocean tattoo that says “blond”?

JMB: There’s two separate versions of the album [title]: “blond” with no “e” [on the cover] and “Blonde” with an “e” on it [for the title]. The album means the most to me out of any album ever. It’s arguably one of the greatest albums of all time. Apple Music ranked it [as] number five on its top 100 list. It’s split up perfectly into two parts. It has some great themes and talks about the college experience a little bit as well. I got all four [of my tattoos] on my birthday [over] two separate years, and this one just spoke to me. I’ve always had a lot of passion for Frank Ocean as well. He’s just a great artist; he’s spoken to me through his music and I feel like those types of artists are the ones that mean the most to me. If I can live my life through music, then I feel like my life gets a lot better. I put my faith in the music, if that makes sense. 

TBC: Can you tell us more about your chest tattoo and what it means? 

JMB: [Daniel Caesar’s] album [cover] is representative of him falling off of a building and just letting himself go, and that’s what I’ve embodied in my life over the last year or so: Letting myself fall to rock bottom and then building myself up from there. This is the only tattoo on my left side because I’ve always felt like I’ve been dominant on my right side, but I wanted this to display the care I have for my entire body and what I want to do with it.

TBC: Could you talk a bit about the butterfly?

JMB: This is supposed to represent where you have self-harmed in the past, and it’s supposed to represent flying away. The butterfly represents healing, essentially. I wanted to get this one to almost override the marks that I’ve put on myself. This one means the most to me for sure, because it’s representative of my mental health journey the most. I’m really thankful for this tattoo. It’s faded and it’s messed up, but that represents a little bit of me too, because I’m not perfect [either], and I know that. [The “I Love Life, Thank You”] one has some issues as well, but that’s on purpose by Mac Miller himself. These all mean a lot to me. They’re not perfect, but that’s not who I am either, so they’re pretty ‘me’. It’s funny, I actually got them at pretty bad points in my life, and I didn’t think they meant a lot to me, but as I came back into my own personality, my own self, they started to mean more. Now, it’s a pathway to my life. 

TBC: You mentioned you got these done on your birthdays. Were they gifts or just things you did on your own, and what ages were you when you got them?

JMB: They were gifts. My parents all got fake tattoos to show me love and [support] because they were very anti-tattoo for a long time, and I [am] the first and only person in my family to get tattoos. [I] grew up kind of sheltered. I was 18 [for the first pair] and I [had just] turned 19 when I got my second one. I had to wait until I was an adult, but I’m glad I waited because I don’t think a lot of things meant a lot to me before I [turned 18]. 

TBC: Do you have any future tattoo plans? 

JMB: I want to get patchwork on my entire arm and want to build it out musically as well. I want to get a musical staff somewhere, and I also want to get something about drums somewhere. I want to fill my upper body with tattoos but leave my left side a little bit more open, to represent again [that my right hand] is my strong hand. This is what I do everything with, and my left hand is representative of what I’ve lost in my life, so it’s just going to stay empty. 

TBC: Do you have any specific ones that you are looking at? 

JMB: I haven’t looked that hard, [but] my birthday is coming up soon, so I may see if I can get one in New York … I have a few albums in mind that I would definitely get. I would maybe get Frank Ocean’s other album, “channel ORANGE”, and maybe an album called “Either/Or” by Elliott Smith as well.