The Jalopy JournalDennis McPhail
I’m going to guess it was around 1997. That was the year that I first met Dennis McPhail. I had been running The Jalopy Journal and the H.A.M.B. for a few years by then, but I was doing so in a complete vacuum. Living in Norman, Oklahoma where there was a literal void of anything that could be considered a traditional car scene made me a bit of a recluse. For the most part, I just read about traditional hot rods and obsessed on my own.
Dennis McPhail changed all of that. For reasons that escape me now, my first interaction with Dennis was over the phone. He mentioned something about a KOA show in Fort Smith, Arkansas and that he would be rolling through Oklahoma City on his way over from Wichita. A bit reluctantly and half thinking I would never follow through, I agreed to meet Dennis at a gas station on I-40 and to follow him to Arkansas for a weekend that he promised would change me.
I had gone on my first date with Marcie a week prior to leaving for the trip and remember being incredibly impressed that she agreed to go. Looking back, the opportunity to have her in a car with me for a few hours is probably the only reason I decided to leave the comfort of Norman. It’s just another example of the crazy circumstances that all seemed to fall together and make this story possible.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself already.
Marcie and I sat in a hole in the wall Italian restaurant across from the gas station and waited for Dennis to appear. After an hour or so, a long and low ’63 Galaxy pulled in and Dennis stepped out with his two boys. He was rough looking. No, he looked downright unapproachable – tattoos blazing, long beard flowing, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, the works… And here I was, some polished ivory college kid with his sorority-girl girlfriend trying his damnedest to be a hot rodder.
Even so, we had miles to drive and no time to lament on differences. Dennis lead and I followed… for all of about 5 miles. It was then that Dennis had an axle bearing go south. We spent somewhere north of 6 hours on the side of the road – Dennis and I trying not to be the hacks that we are and Marcie trying her best to babysit Dennis’ young boys. In the end, we gave up and had the Galaxy towed back to my house. After some pizza, Marcie and I hopped back in the ’38 while Dennis and his boys took my late model truck.
We arrived in Fort Smith at around two or three in the morning. We weren’t incredibly different travel partners anymore… we were all just pals. And it’s been a friendship that has lasted ever since. Dennis and I have done multiple cross country trips together, countless car shows, and all kinds of shenanigans that I won’t bore you too much with. And of course, Bunni McPhail (Dennis’ wife) and Marcie (now my wife) have become good pals too. It’s a family thing.
Dennis was right. That trip changed me forever.
And it wouldn’t be too long before Dennis changed me, forever, yet again. See, by the time I met Dennis he was already a well established artist. He had worked with Roth, learned the ropes, and was selling posters and the like at car shows all across the country. However, he was just starting to learn how to tattoo and I became one of his first clients. It hurt like hell and the flamed pie crust slick on my left arm is still my only tattoo.
And here we are, ten years later… Dennis and I are still close pals and we are both doing the same shit – just more of it. In fact, Dennis now owns and operates one of the most friendly tattoo shops in the mid west – Artist At Large in Wichita, Kansas. And, of course, he’s still deep into hot rods and customs. His latest tattoo shop features a hot rod and custom hobby shop in back.
I’ve yet to make it out to Dennis’ latest shop, but a good pal (Hank Cash) called just the other night and filled me in on the details. He was so impressed and so excited for Dennis that he decided to take some cameras out and shoot the environment. Shortly after, he sent me the photos and I thought they would be great to accompany an interview with Dennis that I have always wanted to do.
The stars just lined up.
TJJ: What came first for you – cars or art?
Dennis: Old monster movies and dinosaurs came first. My mom still has a lot of old grocery sacks that she’d cut ever so carefully so that I could have paper do scratch on. We didn’t have much money then so it was pencil stuff mostly, maybe some crayon. That was all before kindergarten and school – probably around ’69 or ’70? Like I said, we didn’t have much money so I just got lost in a piece of paper.
My dad had owned several old cars before my mom came along and they got married, so he knew what was up. And we lived in Wichita – home of Darryl Starbird and the Fundamentals car club. So the car thing most likely started by attending one of Darryl’s indoor shows at Century II. I started building model cars so I could enter them into the model car contests. It was cheaper to go to the show that way and get a weekend pass, so it was kind of a win-win for me. I wish I could remember the first car picture I drew, but I’m sure it was in that time frame and from one of those shows.
TJJ: Influences… I know you started early in life with both cars and art. Who was it that really started you in on all of this?
Dennis: Base influences were probably my mom and dad. It was never the kind of deal they pushed as a career, but it was just something they accidentally made available to me. I was the weird kid who stayed inside during the summer drawing and building model cars. My uncles were both members of the Fundamentals car club and they would take me to car shows and early club meetings. So, family made all of that wonderful car culture available to me.
My very earliest influence as far as putting cars and art together was one of my uncle’s fellow club members – Mike Behrendt. He did all of the show cards for the club and always brought paper and sketches to club meetings. I watched him interview my uncle for a show card for one of his cars, all the while sketching layouts and ideas. Something clicked inside me as I watched that whole process and it has just stuck. Eventually, I got bolder and started doing drawings and building models of club members cars. Ronnie Dunham’s ’58 Impala was the first car I ever got paid to draw. That car was also, coincidentally, the first car in Wichita with hydraulics installed to get it lower when parked. It was a mild custom with whitewalls and a stance in the 1970’s.
My love of the actual cars was from lots of people around Wichita. Lots of the Fundamentals members would give me rides in their cars and let me hang out. Johnny Hamman, Hub Harness, Ronnie Dick, Ronnie Dunham, Larry Wolfe – All heroes to me.
Another huge and I mean HUGE milestone in my life was meeting Elden Titus. I was eleven and Elden was building a ’41 Chevrolet sedan delivery for my uncle. Elden lived pretty close to me so my uncle picked me up one day to go over and see what was going on with the project. It was amazing to see what Elden had done to that piece of junk. Elden took the time to answer a lot of questions even though he was working against a deadline. I didn’t see Elden for awhile after that until he was asked to judge a model car contest at my school. He gave me a first prize and hung out after class to talk cars with me. Later that night Elden called my dad and asked if he would mind if he could hire me as a helper. Twenty bucks a week to clean up the garage and learn as much as I could. That had to be around 78 or 79?
I had several years of hanging out with Elden and soaking up all of his old “little page” magazines when his older brother Jerry started talking about the Merc-Deuce Reunion. That, as we all know, led the way for the formation of the Kustom Kemps of America. I’m not going to go into a history of the KKOA tangent here, but it was REALLY cool to be around when all that was starting.
I remember getting out of school one Friday for the first Leadsled Nationals in Wichita in ’81. There was sort of a ‘garage crawl’ kinda thing and Eldens garage was on the list. There were a lot of cars coming over the bridge that day, but Lee Pratt’s ’41 Buick was the only one I remember vividly. I met Lee Pratt and Rod Powell although I had no idea who they were at the time.
My sense of style, and when I say that I mean the sense of car styling I like, was heavily influenced by those little page magazines, Elden Titus, and Lee Pratt’s Buick. There was something different about the way all of the wichita cars sat, the color schemes and so on.
TJJ: Who do you look up to and why?
Dennis: I look up to a lot of people in a lot of different fields. Jack Rudy, Rick Dore, Jimmie White, Jason Kidd, Jesse James, James Hetfield, Gary Howard, Steve Wertheimer, a lot of Guys in the Beatniks car club who know who they are. etc…
I look up to all of these guys not only because they are all car guys, but because of their sense of purpose. It’s a pretty fake world out there today and these guys get up every day and do not compromise. They are who they are for whatever reason, but they are not apologetic for it nor do they try to change to become easier to swallow for the masses. They are leaders whether they know it or not. I have learned a lot about life and how the big picture works from watching these guys and trying to figure out how they tick.
TJJ: At what point did you look at what you were doing and realize that this was it. You were a car guy. You quit your job and do it full time, etc…
Dennis: My ‘career’ has been a long series of building blocks and being at the right place at the right time. From those pre kindergarten days to working with Elden, it all just kind of happened – ya know?
I spent six years in the United States Air Force right out of high school during the 80’s. I went through one bad marriage and a lot of time trying to figure out who I was. One common theme that always seemed to work out for me was to go back to my roots and what I knew. After the bad marriage, I went straight home and reclaimed the woman I really loved all along – Ms. Bunni. We struggled for a long time as a new family with two young boys. I tried to do the car thing as a hobby, but usually ended up having to use the old cars as daily family transportation because we couldn’t afford much more. I was always somehow able to subsidize the cars by trading art for parts and labor. I was way better with a pen than a torch or wrench.
After a string of after Air Force factory jobs, including one very cool but low paying job doing art and layout for KKOA alongside ex Street Rodder editor Geoff Carter, my local notoriety as an artist landed me a job interview with Halibrand wheel company right after it was moved to Wellington, Kansas from California. Working at Halibrand was a great experience in it’s own right, but it also gave me a ton of exposure. I got a lot of breaks from the magazines and started doing freelance pieces for Custom Rodder and Rod & Custom.
This was the time when I met Ed Roth – another life milestone. I don’t think Ed liked me at first. He kept putting me off and just kind of side stepping me, but eventually he gave me a shot at redoing several old designs for him. Those turned out good enough I guess and he eventually let me ink originals that he’d provide the ideas for.
Working with Ed and the magazines led to a friendship with Rob Fortier, who worked for Custom Rodder at the time. Keep Ed and Rob in mind cause they fit into this story again in a minute, remember I said Building blocks right?
So the traditional trend is starting up again about that time with the anti-billet movement and all. My boss at Halibrand wanted to redo his ’32 five window and let myself and a co-worker do the work on it. That little redo turned into my first ‘job’ restyling and directing a build. I had decided on spiderwebs pinstriped like scallops on the side of the body, but couldn’t find a pinstriper locally who knew what traditional striping was. Jerry Slover of Pete and Jake’s suggested Blaine scott from Kansas City. I spent that weekend with Blaine painting on that ’32 and by the time Sunday rolled around, we had decided to travel to California for the RatFink reunion.
This is where Ed Roth and Rob Fortier come back into play. Rob was gracious enough to let us crash at his pad for the weekend and Ed agreed to let me sell copies of my first two prints at a table so I could fund the trip. That was a huge step into doing art fulltime. Soon after, I started doing more prints and more shows.
My art soon started to overshadow my duties at Halibrand. My first forearm tattoo was the last straw for Halibrand and I was sent on my way. I still had a wife and two kids, so I signed on at a factory to pay the bills. Three months of being miserable made my wife Bunni miserable. She literally made me quit and setup a studio in my house so I could freelance fulltime. Bunni pushed me into this job.
TJJ: So now you’re in it. You are obsessed by cars. You live for the art. And then the tattoo thing went down. What made ya start?
Dennis: I was doing the freelance thing and hawking shirts and posters at shows a lot. I had gained a membership into the famed Beatniks car club whose membership included more than a few tattoo artists. I was just around that scene a lot and eventually started seeing a lot of my art getting tattooed on people. After a failed attempt to gain an apprenticeship in Kansas, Erik Inclan offered me the chance to apprentice with him in Dallas. I drove to Dallas from Wellington, KS every Thursday; returning on Monday for almost two years.
I saw tattooing as a natural extension for what I was doing. I had already started incorporating traditional images into my art for awhile anyway. Tattooing was a lot more personal and immediately gratifying than doing a print or a shirt and hoping it struck a cord with someone weeks later. The traditional side of tattooing seemed to run parallel with the traditional car scene as well. Everything seemed to fit.
I’ve been tattooing since ’98 and we’ve transformed an idea of Artist at Large World Headquarters into a brick and mortar building and place. I have an incredible crew in place up front tattooing alongside me and we’re starting on building the garage/museum/artstudio in the back of the shop. My job description is to wake up and do what I love – Art, Cars, and take care of the people that enable me to do that.
TJJ: Most artists have a favorite subject… Past that, what’s your favorite car to think about and sketch when you’re bored?
Dennis: I haven’t had a chance to be bored. I have gotten tired of a certain medium at times… or a style. On the art side of town, I can switch from colored pencil, pen and ink, brush and ink, or paint objects or canvases with One-Shot enamel. There is always some project I’m overdue on. In fact, some years overdue. With tattooing, I’ve tried not to pigeonhole myself into one style. We’ve structured the tattoo shop into a typical walk-in street shop so we get a full range of requests in the course of one day. I love fine-line black and gray and portrait style work, but I can go straight to a traditional tattoo with the very next client. All of the guys at the shop are very versatile as far as style goes. It keeps everything fresh and burnout at a minimum.
No matter what the subject i have the most fun when a client gives me an idea and a space to work with, but lets me handle the rest. I enjoy drawing the rough sketch on whatever part of the body and making it fit the contours and shape. A secondary cleaner line drawing is next for a little more detail, but I leave the final lines to come out of the end of the tattoo machine. Shading and color kind of happen in the end by themselves.
TJJ: That’s a good segway into the cars you’ve had… Without much doubt, your old Chevy is what people first think about. Was that car your peak? Fill us in on the cars you’ve had/have and which one you admire the most.
Dennis: I never thought that old Chevy would be anything at all when I first drug it out of a field in Oklahoma. I wanted something old, but couldn’t afford much. I bought it from Joe Casto for 200 bucks. It had hail damage and lots of rust, but a lot of friends helped me on that car and it was a family/daily driver for awhile. I just kept improving and getting it closer and closer to the vision I had for it from the beginning. I did it all as I could afford it. This was also the car that really bonded me with my friend Jeff Myers. He repainted that car countless times and we’ve spent so much time together that we know what each other wants/needs without saying it now. I put tons of miles on that car in the process. So I think I would have to say that car has the most good memories of them all. After the top got chopped and it had shiny paint, it wasn’t a challenge anymore. I had brought that car to my version of complete, so I was done with it. The ’52 is still in the Beatnik family though. My fellow club member Tom Foster is still driving the shit out of it. I like that it’s getting driven.
I loved my ’64 Mercury cause it looked so good chopped and I had a blast working with Elden on it. I have lost track of that one though.
Rob Fortier and Marky & Anthony from the shifters helped me build my first hotrod – the T roadster now owned by fellow Beatnik James Hetfield. He drives the shit out of it, and I like that too.
I missed that roadster so much that I built another one, but with a few upgrades. It is the fastest car I’ve ever owned and it demands respect every second behind the wheel cause it’ll bite you in the ass real quick if you give it the chance. I think Jimmie White might have a part in that cars future. We’ll see.
I loved my ’56 chevy. It was absolutely my ultimate, do everything right from the start, no expense spared show car. It looked great and I was happy that car was well recieved and won trophies. But then again, I also hated that car. It drove great and looked good, but it was so nice it was very difficult to have fun with. It made me realize again that I needed to get back to basics.
Right now I am in the process of building and driving a model T coupe with full fenders. I went modern with discs up front and coil-overs in the back, but I wanted a great cross country driver. I’m sticking with bias ply wide whites though. I plan on running a full hood and shiny black paint eventually, but not too soon… I don’t want to be finished with this one soon.
On the custom side of town, I have a 1960 Ford Fairlane in the works. It was a car that I have followed around town for the last fifteen years. It finally came up for sale and I jumped on it. It’s the anti ’56. Meaning that we really got back to basics as far as mechanicals and aftermarket parts. I wanted it to be fashioned like what I envisioned a street car in Wichita might be like around ’62 or ’63. Just cut the stock coils, lowering blocks, rake, chrome reverse wheels and skinny whites. I haven’t decided on color as of yet, but it’ll be something light, suede and frosty. I hope to make it’s debut show in Austin at the Roundup.
TJJ: What’s next? Is there a golden goose that you hope to someday build, own, and drive?
Dennis: Golden goose… my masterpiece… hmmmm… My first car was a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere two door hardtop that I bought from Jerry Titus when I was 13. I never drove that car as it didn’t run. I had no money for that at the time and it eventually got sold to put a down payment on a mid-80’s Mustang. This was before the movie Christine came out. Now the prices on those cars have gone way out of control and they weren’t very rustproof to begin with. So, I’ve all but given up on that whale, but if I ever get my hands on one, lookout.
TJJ: For lack of a better word, you’ve been in this “culture” for a long time… And you’ve been around a ton of events. What’s your best memory yet… maybe it’s a specific show or outing… or?
Dennis: I have two favorite memories of specific shows. The first was actually before the show on a horribly hot Kansas day, mowing the show grounds at the Kansas Coliseum in 1981 for the first ever KKOA Leadsled Nationals. I got paid a double cheeseburger and a free pass to the show.
The second was being one of the first sixty or so cars to attend the first Lonestar Roundup in Austin. It wasn’t even like a show – more of a gathering of friends. But there was definitely that excitement of knowing that you were there at the start of something big.
Those were the memories from the actual shows, but the really good memories are always from being on the road TO a show with my Kansas Road Dog buddies Voodoo Jim, Mike Shea and Jeff Myers. There have been so many shows over the years that I’ve really been able to mark life milestones by them. Bunni and I have been able to travel all across the US because of them and make lifelong bonds and friendships.
TJJ: The last one is a typical interview question and always a hard one to answer. What’s most important to you and why? Life question.
Dennis: That’s not particularly difficult at all. I love cars, art and form. I have been blessed with the right backing and circumstances to be able to provide for my wife and family with the love of those things. My immediate family, my club brothers, the family of Artists At Large that I work next to everyday, and a whole list of car people I call family are very very important to me. I try to work my hardest every day to do what I can to smooth the road for them, inspire them, and help them realize their full potential. Family is most important.
………………………..
And as promised, here are some shots taken by Jeff Wood of Monstrosity Foto. Don’t let your eyes burn.
