Zach Zombii

Biography

Hello! I’m Zach. I remember my first tattoo like it was yesterday. It was 2011, I was an 18-year-old boy working for a computer-part store. There was a tattoo shop a couple streets down from my job, and the image of me walking in for the first time is clear. A bunch of cigarettes by the front entrance of the shop, loud rockabilly music, coil machines rattling from the inside, and the brightest red neon sign that read “TATTOO” on the top of the building. When I opened the door there was an older dude sleeping on the front chair of the waiting room, he had no tattoos. I thought he was a customer who was waiting for a ride. I was greeted by an artist at the front desk. After I told the artist what I wanted, she woke up the dude sleeping in the waiting room and told him it was “his up” to tattoo. Dude was a tattoo artist named Rey, he woke up, tattooed me- and I loved the whole experience. After that I knew this shit was for me. Fast forward 6 months later I became Rey’s apprentice. After about a year of apprenticing, the owner of the shop told me I could get my body art card and start applying at some shops around town. I finally landed a spot at a different shop in town a few months later. I was hired as the “walk-in” artist & did more Cherry Creek flash designs and infinity symbols than I can count. The entire three years that I worked at that shop, I knew I couldn’t reach my full potential there- it was time for a change. My dream was to work at the shop that I apprenticed at. Luckily, the owner Eddie had a spot open for an artist, I submitted my portfolio and he invited me to do a live audition tattoo in front of him. I got the position & during my 4 years there I worked my ass off building my clientele, became the shop’s manager, met my (now) future wife, and became a better tattooer. Shortly after my four year mark there, the owner Eddie decided it was time to cut ties with Vegas and move his business out of state. I was honored to be the first person he could think of to entrust his “old shop” to and continue the shop-standing legacy it has since the early 2000s. In 2019 after a shop name-change and a fresh coat of paint, that shop was now mine. The same shop with the cigs out front, the loud music, the loud coils ringing, the old sleeping dude, and that bright red neon sign…became Heart of Thieves Tattoo.