Being from Detroit, Michigan, Eddy became interested in tattooing at young age and influenced by people from his neighborhood and in the punk rock scene. With those images to work from he hand poked his first tattoo on his hand at age twelve. After practicing on himself he found that the Punk rock scene had lots of volunteers for receiving tattoos.
With them, he played with homemade tattoo machines until about age fourteen.
Around fourteen he had an opportunity to use professional equipment that he obtained from someone who was making a documentary about tattooing. “A friend arranged for me to do a tattoo on him with borrowed gear.”
Around 1982 a tattooist in Detroit called “Mel the Head” said that Eddy could find an apprenticeship in California. So, in 1983, Deutsche hitchhiked from Detroit to San Francisco. There, he swept up and cleaned at Lyle Tuttle’s shop on 7th street, but found that he was too young for an apprenticeship.
So, he went south to Los Angeles where he tried again to seek an apprenticeship. He had no luck, but he did collect some great tattoos from Bob Roberts and Marc Mahoney.
Finally, he got his first job tattooing in 1986 from Kinzie B. in San Diego. He worked day and night on marines, sailors and alternative types. A year later he started his trek working across the country. He spent a most enlightening time with tattooist Paul Rodgers in Jackson Beach, Florida.
“Paul built and taught me to build my own tattoo machines. He blessed me and my career by contributing their (machines built by Rodgers and Deutsche), first marks, a tribal style tattoo on his 85-year-old foot.”
“When I moved to New York, my time was spent solely working, experimenting with my abilities honing skills, developing my craft and artistic range. My interest in Japanese style tattooing and culture was my main focus.”