User:Stormwirk

Scott Bartlett is lead guitarist for and a founding member of the rock band Saving Abel . He is also co-founder of TATCo , an innovative clothing manufacturer that combines rock stars' tattoo art with contemporary fashion.

Biography

Scott was born to John and Jean Bartlett on January 3, 1978, in Boston, Massachusetts. He moved to Baltimore at the age of 2. He attended Gilman School, a private preparatory school for boys located in the Roland Park neighborhood.

While at Gilman he excelled at sports, music and theater. He was in 12 high school plays and musicals and played football and baseball. Highlights included winning the state football championship in football during his junior year. Scott won the Maryland State bench press championship in his senior year. He also received the music award and the faculty award.

Musical Career

Saving Abel

Scott began playing with Saving Abel in the studio in 2004 as a contract player, and quickly was absorbed by the band as its rhythm guitarist, sharing backup vocals with Jason Null and Eric Taylor. Four short years later, in 2008, Saving Abel's self-titled major label debut was released by EMI/Virgin Records, and certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2009.

Saving Abel is frequently identified as part of the renaissance of Southern rock. When asked about the tag, "new Southern rock," Scott shared his perspective with reporter Alison Richter in a 2011 article, saying it was "understandable, but not entirely accurate."

Scott said, “I’m glad I finally get to clear the air about this. We all dig the hell out of Southern rock, but people need to remember that rock and roll evolved in the South with Elvis, and before that came the blues. What people call Southern rock — the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd — was forgotten about for a long time with ’80s music and then the Seattle thing. So to call us Southern rock — we have the guitar solos and harmonies, but with a contemporary sound.”

Entrepreneurship

TATCo: The Artist Tattoo Company

While riding on his tour bus, Scott shared "a bottle and conversation with a former band mate" and dreamed up a concept for a line of T-shirts depicting his exotic and "deeply personal" tattoo art. The first garments also included vests and caps.

Previews of the launch were staged at various clothing boutiques around the country, and hundreds of fans surged forward to meet Scott, along with Zach Myers of Shinedown and TATCo partners and designers. One such preview on May 2, 2009, at Baer's Den in Memphis, Tennessee, had fans waiting in line for hours for a photo op with Scott and Zach.

“Our fans love our music and our tattoos, but they can’t go out and get the tattoo of every band that they add to their CD collection. TATCo makes it possible to rock out in a new way,” Scott said in an interview with an ABC affiliate in 2009.

In 2011, Scott took TATCo to a new market niche: ladies' underwear. RockHorns Dainty Dukes are black boyshorts with their seminal "rock horns" art depicted on the seat. The TATCo site reads, "Scott hopes all the ladies throwing up those horns have Dukes on down low." Fans are encouraged to submit photos of the boy shorts being worn -- the best images are displayed on the home page of the site as a "Daily Dainty".