Permit me the reveal of some facts in my biography as I paint a picture of how influential Feroze McLeod is: Last year, a few months after my 37th birthday, I got my first-ever tattoo from him. Barely a year on, I have an almost-full-sleeve on my left arm, a tapestry to which he has contributed gorgeously and illuminatingly to.
Foundations, literal and figurative, are inextricable from Feroze, the man, the artist, the musician, the entrepreneur and the pioneer. His stacked resume is a glimmering testimonial to the possibilities that can be birthed when a self-starter’s vision is as fully and expertly realised as his commitment to actualising it. When your creative urge is as rich as your artistic eye and when you have an endless reserve of blood, sweat and tears, you have a Feroze McLeod.
It is important to understand that the first foundation in the Feroze oeuvre is the foundation of the entire Feroze oeuvre. Inspired by punk’s deeply resonant lyricism and the accompanying spirit of transcendence, laid brick-after-hard-won-brick, Feroze would form and be the linchpin of some of the most revered bands in the pantheon of the Singaporean underground: Mouthful of Air and Weight of the World. The revelations he earned whilst operating in the DIY idiom eventually became a totalising force, leading him on a path where individual expression and entrepreneurial vision collide gloriously.
The first of those gestalts is the Hounds of the Baskervilles, which, incepted in 2010s, serves as the founding establishment of the barbering industry in Singapore. And from creating the blueprint where men could could great haircuts by qualified barbers who could ably provide that service, he would go on a lexicon-expanding spree in the arenas of tattooing, menswear and surf culture, by starting the respective brands Bada Bink Tattoo Firm, Pharaohs Horses and Maison Meru.
At Bada Bink, Feroze holds court over ascendant and established tattoo artists while championing, though his own work, the time-honoured (and foundational) form of Western traditional tattooing. Intimately linked by ethos and aesthetics, Pharaohs Horses is an apparel and clothing brand bridging the dashing grit of the streets and the poise and prep of menswear into an elevated singularity. Beyond Singapore, in idyllic Canggu, Bali, his urban surf brand Maison Meru functions as an avant-garde approach to beach-y lifestyles.
So much is expected of men. The burden of history––the good and the bad of it––is foisted on us in ways that are societally enforced as norms. But in Feroze’s example, we see how daring to dream pays off – when dreaming of more is not a burden but an impetus for life itself.
I once had a conversation with him about lyrics that that are close to his heart. Without much hesitation, he picked out this line from the song “Dying of Laughter” by the Californian hardcore band Final Fight: “We laugh at the waves as they crash on us”.
As ever, if your foundations are properly rooted, nothing can shake you.
