Tattoo parlour where Bon Scott got his parrot tattoo

Bon Scott's parrot tattoo is one of rock music's most recognisable pieces of body art — a bold old-school design on his arm that became inseparable from his image as AC/DC's wild, shirtless frontman. According to accounts from those who knew him, Scott got the tattoo at Max's Village Tattoo Studio at 15 Darlinghurst Road in Kings Cross during his years living and playing in the Sydney music scene in the early 1970s, before AC/DC was formed in 1973.

Scott had multiple tattoos, and each one came with a story. The parrot was among the most prominent, often visible in early AC/DC photographs and live shots. It became part of the iconography of a man who seemed to live entirely on his own terms — a former reform school kid from Fremantle who'd spent years drifting between bands before finding his calling with the Young brothers. Kings Cross in the early 1970s was Sydney's bohemian nightlife district, a place of strip clubs, live music pubs, and tattoo parlours that attracted the kind of characters Bon Scott naturally gravitated toward.

Max's Village Tattoo Studio operated for many years at 15 Darlinghurst Road, at the southern end of Kings Cross. The tattoo itself has outlasted the shop: it's been reproduced on countless pieces of AC/DC merchandise and remains one of the enduring symbols of Bon Scott's persona. Scott passed away on February 19, 1980 in London.