Miami Ink's Ami James moves to New York

First there was Miami Ink. Then L.A. Ink. London Ink. And now New York Ink. And the guy who started this whole reality-TV tattoo craze is back for another season, starting at 9 p.m. Thursday on TLC. Ami James — who helped kick off Miami Ink in 2005 and still co-owns a tattoo shop in Miami Beach called Love Hate Tattoo — is the star of the second season of New York Ink, featuring a whole new cast and a whole new set of dramatic situations. James talked to The Miami Herald about the show.

How has this whole TV experience been?

 It’s pretty rough to know what you’re getting yourself into, because you’re so green at that time. What you think and what you perceive is completely different from where you end up. When I first signed up for the TV world, I was like, “Wow, this is gonna be easy, this is gonna be great — we’re gonna shoot some episodes.” And you think that this world is all about trying to get successful really fast, and you have all these dreams. And then you realize the dream is so far away, and that there’s really a lot of hard work. And the longer you go at it, you realize that this is the most time-consuming venture you’ll ever get yourself into. There’s a lot less fame and glory, and a lot more hard work.

Was it hard to deal with the limelight?

I was really lucky, because I got into this world of TV at the age of 33, and I would really have hated to see myself get into that world at 21 or 23. I was a little more seasoned as a human being, and I was a lot less selfish and more of a grown man getting into it. As a kid, it would have probably destroyed my life, because knowing me at that age, I was a disaster. So I was really happy to be able to turn it into something positive and focus on my life and raise a family.

Were you ever pressured to change the way you act for dramatic effect?

You know, I think a lot of people probably have that idea of how much reality is really reality. But all we do is basically just raise the volume a little bit on everything. We know that when we come to work, everything needs to be high-pitch in order to get the best show that we can get. Because if we were all to come in very mellow and very tired and worn out, the viewer would never connect with us. They would never come back to find out what happens the next week. So it’s not like we stop and say, “You gotta do this again and do that, and we want a fight scene.” They’re like, “You guys do what you do naturally, and when it happens, give it to us. Put your amp all the way up.’’ And it’s a little difficult, but after awhile you get used to it, and it becomes second nature.

This story was originally published December 26, 2011 at 10:12 PM with the headline "Miami Ink's Ami James moves to New York."