Tattoo artist Brett Caron works on a new tattoo for Vince Neil at Neil's tattoo parlor at O'Shea's Casino as a crowd watches from Las Vegas Boulevard through the front window. Photos by Ralph Fountain. A closer look at Neil's new tattoo. Customers wait in the lounge of Vince Neil Ink, a new tattoo parlor at O'Shea's Casino. A crowd looks through the front window at Vince Neil Ink tattoo parlor.

Vince Neil was feeling no pain, even though he probably should have been.

"I'm a dog, man, I'm always workin' " the blonde rocker exclaimed with a grin, sipping a plastic cup full of Vince Neil Chardonnay as a tattoo artist stenciled the logo of his new tattoo shop, Vince Neil Ink, into his left shin over a rendering of an ace of spades.

Reclining in a black leather chair on a recent Friday night, the Mötley Crüe frontman

christened his new venture by serving as one of the shop's first customers.

Located in O'Shea's Casino, the 1,230-square-foot venue is the first tattoo shop located inside a Strip casino.

It may also be the first tattoo parlor to boast a pair of stripper poles in its front window.

"I always wanted to open a place," Neil said. "But I had to do it on a grand scale."

Big and brightly colored, Vince Neil Ink is directly reflective of a guy who makes his living squeezing into skintight leather pants and singing hot-blooded odes to tawdry women.

Consisting of four tattoo rooms -- including a windowed alcove in the front of the shop where passers-by can watch tattooing being done in progress -- the place is decorated with purple leather couches and plasma screen TVs that play Mötley Crüe videos.

Neil's black Harley Davidson motorcycle from the Crüe's "Girls, Girls, Girls" video sits in the front window, across from a glass case filled with Vince Neil racing memorabilia.

The walls are covered in orange and red flames and a huge mural of a skull-adorned railroad track leading into Las Vegas.

For Neil, the shop is a culmination of a lifelong infatuation with tattoos. He got his first ink when he was 19, a drawing of a snake wrapped around a musical note.

"I thought that it was too big," he said, lifting up his sleeve to expose the image. "Everybody, when they get their first tattoo, thinks it's too big."

Whereas tattoos were once mainly the province of bikers, prison inmates and rockers like Neil himself, tattoo art has become far more ubiquitous in recent years, and Neil hopes to tap into its growing popularity.

"Tattoos are like a family thing now," Neil said. "Moms are bringing their daughters in to get tattoos, fathers are bringing their sons in to get their first tattoos. For me, that's great. It's taking it out of the sailor shops."

As Neil spoke, hundreds of revellers gathered on the sidewalk outside his shop, pressing themselves against Ink's windows and cheering loudly as Neil got his latest tattoo.

The glassy-eyed singer took it all in with an ever-widening smile.

"We're rockin' " he said with a hearty laugh. "We're good."