WINNIPEG, Manitoba - With speed-metal music on his headphones and a picture of his deceased mother beside him, a 34-year-old Canadian pinned down the world record for body piercing on Wednesday.
Finishing with one in each nipple, Brent Moffatt pushed 702 needles into his body in a little less than eight hours. Most went into his legs and feet.
He had hoped to reach 1,000 piercings but stopped when the pain became too much to bear.
"I'm in a lot of pain. It feels like somebody's electrocuting my legs," said Moffatt, a piercer at the Metamorphosis tattoo studio in this Canadian prairie city.
But, he added: "I'm pretty happy. I would've liked to do 1,000, but now that I'm done, I realize 700 is a helluva lot. And right now it looks like I've been in a car accident ... There's quite a lot of blood."
The previous world record-holder had 200 piercings.
Moffatt wore gloves and sterilized forceps to carefully lift his skin and slide a lubricated 18-gauge needle in neat lines into his skin. He said a desire "to be different" led him to seek the record, after considering it for a couple years.
Moffatt had already stretched his earlobes with holes almost 1-1/2 inches wide, allowing them to dangle thick steel carabineers normally used for rock-climbing. His eyebrows sport the beginnings of what he hopes will one day be a full Maori mask tattooed on his face.
He prepared for his latest feat by taking antibiotics, getting a good night's sleep and eating a hearty breakfast.
"You get yourself used to discomfort, because it's part of the process," Moffatt said, noting his needles are several times thicker than those commonly used to draw blood.
His hands shook lightly as he inserted the needles, and he feared going into shock before reaching his goal, especially while working on tender areas like his inner thighs.
"I'm more nervous about the (television) cameras than the friggin' piercing," he said to a crowd of reporters.
"This is too weird: I'm not used to all this attention."
Moffatt only took a few short breaks for a light lunch and cigarettes. "I just wanted to get it over with," he laughed.
Once done, he left the needles in for more than five minutes. Taking them out, he said, hurt far more than putting them in. He did not expect the holes to scar.
Moffatt said he planned to celebrate with a long bath and would try it again, he answered, "Sure, I'd do it again. After I forget about the pain."
He plans to send a videotape, witness statements and media coverage to Guinness Book of World Records officials in London.
