I mean, he didn’t talk much, but you got him rapping, it’d be about music. And he’d go on about shit I wouldn’t get until later.

About Bowie and Ziggy Stardust and how that shit was beyond. He was into Petty. And Springsteen. The dude listened to Joni Mitchell and Carole fuckin’ King. Stevie Wonder. Johnny Cash. Jackson Brown. Patti Smith.

None of us knew who the fuck Leonard Cohen was. But Tim did.

Preach did too.

Dolly Parton. The Eagles. Fleetwood Mac. Elvis Costello.

The guy did not discriminate.

Hell, when Paul Simon released Graceland, fuck. Tim listened to that so often, back then, if I heard “do, do, do, do…do, do, do, do,” [humming opening of “You Can Call Me Al”] one more time, I’d fuckin’ kill someone.

He blasted out the Runaways.

He was Joan Jett’s biggest fuckin’ fan. If she’d asked him to be in the Blackhearts, he would have dropped everything to follow her anywhere she went.

Yeah, he’d even drop us.

Believe it.

I think he had a little punk down deep in his heart.

It was quiet. Punk ain’t quiet.

But listen to his solos and tell me he wasn’t screaming about something.

And you know, when Mellencamp got airplay, we hadn’t even started the fuckin’ band. We were in junior high, for fuck’s sake.

And it was Tim who said, when we first heard “Hurts So Good,” “This is the guy.”

I mean, that wasn’t even “Jack and Diane.” And he was listening to Chestnut Street Incident and John Cougar and “Ain’t Even Done with the Night.”

It was also about Mellencamp for him, and all of us, I guess. Seein’ as we’re all from Indiana.

Except Preach.

So, Tim did not care that Preacher edged him out.

Especially when we heard the guy sing.

Tim got lead on a lot of songs. As you know. For sure. He was a decent guitar player, but with Preach in the band, we all got better.

We had to match him. The way Preacher played guitar like it was second nature, didn’t even look down at his strings. Moved his fingers, and miracles came out.

But there were a few songs he passed along to Tim to play lead guitar, also sing, but really, no one would sing lead, you know, regular, except Preach when we heard him sing.

That deep, raspy voice that had that Cajun lilt.

That was one of the things I thought made him even more badass. He’d say “dis” and “dat” and “dos” and “dem” instead of “this” and “that” and “those” and “them.”

You’d say something, and he’d reply, “talk about,” and you would not know what the fuck he meant. But it was a Cajun thing. After a while, we all said, “talk about” and every time we did in the beginning, it’d make Preach smile.