Gotham City Gush

It's not certain yet whether Tim Pacheco will be an official member of P.O.D., but the front man and founder of Psydecar has been working a lot with the band lately.

"My other band, Psydecar, booked a show opening up for Matisyahu at the Belly Up on New Year's Eve," Pacheco says. "But then I got a call from P.O.D. asking me to play that Times Square gig. I said yes. The guys in Psydecar were bummed. But, I mean, what choice did I have? The Belly Up for 200 bucks in front of 500 people? Or Times Square, thousand bucks, million people...?

"We played on top of a building right there in Times Square [on New Year's Eve]. It was about six or seven stories high. There were a million people on the street and huge PA speakers on every street corner in the area, so when I was singing I could hear my voice echoing down the canyons of New York City. It was the highlight of my life right there....

"We stopped playing around 11:00 p.m., then went back to our hotel, which was right across the street. It was so crowded, it took us 20 minutes to get there. We had the corner room on the 33rd floor. From there we could see the stage and Times Square. We were up there for an hour, drinking champagne with some of the big shots from [event sponsor] Pontiac and some New York City detectives, and firemen were up there hanging out with us also. About 20 minutes before midnight, I went downstairs to smoke a hooter on the street and watch the ball drop. They let me kick it in this special barricaded area where only cops and emergency crew were allowed. When the ball dropped, I got this cool picture of me and these two young-ass cops."

How did Pacheco become involved with P.O.D.?

"I've known them forever. My wife grew up with [lead singer] Sonny and Wuv [drummer]. They are cousins. They wanted to spruce up their live show with an extra guitar player, keyboards, and backup singer, so they [brought me in] and another South Bay cat they grew up with."

The other "South Bay cat" that P.O.D. hired is named Odz, who has played keyboards and percussion with local bands Royal Krown, the Millennium, Funk Masters, and, most recently, the Trade Roots. Initially, P.O.D. management wanted to hire studio musicians, but the members of P.O.D. said they didn't want to tour with people they didn't know and hired Pacheco and Odz with their own money.