In Sweden, a frightened eight-year-old ran down the street. But little Tim Skold (AKA Tim Tim, AKA Tim x 3 Skold, now vocalist of Shotgun Messiah), couldn't outrun the two female strangers, both a good five years older and detrmined to kiss him. Tears streamed down Tim's cheeks and the long curls of his shoulder-lenght blond hair flew in his eyes, but they caught him, held him down and kissed Tim all over. "I'm glad I don't have a weak heart," today's Tim comments. "I could have died!"

This little interlude wasn't Tim's first encounter with the opposite sex. When Tim was about six, he and the little girl next door built a "cave" with chairs and blankets on his porch, where they conducted physical exams. "Playing doctor was quite innocent," Tims says, "because at that age, only so many of the parts are different! It wasn't an affair; it was two consenting minors doing their thing!"

Tim grew up eating breakfast in front of a psychedelic poster of Bob Dylan with rainbow colors around his head. His dad was a professional drummer, and Tim was motivated to get in a "playback" band at age eleven. Using Kiss, Bowie and Sweet songs playing on a cassette player, Tim's band would "fake it" for people at school meetings. Says Tim, "It was more of a comedy act, but we took it quite seriously! I borrowed my dad's old mod stagewear - red, white and blue-striped hip-hugger pants and a suede jacket...very Rolling Stones!"

At age twelve, Tim rented a bass by the month, and by thirteen, he was playing and singing in his first real band. "I would skate to gigs on a skateboard and balance my bass and amp with room for one foot in the back!" he recalls. "I don't think we had many admirers - male or female." Tim still saw his pretty neighbor, but it was "more buddy-buddy than anything else," Tim admits. "We didn't push the 'doctor' thing!"

Tim's rehersal for a school talent show was tape-recorded by his music teacher, who played it for all the classes. "I was almost an instant rock star," Tim says. His band took the act to school exchange programs, and performed at an amusement park in Gothenburg, Sweden's second largest city.

"That's when girls started getting impressed," says Tim, and confesses, "I lost my virginity byt I wasn't sure I liked it. I must have been 14, and so was she. Making out at her parents' house, we just went that extra little mile somehow. I thought it was pretty weird. She kept talking about sailing on pink clouds, but I think I was in chock!"

Tim's next girlfriend was his first real love, and they would sleep over at each other's houses. "In Sweden," Tim explains, "people understand that kids are going to do stuff like experiment with sex, and drugs like alcohol and cigarettes. Parents feel it's better to have it happen in the house in a situation of mutual respect and understanding, rather than have it happen in the streets."

During this time, Tim met guitarist Harry Cody at a New Year's Eve party and formed a creative partnership that would last over a decade to become the nucleus of today's Shotgun Messiah. "He was already a local guitar hero," says Tim. "Our dream was to come to the U.S. to be rock stars. We plotted and schemed to make it happen."

After three years, Tim's first serious love relationship enden when he and his lady realized they had grown apart socially. Tim moved in to his own apartment at 17 and took a factory job making military equipment. One night, he met his second serious girlfriend outside of a rock club, a relationship which lasted the four years until Tim came to the U.S. "I was too broke to get in the club," Tim says. "She asked me to walk her home and come up for tea. I moved in the next day. I didn't have any stuff besides my bass and a boom box. I was very mobile!"

Tim lived with his girlfriend for about a half-year before he was drafted into the army. "I brought my bass to the base," he says, "and stood in the shower stalls and practiced after everyone went to sleep!" He kept rehearsing with Harry on weekends. Once out out of the army, Tim took odd jobs as a library assistant and gardener at a bathhouse. "With girls sunbathing topless in the summertime," Tim remembers, "I was Mr. Party!" Tim is amazed he kept his relationship going because, he discloses, "I was stuck-up and thought I was God's gift to women - especially when I was drunk!"

At 19, Tim went to Stockholm with Harry to make a record they could use as a demo to reach the American market. Their determination paid off. The Shotgun Messiah guys have released their second U.S. album, 'Second Coming', and Tim now resides in sunny L.A., where he finds American women similiar to their Swedish counterparts. "There might be big difference,! he allows, "but since I've always hung out with the rock 'n' roll culture, I haven't found a lot of differences at all."

As was true about his first girlfriends, Tim prefers a happy, upbeat, cheerful, outgoing brunette who is "kinda thin with a nice chest." It's important that she knows what she wants and is capable of honest communication and mutual respect.

"Music takes up most of my time," Tim says. "I have tons of music that has to come out somehow, and I'd go insane without that outlet. A girl has to realize that, and be an individual with interests and activities that don't include me."

In his three years in L.A., Tim has observed many "clichéd male/female relationships where you aren't supposed to be friends and you have to play games as if you're opponents. I hate that," he says. "I'm striving for the ultimate of lovers who can be the ultimate of friends."