Birmingham native Jason Hamric, a former guitarist for the indie rock band Three Finger Cowboy and founder of Substrate Radio, has died.

He was 53.

Hamric died on Wednesday morning, May 28, after an emergency hospitalization May 24 for a bacterial infection, said his wife, Jacklyn Loquidis.

“He cared about everybody,” Loquidis said. “He loved everybody. He spent his life lifting people up around him and wanting them to be the best version of themselves.”

Hamric, in a This is Alabama profile last year, was described as “a mastering engineer, radio host, musician and a fervent advocate for the power of music to bridge gaps and foster unity.”

Hamric started Substrate Radio in 2013 as an internet radio station and eventually moved his studio to the front window of the Saturn music club on 41st Street South in Avondale.

“I really missed the ‘college radio style’ format where you could kind of play whatever you want without being told what to play,” Hamric told This Is Alabama. “I just felt like we had a little hole, in America in general, for under-the-radar style music. I got the inspiration from BMR (Birmingham Mountain Radio), which started as an internet station, and they were so friendly and showed me how to get things going and helped me realize that it could actually be done. I really just felt the need to play different stuff. I mean, everybody wants to be a DJ, right?”

Hamric was born Sept. 17, 1971, and graduated from Jefferson Christian Academy. He married Loquidis, host of “The Jackie Lo Show” on Substrate, on Aug. 15, 2001.

Loquidis said she met Hamric when they both worked at De Vinci’s Pizza in Homewood in May 2001. “I was a server; he was a cook,” she said.

Hamric had quit his job in information technology for a law firm to take the job making pizzas. His breadth of knowledge on a wide variety of subjects was impressive, Loquidis said.

“He was an expert in a lot of fields,” she said, and he shared his knowledge freely. “He asked for nothing in return and happily loved doing it.”

As a musician, Hamric was known for his work with Three Finger Cowboy, which formed in Birmingham in 1995 and was signed by Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls to her Daemon Records label in 1998. Hamric was with the band when its first album, “Kissed,” was recorded in 1998. Although Hamric then stopped performing with the band, he co-produced and engineered the second album, “Hooray for Love,” in 1999, before the band dissolved in 2001.

“Jason brought out the best in people,” said Audrey Atkins, former director of community engagement at WBHM Radio. “He was selfless.”

The outpouring on social media has been overwhelming and revealed how many people he helped and how many lives he touched, Loquidis said. “It has been really beautiful, everyone telling us all these nice stories,” she said.