Tony Sly, frontman for the popular San Jose punk band No Use For A Name, has died, his label Fat Wreck Chords announced today. No cause of death has been announced. He was 41.
“One of my dearest friends and favorite songwriters has gone way too soon. Tony, you will be greatly missed,” Fat Wreck founder Fat Mike said in a statement this morning.
Sly had been through many ups and downs in the course of making NUFAN San Jose’s most famous punk band, one of the leaders of the new-school punk rock movement in the ’90s. He considered himself an original No Use member, having missed only their first two shows in the late ’80s.
When I spoke to him last year, the rigors of leading the band and especially of endless line-up changes had clearly affected him.
“People in my band have been dropping off like flies,” he told me.
And yet, he seemed re-invigorated, both about the band, and about his newfound solo career. “I’m excited,” he said.
This year, he released a second split with Lagwagon’s Joey Cape. The last song was a new one from Sly, “Liver Let Die”:
So everybody sing along
This could be tonight’s one more song
This shot we take before the bell
We raise our glass to songs
That we know so well
R.I.P., Tony Sly.
.San Jose Punk Tony Sly of No Use For a Name Dies At 41
