Alan Vega Dead: Frontman For The Band Suicide, A Pioneer In Punk Music, Dies At Age 78

Alan Vega has died at age 78, with the New York City punk rock legend and frontman for the band Suicide reportedly passing away quietly in his sleep.

Vega’s death was announced late on Saturday by musician Henry Rollins, who shared the news on his website. Rollins shared a message, approved by Vega’s family, announcing the music legend’s death.

In the message, Rollins remembered Alan Vega and the influence he had on punk rock music.

“Alan was not only relentlessly creative, writing music and painting until the end, he was also startlingly unique. Along with Martin Rev, in the early 1970’s, they formed the two person avant band known as Suicide. Almost immediately, their incredible and unclassifiable music went against every possible grain. Their confrontational live performances, light-years before Punk Rock, are the stuff of legend. Their first, self-titled album is one of the single most challenging and noteworthy achievements in American music.”

Alan Vega was born Alan Bermowitz, growing up in a traditionally Jewish household in Brooklyn. He attended Brooklyn College in the 1960s, studying physics and fine art.

Not long after graduating, he fell in with a group of radical artists known as the Art Workers’ Coalition, a group that the Village Voice noted was famous for harassing museums and once barricading the Museum of Modern Art.

Alan Vega of Suicide has died https://t.co/wzM47ZaY3j pic.twitter.com/OoiuGttPIz

— Pitchfork (@pitchfork) July 17, 2016

Alan Vega first gained fame within New York art circles as a cutting-edge sculptor, using electronic debris to create sculptures. He even gained a residency at the OK Harris Gallery in the city’s SoHo neighborhood.

But after watching The Stooges perform in August 1969, Vega decided to put his attention in music.

“It showed me you didn’t have to do static artworks, you could create situations, do something environmental,” Vega told the Village Voice in 2002. “That’s what got me moving more intensely in the direction of doing music. Compared with Iggy, whatever I was doing as an artist felt insignificant.”

He met Martin Reverby, and together with guitarist Paul Liebgott the three formed the band Suicide. Bermowitz began going by the stage name Alan Suicide, and the band became a staple of the growing punk rock scene in New York City.

As Vice noted, Suicide was one of the most influential band in the genre.

“Suicide had its heyday in the 1970s and 80s. The duo’s first two albums—released in 1977 and 1980—are punk classics, revered for their hypnotically minimalist electronics and for Vega’s raw, crooning vocals and vivid lyrics. ‘Baby, baby, baby he’s screamin’ the truth / America, America’s killin’ its youth,’ he murmurs in ‘Ghost Rider,’ an indelible jam that rides into the horizon on a crude three-note synth riff.”

Alan Vega’s career continued and his music continued to evolve as he moved into a solo career. He released a series of records on his own in the 1980s, all while still working with Suicide and touring. His music found a particularly enthusiastic audience in Europe.

Ben Vaughn, a songwriter and producer who worked often with Vega, said the punk rock legend’s unique voice helped him cross the language barrier with foreign fans.

“He can just improvise poetry off the top of his head,” Vaughn told Vice. “And he has this incredible voice where it’s sort of like a saxophone or a muted trumpet. He has a lot of fans in Europe, and they’re big fans because of the sound of his voice. They don’t even know what the words mean.”

Alan Vega moved away from music after suffering a stroke in 2012, though he still focused on other forms of art including painting, Brooklyn magazine noted.

"I always said I was never gonna be an entertainer, Suicide was never supposed to be entertainment."

Alan Vega pic.twitter.com/UDMQdJ8X1Z

— Ghostly (@ghostly) July 17, 2016

Many fans and fellow musicians took to social media to mourn the loss of Alan Vega on Saturday, remembering him for his unflinching commitment to art and for the influence he would have on an entire generation of artists and musicians.

[Photo by Matt Carr/Getty Images]