David Thomas, frontman for Cleveland experimental rock band Pere Ubu, and formerly Rocket From The Tombs, has died. The singer was 71.
The news of Thomas' passing was shared on the band's Facebook page.
The statement reads:
"David Thomas, June 14 1953 - April 23 2025.
"David Lynn Thomas, lead singer of Pere Ubu, Rocket From The Tombs and multiple solo projex, has died after a long illness.
"On Wednesday, April 23 2025, he died in his home town of Brighton & Hove, with his wife and youngest step-daughter by his side. MC5 were playing on the radio. He will ultimately be returned to his home, the farm in Pennsylvania, where he insisted he was to be “thrown in the barn.”
"David Thomas and his band have been recording a new album. He knew it was to be his last. We will endeavour to continue with mixing and finalising the new album so that his last music is available to all. Aside from that, he left instruction that the work should continue to catalog all the tapes from live shows via the official bandcamp page. His autobiography was nearly completed and we will finish that for him. Pere Ubu’s Patreon will continue as a community, run by communex.
"We’ll leave you with his own words, which sums up who he was better than we can - 'My name is David Fucking Thomas… and I’m the lead singer of the best fucking rock n roll band in the world.' (Frigo Documentary)
"Long Live Pere Ubu."
The experimental and boundary-breaking Pere Ubu formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1975, following the break-up of garage rockers Rocket From The Tombs, with guitarist Cheetah Chrome and drummer Johnny Blitz going on to form the Dead Boys.
Thomas was the only constant member of Pere Ubu, who described their raucous, free-wheeling sound as "avant-garage", with Rolling Stone judging their influential 1978 debut album The Modern Dance "harsh and wilfully ugly". Writing in Classic Rock in 2004, journalist Malcolm Dome called the record, "a touchstone of art-rock genius, a true masterpiece", adding "without this album, much of the more esoteric rock music recorded in the decades since would have simply remained unheard."
Thomas, however, once claimed to Prog magazine that Pere Ubu are actually a mainstream act, sayinhg, “You can trace a straight line from the very beginnings, let’s say Heartbreak Hotel, to Brian Wilson to Lou Reed. Into the 70s there was a greater maturity of narrative, of the language of music and the development of technique. Everything was evolving and moving forward. Pere Ubu joined that straight line."
Trouble on Big Beat Street, the group's 19th and most recent album, was released in 2023.
