Tony Lewis, bassist and frontman for The Outfield, has died at the age of 62. The band were most famous for Your Love, a US Top 10 hit in 1986.
The news was confirmed in a statement from the band's publicist, which read, "It is with deep sadness and sorrow to report that Tony Lewis singer of the ‘80s rock band The Outfield suddenly and unexpectedly passed away yesterday.
"Tony’s music touched people around the globe for decades. Lewis and the late John Spinks took the ‘80s by storm with the Outfield’s infectious pop songs, including Your Love, All the Love, and Say It Isn’t So.
"Tony Lewis’s legacy will live on forever through his beautiful family and his legendary music. The family requests their privacy during this difficult time."
Lewis was born in East London in 1957 and formed The Outfield in 1984 with guitarist John Spinks and drummer Alan Jackman. The trio had previously played together for several years in power pop act Sirius B, but a change in direction to a rockier sound with The Outfield was almost immediately successful.
The following year debut album Play Deep entered the US Top 10, ferried there by the success of the single Your Love, a radio-friendly AOR number that's subsequently become a staple of 80s-themed compilations. Play Deep went on to sell triple platinum.
The band's subsequent albums did not enjoy the same level of commercial success, and their final US Top 40 hit came with For You in 1991. The band continued to release albums with Replay, released in 2011, their final outing.
Three years later Outfield guitarist John Spinks died of liver cancer, and Lewis didn't return to the studio until recording the solo album Out of the Darkness, which was released in 2018.
"I didn’t pick up a guitar for two years," Lewis told Cryptic Rock the same year. "It took a long time for me to even think about picking up a guitar, recording something, or singing something, because my head wasn’t in a good place. After a couple of years, I started to creep back into my room, recorded things, and put some backing tracks together.
"I was really enjoying it, because it was taking me out of the place I was in my head; it was taking me somewhere else. Anyone who records music or plays music live, it’s something magical about it. It takes you out of yourself and takes you into another place where you can almost spiritually detach yourself from your troubles."
