Jose Luis Vasquez (May 30, 1979 – January 18, 2024)[1] was an American musician and record producer. Vasquez was the lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and sole official member of the Soft Moon, which he founded in 2009.
Vasquez was born in Los Angeles, California, to a Cuban immigrant mother, and to a Mexican father who was never present in his life. At the age of nine, the family relocated to Victorville, California, a town in the Mojave Desert.[2]
As a teenager, Vasquez started out playing punk rock inspired by Descendents, Bad Religion, Bad Brains, Fugazi and Minor Threat.[3] After graduating from Hesperia High School, he moved to Oakland, California[2] where he briefly played in San Francisco-based psychedelic band Lumerians as a percussionist.[4]
As Luis Vasquez, he created the Soft Moon project in 2009, and shortly after, Brooklyn-based label Captured Tracks approached him with a record deal. In 2010 his first single "Breathe The Fire" and "Parallels" were released on 7" vinyl under the Captured Tracks imprint.[5][6] His first album with the Soft Moon was released in 2010 and the band toured in 2011, opening in the US for Interpol and Mogwai.[7][8]
In 2012, Vasquez was robbed at gunpoint while walking in his Oakland neighborhood, and his backpack with a laptop containing a finished album and two years' worth of demos were stolen.[9] In October of that year, the Soft Moon released its second album, Zeros.[10]
He moved abroad to Venice, Italy in 2013 to write his third album, Deeper, which was released in 2015.[11] The album's lead single, "Black", earned Best New Track honors from Pitchfork.[12] While writing the album, The Soft Moon opened for Depeche Mode on a European leg of their Delta Machine Tour in 2014.[13]
The Soft Moon was scheduled to open for Killing Joke's 2016 North American tour, but Killing Joke canceled because of a band member's illness.[14] During a performance in Oakland on January 29, 2016, the band's van was broken into, with luggage, recording equipment, records and merchandise stolen.[15]
The Soft Moon's fourth album, Criminal, was released in 2018 and was recorded in a basement studio in Vasquez's new home city of Berlin. It was his first album on Sacred Bones Records.[16][17]
The Soft Moon's fifth and final album, Exister, was released on September 23, 2022.[18] The Soft Moon performed at Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands on April 20, 2023, and the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, California, on May 20.
The last The Soft Moon performance was at Thalia Hall in Chicago, Illinois, as part of Sanctum Fest on October 28, 2023.
On October 18, 2023, Luis Vasquez announced via The Soft Moon's social media, that he was creating an original score for a short film entitled, Pumpkin Guts.[19] The film was written and directed by Bryan M. Ferguson, who also directed the music video for Exister single, "Monster".[20]
Vasquez accidentally died on January 18, 2024, at age 44, alongside techno DJ Silent Servant (John Juan Mendez) and Mendez's partner Simone Ling, from the effects of fentanyl, cocaine, ketamine, and ethanol.[21] Their three bodies were discovered at Mendez's Los Angeles residence later that day after Vasquez's wife called for a welfare check.[22] Their deaths were reported the following day.[23]
Although Vasquez wrote, recorded and produced alone, he was joined by other members for live performances.
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