Fat Wreck Chords released The Songs of Tony Sly: A Tribute today to honor the San Jose singer who fronted No Use For A Name before he passed away in 2012.

The album features 26 songs Sly wrote, performed by many of his peers on the punk circuit, including NOFX, Bad Religion, the Bouncing Souls, Rise Against, Lagwagon and Pennywise.

“I wanted to make a tribute for Tony because he’s one of the best songwriters I know,” said Fat Mike, owner of Fat Wreck Chords, who organized the tribute album and previously released several No Use For a Name and Sly recordings. “I think he deserves a lot of credit for what he did.”

Profits from the release will be donated to the Tony Sly Fund, created to assist Sly’s wife Brigitte and their two daughters.

Track listing:
01. Karina Denike – “Biggest Lie”
02. Mad Caddies – “AM”
03. Strung Out – “Soulmate”
04. Rise Against – “For Fiona”
05. Bad Religion – “Let It Slide”
06. NOFX – “The Shortest Pier”
07. Snuff – “On The Outside”
08. The Bouncing Souls – “Homecoming”
09. Old Man Markley – “Feel Good Song of the Year”
10. Lagwagon – “Discomfort Inn”
11. Teenage Bottlerocket – “Via Munich”
12. Frank Turner – “Keira”
13. Get Dead – “Premedicated Murder”
14. Pennywise – “Devonshire and Crown”
15. Alkaline Trio – “Straight from the Jacket”
16. Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem – ” Capo 4th Fret”
17. Yellowcard – “Already Won”
18. Swingin’ Utters – “Not Your Savoir”
19. The Flatliners – “Fireball”
20. Simple Plan – “Justified Black Eye”
21. Useless ID – “Frances Stewart”
22. Jon Snodgrass & the Dead Peasants – “On The Outside”
23. American Steel – “Dark Corner”
24. Frenzal Rhomb – “Flying South”
25. Anti-Flag – “Toaster in the Bathtub”
26. Joey Cape with Scorpios – International You Day”

More details on the album.

Fat Wreck Chords label head and NOFX front man Fat Mike announced today that he is planning a tribute album for No Use for a Name singer/guitarist and San Jose local Tony Sly, who died unexpectedly last year.

In a blog post today on the Fat Wreck Chords website, Fat Mike wrote that punk acts Bad Religion, Lagwagon, Dropkick Murphys, Rise Against, NOFX, Frank Turner, Pennywise, Gaslight Anthem, Bouncing Souls and about 20 more bands are involved with the project:

Tony was a fucking amazing songwriter and one of my dearest friends. His death was traumatic. Horrible. I’ve had friends die, but this was different. Tony wasn’t finished.

I’ve been putting together this tribute comp for some time. It’s incredible how many bands have called me wanting to be on it. It’s been my absolute privilege to put this together. What I wanted to show on this record is how amazing Tony’s songs are. You can tell a song is great when it can be done in any style and it’s still great. That’s what this comp is about. All the bands are doing No Use for a Name songs or Tony Sly songs with their own take. It’s a real tribute to his songwriting.

I wanted to make a comp that Tony would be so proud of. These bands were his closest friends and his favorite bands. I thank all of them for stepping up and showing their love and respect to Tony and his family. It’ll come out in a few months and we’re gonna have a fucking crazy party when it does. You’re all invited to do the same.

Sly was 41 years old when he died on July 31 last year. No cause of death was released.

Tony Sly, a fixture in the San Jose rock scene and front man of No Use for a Name, passed away today at the age of 41. His long-time friend Jeff Brummett shares his thoughts and memories.

Tony was my first real best friend. One of those life changing friends you meet when you’re in those horrifying, formidable teenage years. Now, looking back he was the most pronounced influence on who I am.

We met in junior high and quickly became very close. We would draw this comic strip of this fake band named Ho Scale, where the characters were all stick figures. They would have adventures and battle their nemesis, a maniacal yet perfect elf named Kits. We would record old records onto tapes and make fake album covers and pretend they were the new Ho Scale release. We’d try and impress the other one with a new obscure Ho record. Tony would choose Deep Purple a lot. We were weird kids.

There was a lot of firsts with Tony. We had our first band together. Well, it was hardly a band. He was already a pretty decent guitar player and I was just the nerd trying to keep up with him. We would cut school and go to my house and make tape after tape of songs. Goofy tunes filled with inside jokes about our classmates and surreal weirdness only freshmen in high school can come up with. But even then, you could see how talented Tony was.

I played “drums” with these giant duct taped drumsticks and would beat on this huge blue Tupperware clothes hamper we dubbed the “blue thing.” I still have it. Tony seemed to have endless riffs and melodies and would just knock out like 10 songs in an afternoon. He could scream relentlessly one minute and seamlessly strum a beautiful ballad the next. Okay, maybe the ballad would be about how some guy in our class had a weird shaped head or something, but still. Dude had range, even then. I couldn’t believe my best pal was such a talent. And that I got to jam with him. I was hooked. I knew I had to be around music from then on.

So many firsts. We smoked our first cigarette together. I first heard the Misfits at his house. We would obsess on the Misfits. We’d spend hours and hours deciphering lyrics and debating which single was the best (I still say Bullet). We would take the bus to Tower and just devour punk records. Minor Threat, Descendents, Black Flag, all the greats we would discover together. He taught me how to play power chords, which opened the door to writing my own songs. Life changing.

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.

Tony Sly has been heading up San Jose’s most famous punk band for more than 20 years, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s used his solo career to branch out musically (though he hasn’t strayed too far thematically). The real payoff for No Use For A Name fans comes when he applies his new musical interests to some of the band’s classic songs, as he first did in 2004 on his split with Lagwagon’s Joey Cape, Acoustic. That record kind of served notice to fans about Sly’s intentions, and launched his solo career. Now he’s returned to the NUFAN catalogue once again with Acoustic Volume 2, which was released this week.

Once again, Sly rearranges No Use For A Name tunes, while Cape revisits Lagwagon. Besides the five acoustic versions of their respective bands’ songs, both contribute one new song each.

First off, this record simply sounds a lot better than their first split. Maybe they took more time with it, or maybe they’ve just gotten better at producing acoustic arrangements, but it sounds fantastic. Sly in particular has a knack for choosing NUFAN songs that will lend themselves naturally to this type of treatment. The five songs he picks here featured some of his most soulful deliveries on the original versions.

“Black Box,” for instance, doesn’t even sound that different than the original—it’s more deliberate and lush, and the beat is turned way down, but nothing has changed about the core intent of the song.

“Under the Garden” is another good example—just imagine that the original didn’t turn into a blazing punk song 15 seconds in, and you can imagine what he did here.

“Soulmate” and “Chasing Rainbows” both show how an acoustic version can be just as upbeat as the original, even without the layers of electric riffs.

“Pre-Medicated Murder” is the only song that doesn’t translate well, which is surprising because the original had a nice orchestral opening that Sly tried to build on here. But without the double-time beat of the original, the song comes off like a labored, overly long throwaway. The other versions show how Sly’s songwriting talents often get buried under a pile of sound, but “Pre-Medicated Murder” wasn’t one of his best.

The new song, “Liver Let Die,” is a much better showcase for Sly’s style—catchy and upbeat, but melancholy at the same time. He has a talent for building a certain sense of dread, but then letting go of it mid-song and throwing himself headlong into hope, refusing not to celebrate even in the face of certain defeat. It’s one of his best solo songs so far, and the highlight of the record.