As reported by The Wrap, Kim Shattuck—best known as the lead singer and songwriter for The Muffs—has died. The news was confirmed by an Instagram post from her husband, Kevin Sutherland, who noted that she “passed away peacefully in her sleep after a two-year struggle with ALS.” He also added that Shattuck will “live with all of us through her music, our shared memories, and in her fierce creative spirit.” Shattuck was 56.
Shattuck was a member of all-female garage rock band The Pandoras from the late-’80s to early ‘90s, with Shattuck leaving the group shortly before the death of primary singer/songwriter Paul Pierce. One of the reasons Shattuck left was because she didn’t approve of the way Pierce had fired Pandoras keyboardist Melanie Vammen, and the two of them then went on to form Los Angeles-based pop-punk band The Muffs alongside Ronnie Barnett and Criss Crass. After an initial tour and the release of the band’s self-titled debut in 1993, though, both Crass and Vammen decided to leave the group, with drummer Roy McDonald joining up to form what would be the group’s permanent lineup.
In 1995, The Muffs released Blonder And Blonder, featuring “Sad Tomorrow,” and they got what is easily their biggest hit from “Kids In America,” a cover of the Kim Wilde song that famously appeared on the Clueless soundtrack. After that, the group released two more albums, 1997's Happy Birthday To me and 1999's Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow, before going on hiatus. The group briefly returned in 2004 with Really Really Happy, a much more subdued album that failed to make much of a splash, and in 2013 Shattuck replaced Kim Deal as a touring member of the Pixies—though she was semi-famously fired from the group for having the gall to crowd surf during a show, with the band’s manager telling her later that “the Pixies don’t do that.”
The Muffs returned for another album in 2014 with the back-to-basics Whoop Dee Doo, and they were set to release a seventh album, No Holiday, this year.