LFO Frontman Rich Cronin Dead At 35

Robbie Daw | September 9, 2010 10:09 am

Rich Cronin, the singer-songwriter who along with Devin Lima and Brad Fischetti formed boy band Lyte Funkie Ones (or LFO), died yesterday after a five-year battle with leukemia, reports E! Online. Cronin had just turned 35 on August 30. Head below to learn more about the upbeat performer, and to revisit two of LFO’s biggest hits.

After initially undergoing chemotherapy in 2005, Massachusetts native Cronin went into remission. However, a relapse a year later left him in need of a stem-cell transplant. “Neither my brother nor my sister was a match and they said, ‘Well, we’re going to have to go into the donor pool and it’s rare that you find a match.’ But thank God they did find me a perfect match,” Cronin told VH1 in 2007, while promoting reality series Mission: Man Band.

In the teen-pop friendly times of 1999, LFO scored two Top 10 hits, both of which were co-written by Cronin: “Summer Girls” and “Girl On TV.” The group eventually split in 2002 after sophomore album Life Is Good failed to repeat the success of their self-titled debut.

Here’s “Summer Girls,” with its famous lines “I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch” and “Chinese food makes me sick.”

The trio’s “The Girl On TV” vid starred Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Yesterday onetime *NSync member Chris Kirkpatrick—who starred on Mission: Man Band alongside Cronin—wrote on his Facebook page, “RIP to a great friend Rich c.”

Fellow *Nsyncer Lance Bass tweeted, “Sad sad day that Rich Cronin died- was a amazing guy,” while Sky Ferreira posted “RIP LFO” on Twitter this morning.

Entertainment Weekly‘s Music Mix notes that in 2006, Cronin told the publication the following: “I am truly thankful for the success I had. And if it happens again, that’d be really nice. I’m just that same guy writing pop songs to make people happy. And I still only like girls in Abercrombie & Fitch.”