Country punk musician, composer, and producer Tony Kinman has died at the age of 63 following a battle with cancer, his brother Chip Kinman shared on Facebook. He was a founding member of California punk band the Dils, Austin-based country punk band Rank & File, as well as Blackbird, and Cowboy Nation.
Tony was born in 1956. He grew up in the San Diego area, where he and his brother Chip eventually formed punk band the Dils in the late ’70s. The band released several singles on 7”, and later performed their song “You’re Not Blank” during the battle of the bands scene in Cheech & Chong’s 1978 film Up in Smoke. The brothers eventually fused their punk aspirations with country when they relocated to Austin, Texas, and officially formed Rank & File with Alejandro Escovedo. “We needed to move somewhere where we could really do it, and so we decided to move to Austin,” Tony told Perfect Sound Forever in early 2018. “All of us had played in Austin before and really liked it. It was around April of 1981 that we moved to Austin. That’s how the band started.”
Rank & File released their debut album Sundown in 1983, and followed it with two other releases, 1984’s Long Gone Dead and 1987’s Rank and File. The Everly brothers covered their song “Amanda Ruth” on 1986’s Born Yesterday. Rank & File disbanded in 1987, but the brothers continued experimenting with country punk and alt-country sounds. Tony and Chip performed together in the bands Blackbird and Cowboy Nation. Before he passed, Tony produced his brother Chip’s band Ford Madox Ford’s new album This American Blues.
