Tony Lombardo

Tony Lombardo (born 1945) is an American musician who was the original bassist in the punk rock band the Descendents. He joined the band in 1979 and played on their debut single, the Fat EP, and the albums Milo Goes to College (1982) and I Don't Want to Grow Up (1985). After leaving the band, he performed in other acts and worked for the United States Postal Service until 2005. He collaborated with the Descendents' successor band, All, writing two songs for their album Allroy's Revenge (1989) and teaming up with them for an album of his own songs, New Girl, Old Story (1991), credited to "TonyAll". He also collaborated with the reunited Descendents on their 1996 album Everything Sucks, and the 2021 album 9th and Walnut.

Biography Early life Lombardo is originally from the South Bay, Los Angeles, but later moved to Long Beach, California to attend California State University, Long Beach.

1979–85: Descendents Lombardo joined the Descendents in 1979, while the band was still in its formative stages. Frank Navetta, David Nolte, and Bill Stevenson were rehearsing in Navetta's brother's garage in Long Beach. Lombardo wrote and sang on the B-side track. Stevenson's classmate Milo Aukerman joined the band in 1980 as lead singer, solidifying the early Descendents lineup. The Fat EP (1981) included two Lombardo compositions, "Hey Hey" and "My Dad Sucks", the later co-written with Navetta. They performed with this lineup, and occasionally as a quintet when Aukerman would make return visits to Los Angeles. Navetta, Lombardo, and Cooper tried to start a new band, the Ascendants. "We played one show", said Lombardo. "Frank played in his underwear, and I don't mean boxers. It was all a disaster, it was sad, for me anyway." He also shares co-author credit on "Descendents", "Pervert", and "Rockstar".

1985–present: Post-Descendents After leaving the Descendents, Lombardo continued to work for the United States Postal Service until his retirement in 2005. The Descendents experienced more lineup changes and released two more albums before Aukerman left the band in 1987. Stevenson changed the band's name to All, and they continued to tour and release albums. Lombardo wrote two songs for All's 1989 album Allroy's Revenge, "Man-O-Steel" and the instrumental "Gnutheme". In 1990 he collaborated with All to record New Girl, Old Story, an album of songs he had written between 1979 and 1989. Lombardo played bass on the entire record, which was released under the band name "TonyAll", and sang on five of its twelve tracks: He also wrote and played on the song "Gotta" from the album's recording sessions, which was released on the "When I Get Old" single. Lombardo also joined former Descendents guitarist Ray Cooper in the band Spiffy, who released two singles in 1996.

In 2002 Lombardo and Navetta joined Stevenson for a reunion performance by the Descendents' original power trio lineup at Stevenson's Stockage festival in Fort Collins, Colorado. According to Lombardo, they also recorded some songs for a potential future release: "We recorded some of my songs in 2006 at The Blasting Room. In 2002 we recorded a whole bunch of songs, mostly Frank's songs. He was a great songwriter. He had such a unique EQ out of his amp. When we recorded later in 2008, we did some more of my songs, but Frank wasn't there for that. We tried to recreate that unique Frank sound. I'd like to think of these as songs that if the Descendents had stayed together, this is what we would have sounded like. Those are in Bill's hands. Milo has said from the get-go that he would record it, but he hasn't yet." Lombardo joined All onstage for two performances in Southern California in July 2009.

Lombardo participated in the making of Filmage, a 2013 documentary film chronicling the history of the Descendents and All, in which he is featured in interview footage discussing his time with the band. In September 2014 he joined the Descendents to perform Milo Goes to College in its entirety at the Riot Fest in Chicago and Denver.

Playing style Frank and I played all down strokes. In retrospect it was stupid and silly, because you don't really need to, but it was more visceral, so you could make faces with some legitimacy rather than posing. I think my approach is that I'm a frustrated guitar player who's not really good enough to play guitar, but I want to play melodic things. It started out with just doing transitions from one chord to the next, then it got into where I was actually playing an alternative melodic line, so I would use the singer's melody as a starting point and then just kind of go with it. — –Tony Lombardo "Tony brings a unique style of bass playing," said Black Flag bassist Chuck Dukowski, "Every time they're on a chord, it's a run." 9th & Walnut (2021) – bass guitar (recorded in 2002)

With TonyAll New Girl, Old Story (1991) – bass guitar; lead vocals on "U R Super", "Keep It", "Face 2 Face", "Last Refuge", and "Special to Me" With Spiffy "Secret" (1996) – bass guitar "Didn't Know" (1996) – bass guitar