Musician Jose (Luis) Vasquez of the post-punk band The Soft Moon, John (Juan) Mendez, the DJ known as Silent Servant and a third person were found unresponsive in a downtown Los Angeles loft apartment last week and pronounced dead , according to their representatives and authorities in Los Angeles.
Vasques’ death was announced on a post on the band’s Facebook page the manufacture. Records kept by the Los Angeles County medical examiner show that Jose Vasquez, 44, died at a residence the day before, Jan. 18.
The Triangle Agency, which represents Mendez, confirmed his death to the electronic music platform Permanent Advisor. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office says John Mendez, 46, also died Jan. 18 at a residence.
The medical examiner’s office said a third person, Simone Ling, 43, was also found the afternoon of Jan. 18 at the private residence in the 600 block of South Main Street in Los Angeles. A spokeswoman said the Coroner’s Office had deferred the cause of death in all three cases and that it could take between three and six months to make a final decision on the cause.
Lt. Leticia Ruiz, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said officers responded to a missing person call and when they arrived at Pacific Electric Lofts downtown, they entered a unit to find three unresponsive adults. “Officers also observed possible drugs and drug paraphernalia,” he said. All three people were pronounced dead at the scene, he added.
Homicide investigators responded to the scene and found no evidence of foul play or forced entry at the location, Lt. Ruiz said. The coroner’s office will handle the case and conduct toxicology tests, he said.
Vasquez, a multi-instrumentalist, released at least five albums from 2010 to 2022 as Soft Moon. “Because Soft Moon is a personal journey for me, it’s important to write for myself.” he told Post-Punk.com in 2014. “Everything about the project is about self-discovery, growth, emotional healing, battles with my inner demons, my biology and digging into the past. I started Soft Moon as a means of healing myself.” Other members joined for live performances.
Of the band Website tour dates are listed next month in Denmark, Georgia, Turkey and Greece.
“This is a huge loss and our hearts are broken,” said the Facebook post on the band’s page.
Mendez, who grew up in Southern California, began releasing work under the alias Silent Servant in the mid-2000s while still a member of the techno collective Sandwell District. He released his first full-length album, “Negative Fascination”, in 2012 and a second album in 2018.
A 2017 profile of Mendez in Permanent Advisor said Mendez owned a loft in downtown Los Angeles and detailed his work as a designer and art director, which also included music covers.
In the profile, he described his mind as he shaped the Sandwell District aesthetic during downtime from his day job years ago. “The whole thing was just making something every day to be free,” he said. “It didn’t matter what, just make something.”
Resident Advisor said Mendez was scheduled to perform as a DJ in Phoenix on Friday.