For Against Vocalist Jeffrey Runnings Dies at 61

Jeffrey Runnings, the vocalist and bassist with Nebraska post-punk band For Against, died on March 3 due to stage 4 cancer, Independent Project Records has confirmed. “Jeffrey Runnings was not only a good friend and an outstanding musician and songwriter, but someone whose life revolved around music,” Independent Project Records founder and co-owner Bruce Licher wrote in a statement shared with Pitchfork. He added: “His unique voice will be missed on so many levels.” Find Licher’s full statement below. Runnings was 61.

Runnings was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1963. He formed For Against in 1984 in Lincoln, Nebraska, at first playing keyboard in the group. After a series of personnel changes, the band solidified with the core trio of guitarist Harry Dingman III, drummer Gregory Hill, and Runnings, who pivoted to bass and vocals. For Against released their 1987 debut album Echelons on Independent Project Records, as well as the subsequent LPs December (1988), In the Marshes (1990), and Aperture (1993).

For Against released albums for the next 15-plus years, with their final full-length being 2009’s Never Been. In 2014 Captured Tracks released a box set of their first three albums; Words on Music had previously reissued the the LPs in the early 2000s. In 2018, Saint Marie released a limited edition vinyl box set of For Against’s handful of albums from the 1990s.

In 2024, Runnings recorded a solo album titled Piqued, which is set for release later this year. The LP will also include a 4-track EP of rare recordings from the late 1980s. Runnings shared “Batman Forever,” his first single from the solo effort, earlier this year.

Bruce Licher:

Jeffrey Runnings was not only a good friend and an outstanding musician and songwriter, but someone whose life revolved around music. Jeff was always enthusiastically sharing music that he thought his friends would enjoy, and for years he would send me handwritten letters often accompanied by records he thought I should have, or a mixtape he’d made that he thought I should hear. Even now, in the middle of the second decade of the 21st Century, when he sent me his new album to hear for the first time, it was on a cassette tape that he mailed through the post. I couldn’t have asked for anything more special. His unique voice will be missed on so many levels.