LFO

LFO, the boy band trio whose sound merged pop, hip-hop, and R&B with an easygoing touch, gained rapid visibility in the 1990s after landing a Top Ten placement for the single “Summer Girls.” That track pushed the group’s self-titled debut album, released in 1999, to number 21 on the Billboard 200. After the 2001 release Life Is Good failed to sustain momentum, the members disbanded. A later reunion proved short-lived when illness claimed two of them during the 2010s. Founding member Brad Fischetti has since continued performing on the road to keep the group’s catalog alive.

Formed in 1995 in Orlando, Florida—the epicenter of late-’90s boy-band activity—LFO (short for Lyte Funkie Ones) began when singer Rich Cronin met aspiring model Brad Fischetti. The pair spent the next two years sharpening their vocal, dance, and songwriting abilities before third vocalist Devin Lima completed the lineup. Early tours supporting the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC preceded the 1999 arrival of their debut album LFO. The buoyant pop cut “Summer Girls,” whose lyrics name-checked teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch and thereby amplified its appeal to adolescent fans, climbed to Top Five status that summer. Follow-up single “Girl on TV” achieved comparable chart success, and LFO remained on the road for most of the next two years, sharing bills with Britney Spears while the album reached platinum certification.

In 2001 the trio reentered the studio hoping Life Is Good would deliver more hits, yet the project produced no additional Top 40 singles and peaked at number 75 on the Billboard 200. By the following year the group had split, and each member turned to individual work. Fischetti assembled several short-lived projects and appeared on the VH-1 series Mission: Man Band. Lima issued a cover of Sly & the Family Stone’s “If You Want Me to Stay” and recorded with his own bands the Cadbury Diesel and the Mack Pack. Despite a leukemia diagnosis in 2005, Cronin also stayed active, issuing a solo album in 2008.

A brief 2009 reunion yielded the new song “Summer of My Life,” but Cronin’s health problems curtailed further activity. He died on September 8, 2010, after a five-year battle with leukemia. Fischetti and Lima revived LFO again in 2017 with the release of “Perfect 10,” yet a planned tour was halted later that year when Lima received a cancer diagnosis; he died on November 21, 2018. In 2020 Fischetti joined fellow boy band O-Town on tour, performing LFO material as a tribute to his late bandmates. Brian Gillis, an original member who exited before “Summer Girls” became a hit, died on March 29, 2023, at the age of 47.