Pete Shelley, singer-guitarist of Buzzcocks, died of an apparent heart attack Thursday at his home in Estonia, according to the BBC. He was 63. Shelley sang lead on such puck classics as “Ever Fallen in Love” and “What Do I Get.”

Adam Sweeting of The Guardian writes that Pete Shelley and his band Buzzcocks became indelibly linked to the UK’s punk movement when they played their first gig supporting the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester in July 1976, but they never conformed to any of punk’s cliches about rage, anarchy and rebellion. Shelley proved to be a songwriter of wit and subtlety, able to probe the angst and confusion of adolescent love and lust with shrewd insight.

Buzzcocks achieved success with their first recording, the Spiral Scratch EP, which was released on their own label, New Hormones, in January 1977 (the band having supported the Sex Pistols on their Anarchy tour in late 1976). It was one of the first independent releases of the punk era, and to the band’s surprise sold its first thousand copies in four days. “We made quite a bit of money from Spiral Scratch,” Shelley recalled. “It ended up selling about 16,000 copies and we were able to buy some new equipment.”

In 1981 Shelley launched his solo career with the single Homosapien, from the album of the same name, produced by the Buzzcocks producer Martin Rushent (who was about to help make Human League’s electropop epic Dare). Shelley had returned to his earlier fondness for electronica, and found himself in controversial waters when the BBC banned Homosapien for its “explicit reference to gay sex”. In 2002 Shelley commented that his sexuality “tends to change as much as the weather”. The track reached 14 on the US dance chart.

Shelley is survived by his second wife, Greta along with a younger brother, Gary, and a son from his first marriage.