Five Things To Know About The Death Of UK Band Her’s
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On March 27th, the UK rock band Her’s was killed in a car crash while touring the U.S. There were four casualties in the accident: Her’s members Stephen Fitzpatrick and Audun Laading; the band’s tour manager, Trevor Engelbrektson; and the driver of the other vehicle.
Initial reports about the crash flooded music news websites on March 28th. Since then, more has become clear about the circumstances surrounding the accident. Here’s what is now known about the crash.
The crash occurred in Arizona, not California
The first batch of news reports about the death of Fitzpatrick and Laading reported that they and Engelbrektson were on their way to a performance in Santa Ana, California when they were killed. Many readers thus assumed the fatal car crash took place in California, but the next day, news broke that the accident occurred in Arizona, around 1 a.m. local time on Interstate 10. Her’s had just finished playing a show in Phoenix and were indeed heading to Santa Ana.
Musicians, music industry figures, and fans are shocked
Immediately upon news of the accident breaking, Her’s fans headed to social media in droves to pay tributes to the band. Musicians paid respects too: IDLES, a UK rock band currently among the country’s most celebrated, immediately took to Twitter to mourn Her’s in a tweet that thousands of users favorited. The band followed this tweet by covering the Her’s song “Harvey” during a festival set on March 31st. Around the time of IDLES’ original tweet, other music industry figures of note such as the prominent Austin events company Margin Walker, the musician Henry Green, and Liverpool events listing website The Guide Liverpool also tweeted out their mournings for the band.
The band’s record label issued a moving statement
Just before news of the crash began to break on major music news websites, the band’s record label, Heist or Hit, published a deeply-moving post to its Facebook commemorating Fitzpatrick and Laading. The post, which has now received thousands of reactions, remembered the two members of Her’s as kind, talented, funny people whose friendship was more akin to a brotherhood. The label mourned Fitzpatrick and Laading not just as people whose music they promoted, but as friends and true talents of whom the label was always proud.
Her’s was rising rapidly at the time of the crash
The crash that killed Fitzpatrick, Laading, and Engelbrektson came in the midst of an entirely sold out 19-date tour. According to Heist or Hit, the tour put the band in front of thousands of fans across the U.S., who came out to their local venues to see the band play songs from its 2018 debut album, Invitation to Her’s. The band first began building fans across the world with its 2017 compilation Songs of Her’s.
The day before the car crash, the highly-influential UK music program BBC Introducing published a video session with Her’s filmed at SXSW 2019. That video now has over 370,000 views, while most of the platform’s recent videos have at most a few tens of thousands of views.