The members of an up
and coming British band called Viola Beach lost their lives on Saturday when
their tour van drove off a bridge in Stockholm, Sweden, Among the victims were
frontman Kris Leonard, guitarist River Reeves, bassist Tomas Lowe, drummer Jack
Dakin, and the band’s manager Craig Tarry. Viola Beach were amid their
first-ever international tour and had just finished playing Sweden’s Where is
the Music? Festival. They were due to travel to America in March for South by
Southwest. According to police, the band drove through a barrier and fell
through a gap of the bridge opened to allow a boat to pass underneath.
Viola Beach’s label, Communion Records, said in a
statement:
“Viola Beach had only
recently come into the Communion family, and had everything going for them —
great songs, passion, talent, drive … everything that a band should have. To
sit down with the band was to sit down with a group of guys whose band you
wanted to be in, and to be in the presence of a band who knew just what it
would take to make it. This is why the band had been in Sweden, rather than sit
back and wait for it to happen to them, Kris, River, Jack and Tom were
determined to go out into the world and play every show they could until the
world was singing along with them, and now that dream has been sadly taken away
from all of us. Equally, Craig, their manager was possessed by a passion to
help the band achieve everything they wanted to, and to speak with Craig about
Viola Beach, and music in general was an absolute pleasure — you knew he was
doing it all for the right reasons. Everyone here at Communion is in a state of
total shock and sorrow, and our thoughts go out to the families and friends of
Craig and the band.
