Baroness Update After Life-Threatening Tour Van Crash

On the Wednesday 15 August this year, the acclaimed Southern metal band Baroness were involved in a disastrous coach accident near Bath, UK while touring in support of their double-album release, Yellow & Green. News of the accident, where the band's tour van careened off a rain-slick viaduct and fell a staggering 30 feet (nine metres) to the ground below, filtered quickly through the metal community, which rallied quickly to show their support.

Despite the outpurings of goodwill, one could not but be eerily reminded of the similarly disatrous accident that claimed Metallica's Cliff Burton just over a 25 years before, cruelly snuffing an emerging talent and almost destoying a young band on the cusp of artistic and commerical breakthrough. As all nine passengers on the Baroness bus were badly injured, fans and the wider music community have been waiting anxiously for news of whether Baroness will be recovering from such a major setback.

Finally, after weeks of recovery, the band's guitarist and frontman John Baizley has released an update, recounting his experience of the crash and outlining his to continue Baroness. In writing as vivid and arresting as it is heartfelt and thankful, Baizely describes confronting his own mortality inches away from the bus windscreen:

'Most people who have been in accidents understand the pre-trauma sensation of time slowing down... I remember the sounds of confusion from behind me as our collective terror rose. I remember seeing the guardrail split, then a cluster of trees smacking against the front windshield. While we were airborne my eyes met with our driver's. I knew then that we each shared the same look on our face; and I won't soon forget it. We had spent enough time in the air to appreciate, make peace with and accept a fate we thought inevitable, and we looked at one another with a horribly silent “goodbye” in our eyes. When the bus hit the ground, I flew like a missile into the windshield. I can still see the double-paned auto glass turning blue and the spider-webbing cracks spreading outwards from the impact my body made. I hit the glass so hard, that the entire windshield flew from the frame to the ground, and I bounced back inside the bus. I landed on the ledge of the windshield...'

Baizley's left (fretting) arm was horribly mangled and the Baroness rhythm section of Allen Blickle and Mike Maggioni both suffered fractured verterbrae, injuries which could have definitively ended any future plans of playing music. While initially-wheelchair bound, Baizley has thankfully found that he still has the ability to play and resolves to continue recording and touring with Baroness:

'We cannot allow this accident, which I believe is unrelated to the band or our music, to slow down or stifle what has become so much more than a passionate hobby for the four of us. Through Baroness, we have discovered a method by which we may harness our drive to create, and channel all the emotion, anxiety and pain in our lives into something constructive. Music is the universal means of communication we have chosen to express ourselves. Our message has never been one of the absolute positive or negative, neither black nor white. True life occurs within the shades of grey, and I see this experience form that perspective. It seems only fitting to me that we continue working towards creating and performing again as soon as possible, as this band and its music are the vehicle through which we grow as individuals, artists and brothers...

There is no better moment than now, broken and in physical stasis, to devote ourselves more fully towards our art than ever. We cannot allow the traumatic fallout of our crash to cripple us internally. It seems simple: the shows we have cancelled we will reschedule and play in the future. It isn't going to happen next week nor will it be next month. But it will happen. We will be back on tour as soon as we possibly can.'

This is undoubtedbly brilliant news for Baroness' growing legion of fans, as well as for the metal communty at large who will be able to see one if it's most promising bands continue to grow in stature and creativity. The complete update from John Baizley can be read here. While lengthy, it's well worth reading for the quality of Baizley's writing and his contemplative musings on the band's brush with death.