Metal Bands Wormreich & Khaotika Involved In Fatal Van Accident
Bands were traveling in Georgia when a van carrying members of both groups crashed.
Members of two metal bands, Khaotika and Wormreich, were involved in a fatal car accident on Monday while driving on Interstate 85 in northeast Georgia, according to AJC.com. Members of the two groups were traveling together in a van that wrecked about 65 miles northeast of Atlanta.
According to a Georgia State Patrol officer, the driver of the van “apparently fell asleep and allowed the vehicle to leave the roadway, at which time the vehicle struck a tree on the passenger side,” and three occupants were thrown from the van. The officer said three of the van’s 12 passengers were found dead on the scene; eight other people were taken to two different hospitals, with three of the eight in critical condition. The driver is reportedly not among the injured.
Khaotika describes itself on its Facebook page as “melodic occult metal,” while Wormreich calls itself “black metal.”
Unfortunately for any band, tour-related travel accidents are risk they take when traveling from gig to gig, no matter what the means of transportation. As recently as Feb. 16, Within the Ruins rolled its van and trailer while driving to join Suicide Silence on tour. WTR escaped injury, but its equipment and vehicle were destroyed. (Suicide Silence also lost singer Mitch Lucker in a motorcycle accident in 2012, but that incident was not tour-related.) In 2013, four members of the group Sylosis and the act’s driver were injured when the band’s RV crashed into the back of a tractor trailer. Sylosis was playing as support on a tour with DevilDriver and Trivium.
Death metal band Decapitated has experienced not one but three major accidents while on the road, one of them fatal. In 2007, vocalist Adrian “Covan” Kowanek was left with permanent paralysis and drummer Witold “Vitek” Kieltyka was killed when Decapitated’s tour bus collided with a logging truck. In 2011, the band was on a plane that had to make an emergency landing at Warsaw Airplort with its wheels up, but no one on the flight was hurt. And in 2014, two people were hospitalized when Decapitated’s van crashed while the band was touring with GWAR and American Sharks.
One of the most well-known fatal tour accidents in the metal world was when Metallica bassist Cliff Burton was killed in 1986 when the band’s bus flipped as the band was traveling in Sweden. Burton was thrown from his bunk while he was sleeping, and the bus landed on top of him.
