Artist News

Artists and industry pay tribute to Viola Beach after tragic road accident

By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 15 February 2016

Artists and industry execs paid tribute yesterday to up and coming band Viola Beach, after all four members of the group and their manager died in a tragic road accident near Stockholm in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The band – Jack Dakin, Kris Leonard, Tomas Lowe and River Reeves – were in Sweden after playing at showcase festival Where’s The Music? on Friday night. They were reportedly driving to Stockholm Arlanda Airport to return to the UK, for a Saturday night gig in Guildford, when the accident occurred.

The incident happened on a bridge that crosses a canal near the Swedish capital. The centre of the bridge had been raised to allow a boat through. The car carrying all four band-members and their manager Craig Tarry then crashed into a barrier that had come down while the bridge was raised, before plunging into the canal below.

An investigation is underway into why the car didn’t stop at the barrier. Local police have told the BBC that there were actually two sets of safety barriers in place, that other cars were parked waiting for the boat to pass through, and that red warning lights were also flashing.

As news broke of the accident in the UK, numerous artists, media and industry people who had met, known or tipped the band expressed their shock at the incident, and sadness at the deaths of the five men. Communion Records, which recently released the group’s second single ‘Boys That Sing’, said the band were “a truly great team of young men … about to take on the world together”.

The label added: “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”, the label went on. “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”.

Concluding, the label said: “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”.

Communion co-founder and producer Ian Grimble also issued a statement, saying: “I first became aware of Viola Beach through their single ‘Swings & Waterslides’ and was very taken by the energy and vibrancy that jumped out of the speakers. Upon meeting them for the first time, along with Craig their manager, I could soon see why, their exuberance and determination to scream out to the world was overwhelming. This combined with undoubted talent and an incredible work ethic for ones so young made every long hour in the studio from then on very rewarding indeed”.

“It is with great sadness that we will not be able to see them grow from the spark that they are now, into the raging fire that they so desperately desired to become”, he continued. “They were a young band who wrote about what they knew, a legacy for new young bands I hope. ‘And she told me that she loves a boy who knows how to sing, so I learned how to sing’. And how they sang. My thoughts are with their friends and family right now”.

Mark Bennett from the band’s agents, United Talent Agency, also paid tribute yesterday, saying: “From your first gig to your last and many in between I was so lucky to be there and I will be forever grateful for you lightning up my life with your infectious, beautiful and joyful behaviour. Craig Tarry could be seen at every gig, head bobbing and just simply and purely loving the music. I must have called him more than anyone in the last six months, even Thursday we must have spoken eight or nine times. You started as a colleague and you ended as a good mate. I will miss you dearly”.

Communion has also confirmed that all proceeds from ‘Boys That Sing’ will now be donated to the families of the four band members and Tarry.