x

The latest industry news to your inbox.


I'd like to hear about marketing opportunities

    

I accept IQ Magazine's Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy

news

Her’s: UK band and manager killed in US car crash

“One of the UK’s most loved up and coming bands”: Liverpool band Her’s and their tour manager killed in a tragic road accident while touring the United States

By Anna Grace on 29 Mar 2019

UK band Her's killed in US car crash

Her's


image © Heist and Hit

Both members of Liverpool-based band Her’s and their tour manager have been killed in a road accident while touring in the US.

Stephen Fitzpatrick and Audun Laading, along with tour manager Trevor Engelbrektson, were involved in the fatal car crash early on Wednesday morning. The accident happened as the group travelled from Phoenix, Arizona to a show date in Santa Ana, California.

The self-described “international supersonic spectral wave Liverpool band” were on their second tour of North America, playing 19 dates of sold-out shows following the release of their debut album Invitation to Her’s in August 2018. The band also put out an eight-track of early releases entitled Song of Her’s in 2017.

The Liverpool duo had been touring the United States since early March, with the Santa Ana gig to be the penultimate date of the tour. Engelbrektson, a Minneapolis musician, sound engineer and tour manager who “did more for Minneapolis music than anybody could ever dream of” had been touring with the pair.

“Musically, Her’s were astonishing. An aptitude for melody, fun and entertainment combined with a complexity that was as sophisticated as it was stylish”

Her’s had played in Washington, New York, Seattle and Denver, among other US cities. The band had featured on the BBC Music Introducing programme at South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

“We are all heartbroken,” write representatives of the band’s record label, Heist or Hit. “Their energy, vibrancy and talent came to define our label.”

“As humans, they were warm, gentle and hilarious […] Musically, Her’s were astonishing. An aptitude for melody, fun and entertainment combined with a complexity that was as sophisticated as it was stylish,” reads the social media post.

Fitzpatrick and Laading met for the first time while studying music at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (Lipa), graduating in 2016.

“To say they were close would be an underestimation of a friendship that was genuinely beautiful to witness; they loved one another like brothers,” reads the Heist and Hit statement.

“We have lost our friends and the world has been denied their talent.”

 


Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free digest of essential live music industry news, via email or Messenger.