A tour bus carrying rock band Buckcherry was involved in a multivehicle crash on Interstate 26 near Spartanburg, South Carolina, early Friday morning, and one person who had stopped on the highway and left their vehicle was killed.
None of the five band members, Josh Todd, Stevie Dacanay, Billy Rowe, Kelly LeMieux, and Francis Ruiz, were hurt in the wreck. The band had just performed at the Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina, and was heading to its next tour date when the crash occurred. Authorities confirmed the fatality, and the band released a statement expressing condolences to the victim's family.
How the Buckcherry tour bus became entangled in the wreck remains unclear. Page Six reported that it "was not immediately known" how the bus got mixed up in the multivehicle collision. The band's own statement described "the collision that occurred ahead of our bus," language suggesting the fatal impact may have taken place in front of the tour bus rather than directly involving it, but the precise sequence of events has not been publicly detailed.
The band's statement was brief and somber:
"Tragically, authorities have confirmed that the collision that occurred ahead of our bus resulted in a fatality. Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the family and loved ones of the person who lost their life."
A representative for the band did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the New York Post. No law enforcement agency has been identified by name as the authority that confirmed the death, and the identity of the person killed has not been released.
FOX Carolina reported that the victim had stopped on the highway and gotten out of their car before being struck. That detail raises its own questions, why the person stopped, whether the vehicle was disabled, and what role other vehicles played, but none of those answers have surfaced yet. WYFF4 credited a photo from the scene and confirmed one person was killed.
Fatal crashes involving touring musicians are rare but not unheard of. The music industry has long grappled with the hazards of overnight highway travel between concert dates, and incidents on the road remain a grim reality for bands logging thousands of miles on tight schedules. In a separate tragedy earlier this year, a Connecticut father fell to his death at Madison Square Garden during a Goose concert, a reminder that danger can strike anywhere live music draws a crowd.
Buckcherry confirmed its next scheduled performance, in Fort Lauderdale, will go ahead as planned. The band is currently on its "Roar Like Thunder" tour, named after its 2025 studio album. No other tour dates were reported as affected.
Buckcherry rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s with hard-edged rock anthems. The group has maintained a steady touring presence for more than two decades, and the five-member lineup was intact and uninjured after Friday's crash. The entertainment world has seen its share of loss in recent months, Hal Williams, the beloved star of "227" and "Sanford and Son," died at 91, and each loss carries its own weight for the families left behind.
Several key facts remain unknown: the total number of vehicles involved, whether anyone else was injured, and the specific law enforcement agency handling the investigation. The band's phrasing, "the collision that occurred ahead of our bus", leaves open the possibility that the tour bus was not the vehicle that struck the victim, but no official account has clarified the chain of events.
Scholars, entertainers, and everyday Americans who build something lasting deserve to be remembered well. Gordon S. Wood, the Pulitzer-winning historian who spent a lifetime defending the American founding, died recently at 92, proof that a life's work, however different in kind, earns its own tribute.
For now, one family is grieving a loved one lost on a South Carolina highway in the dark hours of a Friday morning. The band played its show, boarded its bus, and rolled on, and someone who stopped on that same stretch of interstate never made it home. The answers owed to that family should come soon.
