Fair to Midland's bus may not have rolled nine times as has been previously reported elsewhere--but it did roll one-and-a-quarter times on Saturday afternoon, eventually landing on its side, after a tire on the band's trailer blew out when the band was driving from Los Angeles to Phoenix for a gig.
According to band manager Frank Hill, of all five band members on board, none were seriously hurt--although bassist Jon Dicken, who was driving the band at the time, banged his head pretty hard in the ordeal and smash his hand pretty badly, too. And, when help arrived on the scene, for precautionary reasons, he was airlifted off to a hospital for further medical inspection. But, aside from a few scratches and bruises, Dicken, like his bandmates, left the scene relatively unscathed.
But the band's van and a good chunk of its gear? Well, that much can't be said of those items, which, pictures show, took a the brunt of the damage as the van and trailer were tossed off the highway.
Really, talk about bad timing, though: The accident took place two hours off from the band's Phoenix destination on Saturday night, where it was scheduled to perform the only show it'd booked on the way home from a label showcase in Los Angeles--a showcase that, Hill says, went remarkably well.
"We're gonna hopefully pick a label in the next week," Hill says in regards to the band's long-awaited next release. "We'll hopefully have something to announce in the next month."
For now, the only announcements the band's making are these: On
February 4, at the Boiler Room in Denton, and then on February 13, at
the Curtain Club in Dallas, the band will offer up a couple of
headlining performances in attempt to recoup some of the losses the
accident has incurred on its funds. The currently unsigned band only
had liabilty insurance on the van and trailer it was using; as such,
the band's bills are currently piling up--and that's before even
looking into its gear losses.
Fortunately, it wasn't a total loss. Given the fact that no one was
seriously hurt, Fair to Midland has already applied its relatively
twisted senses of humor to the matter: Using video footage shot by the
band it was supposed to share Saturday night's bill with when that band
stumbled upon the wreck while also en route to the venue, Fair to
Midland plans on releasing a video of accident's aftermath, all set to
a new FTM song called "Loophole in Limbo."
"There's a lyric in the song," manager Hill adds with a chuckle, " that goes, 'Let's see you try to kill me.'"
