The Cult Doesn’t Miss A Beat After Tour Bus Crash

The accident occurred near Zagreb, Croatia, July 4 at 6 a.m. local time. 

Ian Astbury, who was seated in the bus’s front lounge, can tell you all about what happened. 

“I was the only one awake,” the vocalist said. “All of a sudden, the bus veered violently, hit the guard rail and tipped on a 45-degree angle, then righted itself and came to a halt. The guard rail was the only thing that prevented us from going over an 80-foot drop.”

The crash threw Astbury into the aisle and he suffered injuries to his neck, back and shoulder. Fortunately his bandmates and the crew were sleeping in their bunks at the time of the crash and nobody else was badly hurt. 

The Cult’s driver got the bus to a service station a few miles up the road, where the bus was temporarily patched up and Astbury’s injuries were treated with ice and pain medication. The band got back on the road, arriving in Ljubljana in time for the band’s gig that night at Kino Siska. 

By 5 a.m. the next day the bus was fully repaired, ready for the band to climb aboard for the 20+ hour trek to the next stop on the tour – a July 6 appearance at Roskilde Festival in Roskilde, Denmark. 

“No one has had any sleep, so the guys are pretty beat, and we are still in shock, to be honest,” Astbury said. “You never think something like this is going to happen to you, and it just did.” 

Touring in support of the band’s ninth album, Choice Of Weapon, The Cult has European dates booked through a July 19 appearance at Mares Vivas Festival in Gaia, Portugal. A run of U.S. and Canadian gigs is scheduled Aug. 18 through Sept. 2, followed by U.K. dates Sept. 10-16.