Buckcherry guitarist Stevie Dacanay is speaking out for the first time about the fatal, multi-vehicle wreck that totaled the band's tour bus on Interstate 26 in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, describing a chaotic scene where a drunk driver was struck and killed by an initial car after stepping out of his own stopped vehicle. The crash happened around 2 a.m. on August 21—not August 22—just after Buckcherry left a show in South Carolina, and left the bus undrivable while the band and crew waited at the scene until roughly 8 a.m.
According to Dacanay, the driver had stopped his car partly on the shoulder and partly in the right lane before opening his door and getting out, as reported by MassLive. A first car struck the man, throwing him into the left lane, where Buckcherry's tour bus then ran over debris rather than the man, triggering a pile-up in oncoming traffic as five or six more vehicles crested a hill behind the bus. The band's drum technician ran roughly a quarter-mile down the highway to check on the aftermath, and Dacanay recalled the roadway afterward being contaminated with gas, diesel, transmission fluid and brake fluid.
Three Separate Collisions Before the Bus Was Hit
South Carolina Highway Patrol reports describe the incident as three distinct, sequential collisions rather than a single crash: an initial single-vehicle guardrail impact, the fatal pedestrian strike by a Toyota sedan, and then the five-vehicle pileup that ultimately involved Buckcherry's bus, according to iHeart. The crash shut down eastbound I-26 near mile marker 31, just south of Dorman High School, with state troopers closing eastbound lanes between Exit 28 and Exit 35 until around 10:30 a.m., per the Post and Courier.
South Carolina Highway Patrol Master Trooper Mitch Ridgeway confirmed that the state's Multi-Disciplinary Accident Investigation Team, known as MAIT, was sent in to reconstruct the multi-vehicle scene, the newspaper's report noted. Despite the scale of the pileup, emergency officials said several motorists involved suffered only minor injuries, and no one aboard the tour bus or in the passenger cars required hospital transport, the same iHeart report added.
The Driver Was Identified
The deceased driver's identity remained unconfirmed, according to TMZ; a DNA test was needed for positive identification. Buckcherry addressed the crash on social media in the days afterward, offering condolences to the victim's family and expressing gratitude that all band members and touring crew were safe and unharmed.
Dacanay told MassLive he had not discussed the crash with anyone outside the band and pushed back on how some outlets covered it. He said certain coverage implied a member of Buckcherry had died, and that some outlets leaned into sensationalized framing to draw clicks, even showing footage of unrelated crashes as if it depicted the I-26 wreck. He called the experience simply a “traumatic kind of thing.”
Tour and Legal Context
The crash happened as Buckcherry traveled between stops on their Roar Like Thunder tour, following an August 20 show at The Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina, and ahead of a planned August 22 date at the Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, according to the Grand Pinnacle Tribune. The band was touring behind its eleventh studio album, also titled Roar Like Thunder, released in June 2025 via Round Hill Records and recorded at Sienna Studios in Nashville under producer Marti Frederiksen, per Blabbermouth. Buckcherry formed in 1995 and broke through with its self-titled debut album in 1999, which featured tracks including “Lit Up,” “Check Your Head,” “For the Moves” and “Dead Again.”
South Carolina's Emergency Scenes Law, also known as the Move Over Law under state code section 56-5-1538, requires drivers approaching stopped vehicles with flashing lights on highway shoulders to shift lanes or significantly slow down, according to the Laurens County Sheriff's Office. The South Carolina Department of Public Safety notes that MAIT, established in 1994, conducts in-depth collision reconstruction and advises allowing at least eight weeks for MAIT cases.
The wreck adds to a mixed picture on South Carolina's highways this year. The state recorded 54 fewer traffic fatalities during the comparable period in 2026 than in 2025, even as safety officials reported 11 traffic deaths during the 2026 Labor Day travel period alone, Hoodline previously reported.
