Baroness, the metal band I’d cofounded in Savannah, Georgia, had been going for 10 years the night we played Bristol’s Fleece & Firkin in 2012. It was a great gig, and we stayed up until the early hours sharing stories with fans, finally falling into the bunks on our tour bus to drive to a show in Southampton.

I was one of the first to wake the next day. I used to spend each morning on tour writing a recap of the previous night’s show, and I was typing at a table halfway down the bus when we turned on to a narrow road at the top of a steep hill with a sign reading “12% gradient”.

I felt a jolt of fear as I heard the sounds of mechanical failure: a hiss, a creak and rending metal. Our driver, Norman, was from Berlin and I knew he wasn’t fond of driving in the UK. I called to him and when he looked at me the terror in his eyes was unmistakable: it was clear the brakes had failed. Bends kept obscuring the road ahead, and there were high stone walls on both sides. Norman managed to steer past two oncoming cars, missing them by a whisker, but our speed was increasing every second. It was only a matter of time before we crashed.

The walls gave way to open countryside, and I thought about jimmying the door open and trying to leap to safety, but the idea seemed selfish and ridiculous. I started screaming to alert everyone. Those who were awake were in a lounge at the back of the bus and unaware of what was going on; everyone else was still asleep. Confused faces popped out of bunks as, ahead of us, the end of the road came into view – an intersection with a guardrail facing us head-on. I shouted to Norman, “Can we make the turn?” He shook his head.

The bus hit the rail at 65mph and sailed right through. For a moment or two, we were airborne. The tops of pine trees whipped past the windscreen and there was a strange sense of calm. My eyes met Norman’s and, wordlessly, we said goodbye. I thought, “I’ve had a good run and if this is the way I go, bring it on. Just please make it quick.”

The bus hit dirt and gravel and I shot forward like a bullet, hitting the windscreen headfirst. I remember seeing a spiderweb of cracks bursting out from the point of impact, and the windscreen popped clean out. As the dust settled, I found myself sitting in the empty frame.

I surveyed my body for damage – my left leg was strangely bent, my left arm shattered and twisted behind my back, so that my hand rested on my right hip. I grabbed my wrist and tried to straighten my arm, yanking it up. I could feel nothing – it was like holding the cold hand of a stranger.

Band and crew came crawling out of the wreckage, bruised and bloody. There were nine people on the bus and, astonishingly, it gradually became clear there had been no fatalities. Witnesses arrived almost immediately – the bus had come to rest near a restaurant on a canal. As I was helped from the wreckage, I saw we’d driven off a viaduct, 30ft high. The bus lay across a stream, the front crumpled like a beer can, the back cradled by the trees that had helped soften our descent.

The pain was phenomenal, but even as I pleaded with people to knock me out, I felt an overwhelming joy at being alive. There would be dark times ahead – for a few days, it looked like I might lose my arm. In the end, it was rebuilt during an eight-hour operation. I spent two weeks immobilised in an acute orthopaedic trauma ward, then another three in a flat in Bath with my wife and daughter, long after my band mates had returned to the US.

Three years on, I’m still in constant pain and can’t climb out of a chair the way I used to, but as soon as I could wiggle my fingers again I phoned Baroness’s guitarist, Pete, and said, “We have to keep the band going.” Since then, we’ve recorded a new album, largely inspired by the crash, and we’re back on tour. Allen, our drummer, and bass player Matt both suffered fractured vertebrae and decided not to continue, but we stay in touch. We all have a unique bond – bound by aches and pains, but also by the love developed after coming through it together.

• As told to Chris Broughton.

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