Tom Searle, guitarist of UK metal band Architects, has died from cancer aged 28.
In a statement posted to Facebook, the band’s drummer, Dan Searle, confirmed that his twin brother had been living with the disease for three years.
“It is with unbelievable pain and sadness that I have to announce that at around twelve minutes past midnight on August 20th my amazing brother, Tom, passed away after over 3 years living with cancer,” he wrote. “He was an incredible songwriter and guitarist. He was my closest and oldest friend. He was a funny, intelligent and sweet man and he leaves an enormous void in all of our lives.”
The band, who released ‘All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us’ in May, will tour the UK, Europe and Australia in the coming months, but following that their future is uncertain.
“I don’t know what will become of Architects,” Searle wrote. “Me and Tom started playing in a band together when we were 13 and, really, Architects is just an evolution of the band that we started all the way back then, over half my life ago. To pretend that Tom wasn’t at the heart of everything that the band created would be to show a complete lack of respect to the amazing talent that he was. The band will never be the same and there is simply no denying it.
“We will 100% tour All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, there is no doubt about that. We will be going to Australia in a few weeks and we will be doing our UK and European headline tour in October and November. We hope that these shows will be an opportunity for everyone out there to show their respects to my wonderful brother. It won’t be easy for us to get on stage and play every night without him, but its something that we must do.
“We want to carry on, that is important to say, and we will strive to do so, but we will not release any music unless we truly believe that it is something that Tom would have been proud of. Whether or not we can achieve that is something that we will have to discover in time.”
Architects have set up a Just Giving page in aid of Martlets Hospice in Hove. "The Martlets Hospice in Hove took unbelievable care of Tom in his final days," Searle wrote. "We were constantly blown away by their compassion and hard work and we feel hugely indebted to them for ensuring that we were able to make some amazing memories with Tom before he passed away." Head here to donate.
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