IRON MAIDEN drummer Nicko McBrain was diagnosed with stage 1 laryngeal cancer in 2020 but kept it mostly under wraps until opening up about it in a single interview last year.
After an endoscopy at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, 70-year-old musician learned he had cancer. Within a week, doctors surgically removed the cancer and now McBrain gets check-ups every few months to ensure it hasn’t returned.
After Nicko noticed a change in his voice that could not be performance or touring-related, he decided to get himself checked out, as per the University Of Miami Health System’s website.
Nicko said: “When I play drums with the band, I actually sort of scream and yell while I play, like a Judo guy slapping the mat. [But] when you are lying down in a quiet room and you speak and hear your voice in your head and have a cold, you sound different. This happened to me. I thought this is very reminiscent — this different sounding voice of mine — to when I finish a tour or after a show. I didn’t have a cold or any symptoms of illness at all. I started to feel that I was clearing my throat more when I was in conversations. So, I just took it on myself to call my doctor.”
“I thoroughly recommend that anyone who may feel there is something different with their voice to go and get it checked out. And don’t put it off. It was very good for me that I caught it in stage 1.”
British heavy metal legends IRON MAIDEN will bring a new tour to Europe in the summer of 2023, including arena shows in the U.K. and Ireland. IRON MAIDEN‘s “The Future Past Tour” tour will see band performing songs from their latest album Senjutsu as well as from 1986’s Somewhere In Time along with other fan favorites.
