Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain is the eldest member of the band at 71 years old, and the drummer previously revealed he was diagnosed with stage 1 laryngeal cancer in 2020. McBrain kept his diagnosis mostly under wraps, but also revealed that he suffered a stroke earlier this year.
McBrain said previously that the stroke left him paralyzed down one side of his body, and he worried that his career was over.
During a recent interview with SiriusXM’s Eddie Trunk, McBrain discussed Iron Maiden’s “The Future Past Tour” and his health.
“It’s going great,” McBrain said. “It started off a little shaky for me, but as the time [went on] and the more shows we performed, I started to get a little bit more strength and they’d been really rocking out well. And the last couple of months have been fantastic.”
“Doing good,” he continued. “I’m still probably — I’d say I’m 85 to 90 percent back to strength, but I still have a little less dexterity with speed in my fingers. My fingers are the ones that — this is the last thing to strengthen up. But I had to change certain drum fills. Some fills that everybody knows me for on certain songs, I’ve had to improvise those at rehearsals to be able to actually play the songs.”
“So now I’m starting to actually be able to kind of embrace it a bit more. And I can’t do that live. I have to wait until we start doing some rehearsals again or whatever it is. But I’m definitely getting stronger. And I’ve had great support from (manager) Rod (Smallwood), the band, and all of the fans out there. They’ve been absolutely — they’ve shown me so much love, it’s amazing.”
