Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain is known almost as much for his boisterous and fun personality as he is his exceptional skills as beat-keeper for one of heavy metal’s biggest bands.
Recently in an interview with the University Of Miami Health System, McBrain opened up and revealed he was diagnosed with stage 1 laryngeal cancer in 2020, but he kept it mostly under wraps. Now, the 70-year-old drummer is urging others to keep a close eye on their own health.
Luckily for McBrain, his cancer was surgically removed within a week of its discovery, and he now gets check-ups every few months to make sure it hasn’t returned.
“When I play drums with the band, I actually sort of scream and yell while I play, like a Judo guy slapping the mat,” McBrain said.
“[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.”
McBrain, who had the cancer in a part of his vocal cords, said: “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.”
Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson beat cancer back in 2015 after battling a tumor in his throat and lymph nodes.
“Well, I’d be a liar if I didn’t think for a minute that Iron Maiden [was] finished,” McBrain told Overdrive at the time of Dickinson’s diagnosis. “[But] I thought more about the possibility of losing my friend than anything else, to be honest. Then later, I was thinking, ‘God forbid if the worst ever happened, the legacy would be the last 16 albums.'”
