Motorhead guitarist Phil Campbell has confirmed that the band's hard-living frontman, bassist Lemmy Kilmister, 67, has been fitted with a pacemaker.
Speaking to WalesOnline, Campbell said:
"Lem had a pacemaker fitted earlier in the year because he’d been suffering from irregular heartbeats, and then his diabetes started playing him up. But his ticker's fine now and he’s made sufficient changes to his lifestyle and diet in order to combat the diabetes, it’s just that he felt he wasn’t 100 percent ready to go back on the road just yet."
Last month, Motorhead were forced to postpone their European tour until February to give Lemmy enough time to recover from his health problems.
Campbell added that it's difficult to tell how Lemmy is feeling these days: "The main problem is that he’s displayed such a hard persona all his life that it makes it difficult for him to let people in. He’s like the John Wayne of rock – always wanting to soldier on and handle things on his own, you know?"
The band's new album, Aftershock, was released last month.
“You wanted me to come on your track and do something in a Spanish style. I thought, ‘I have to show him how I do it on the whole guitar’”: Marcin shows an astounded Will Smith his virtuosic guitar technique
“I probably hauled in 20 guitars. I listened to the record top to bottom, turned to him and said, ‘It doesn’t need anything’”: Jeff “Skunk” Baxter on the one studio session where he lugged a ton of guitar gear – and didn't use any of it
