AEROSMITH Bassist Discusses Cancer Battle

June 11, 2009

AEROSMITH bassist Tom Hamilton recently spoke to The Sun Chronicle about the band's last tour — in 2007 in support of the greatest-hits album "Devil's Got A New Disguise: The Very Best Of Aerosmith" — which he had to sit out while battling throat cancer.

"What I had to go through was the band going out on tour without me," he said. "And so I had a taste of that, the negative feelings of that. So it was a terrible thought, but I had to learn that there were some things that could be worse than not having the band.

"I've been in this band since I was a friggin' teenager. Obviously I've got a strong desire to be here," he explained. "But you know, sometimes you have to think like some day is coming. I think going through that cancer experience, it kind of grabbed me by the head and made me look at a lot of stuff and just sort of in general, you think of things you always wanted to do some day.

"Well, some day is here. So I got a lot of that, which I think is a positive thing because it really focused me. And I've come a long way musically since that happened. It was almost a gift of the whole process that I'm probably a better player, writer, recorder now than I would have been if I hadn't gone through that."

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