DEATH ANGEL Drummer On Surviving COVID-19: 'I Wouldn't Wish This On My Worst Enemy'

DEATH ANGEL members Will Carroll (drums),Damien Sisson (bass) and Rob Cavestany (guitar) spoke to San Francisco's KPIX 5 about how they contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, during their recent European tour. The five-week "The Bay Strikes Back 2020" run saw DEATH ANGEL sharing the stages with TESTAMENT and EXODUS between February 6 and March 11.

"We knew about the coronavirus and we knew it was spreading. But we didn't think countries were going to be shut down when we were out there," Carroll said.

"The data and the information initially was not… it wasn't that strong," Sisson said. "We couldn't tell the so-called fake news from the real news, you know what I mean?"

"When you're on tour like that, you're moving day by day," Cavestany added. "We're like in a different city every single day. Sometimes you don't hear about things for a while because you're just in your little bubble on tour."

As the tour progressed, several musicians and crew members "were starting to get fevers with the chills," said Sisson. "Definitely I felt a fever. You know it was the back and forth between the extreme fever and the cold sweats."

"I woke up in Manchester feeling run down. I just thought I was like brutally hung over," recalled Cavestany. "All I remember is coming off stage and I was like, totally out of energy. I just felt rundown, like I had been run over by a truck. And I'm, like, 'Something's weird here.'"

"I had a real intense fever and just a lack of energy," said Carroll. "The sickness was kind of running around from person to person on the bus."

After returning home, Carroll's condition worsened and he ended up spending almost two weeks on a ventilator in an intensive care unit at a Northern California hospital

"My fever was so intense. I was kind of going delirious," the drummer said.

"I was in hell, or you know what seemed like hell. And the devil was a woman and very scary looking. She had red skin and glowing eyes and fangs. She was sitting in a throne and laughing at me. It was a horrible, horrible vision."

Carroll reportedly received doses of an experimental anti-viral drug called Remdesivir, which is is now being tested in clinical trials across the country as a possible treatment for COVID-19 patients.

"When I came out of the coma, they couldn't believe it. I saw I was in the hospital bed with machines all around me and hooked up to all these things; that was quite a shock," Carroll said. "I was, like, 'What the hell is this?'"

Carroll, Sisson and Cavestany have all since beaten the virus and Carroll has started physical therapy.

Addresing people who don't take the coronavirus seriously, Will said: "This is the reality: it's real and I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy."

Watch the full report below and read more from San Francisco's KPIX 5.