GREAT WHITE's MARK KENDALL On His Cancer Battle: 'I'm Really Grateful That Things Are Going Good With What I Have'

In a new interview with I Ask No One With Kevin Re LoVullo, GREAT WHITE guitarist Mark Kendall offered an update on his battle with stage four kidney cancer. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Yeah, it's getting better. It's pretty amazing. I called this friend of mine in Chicago, who's a neurologist, to see if he knew anybody in California that was a kidney guy. And he did. He turned me on this guy, Dr. Shuch, from UCLA, and I got together with the doctor. And they put me on immunotherapy, which is an infusion, and I take daily pills. The infusion medicine's called Keytruda. And I take Lenvima daily. And what it does, it does something to the immune system that attacks the cancer. And so it keeps shrinking. Now it's isolated in my kidney, because what leaked into my ribs, they could use radiation. So I did three days of radiation, and it just wiped it out. So now it's just isolated in my kidney about that big; it's five centimeters. So I start to feel better every time I get the news that it's small."

As for his prognosis, Mark said: "You get in your head a little bit, like, 'Am I dying? What's going on?', especially when I was first diagnosed. The 'C' word has always been the word I wanted to stay away from. So when I was diagnosed, it was scary. And so I wanted to get more information on it before it went public or whatever. And then, when it shrunk to eight centimeters, then I told the fans, 'Hey, got this thing.' But my doctor told me that what I have is manageable. People have it for decades and are able to control it because it's not a deal like with prostate cancer and you don't know you have it. It spreads all over your body and you have no chance. This is a deal where I can fight it and it's gonna keep getting little. So that's kind of a good thing. They told me, 'If you ever get cancer, you kind of wanna get thyroid cancer or kidney cancer.' Not that you wanna get it, but if you do, this is something that's more controllable.

"So I'm doing good," Mark continued. "I feel good. I've lost some weight, and I've gained 10 pounds back. So I'm eating pretty good. Yeah, it takes a minute. I've never been at this weight since I was, like, 15, so it's kind of weird. People are telling me, 'You look great, man.' I'm going, 'Yeah. Oh, thanks. I got cancer.' But, yeah, I'm really grateful that things are going good with what I have."

Kendall added: "I was hoping I could dodge cancer, but both my parents had it, so I guess when it's in your blood, it's hard to avoid."

Mark previously discussed his cancer battle this past January in an interview with Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station. He said at the time:  "Well, when I first was diagnosed, I had irregular pee. It was actual blood at first. So I went to emergency. I was, like, 'Holy crap. What's this? What's going on here?' And the guy told me, after he figured everything out, he said, 'It's one of the worst urinary tract infections ever.' And just gave me a prescription for Z-Pak. So I took it over the five days or whatever, and it went away. But then two weeks later it wasn't blood, but it was irregular, kind of not the right color, not one I was familiar with. So I went to urgent care, and she said sometimes this can stem from bladder cancer. So I went to my doctor, and he says, he goes, 'We're gonna have to do the monster probe on ya, do the ultrasound and CT scans and all that kind of stuff, to find out what's going on here.' So when they did the ultrasound, they were hanging in my right kidney for a long time, so I figured something's wrong there. And then I found out a couple of days later I had cancer in there, and it was 13 centimeters. So I didn't really know what was going on yet. So I didn't wanna go public and make a big deal and be distracted by people who love me. So I waited until I got more information. I called the doctor a friend of mine in Chicago who's a neurologist. I wondered if he knew anybody in California that was a kidney guy, so he did. He put me on this guy at UCLA called Dr. Shuch, and he's done thousands of kidney surgeries, knows all about kidney cancer, just a monster guy. So I hooked up with him, and they put me on something called immunotherapy. And one of the guys on his team, which I have six doctors now, invented immunotherapy, which every three weeks you get an infusion of a drug called Keytruda, and then you take these pills every day called Lenvima, and it does something with your immune system, attacks the cancer and all this."

The 68-year-old musician, who formed GREAT WHITE in 1977 under the band's original name of DANTE FOX, continued: "Every few weeks — I don't know exactly how long — but they did their first scan, and it shrunk to 11 centimeters. And then the next one it went to eight. And the last one I just had, it went to five centimeters and it's isolated in my kidney. And I pulled it up on the Internet. I wanted to know how much five centimeters [was], but I didn't wanna know how much 13 [centimeters] was; that sounded too big. And it like looked like an inch. But just the fact that it's shrinking, it's in one spot. I start to feel better. You get in your head a little bit, like, 'Am I dying? What's going on here?' But so now that it's real small and it's getting smaller and everything, I'm starting to pretty good. I think when it was at eight [centimeters], it shrunk twice, I got on the Internet and told the fans, 'Hey, I got this thing, but don't worry, I got a handle [on it].' Because the doctor told me the type [of cancer] and what I have, this isn't like colon cancer when it spreads all over the body and you got no chance. It's manageable, he told me. What I have is manageable. People have had this up to 20 years. So you just keep fighting it. It's kind of a pain in the ass. You gotta go to the doctor every three weeks or whatever, but you get to live. So that's pretty much the story."

Kendall also talked about his upcoming autobiography, which began work on late last year. He said: "We're 14 chapters in. I was trying to think of a title [for] it, and I'm calling it 'Soul Of A Man' because I'm pretty much baring my soul in this thing. I'm going all the way back to childhood, telling every story you can imagine, and with the guitar in there.

"What happened was this Canadian company approached me about doing a book, and I started writing it on my own," he explained. "And they said, 'There's too many stories. We just want you to talk about the guitar.' I'm going, like, me being a fan myself, I like to hear what Billy Gibbons [ZZ TOP] is doing on the weekends, part time, when he is not on stage. So I would figure that fans would wanna get to know me better. And so I didn't do it. I just stopped it right there. I go, 'I really don't wanna do that type of book.' It could be maybe called an autobiography, but it's really gonna be a biography. 'cause I'm letting the cat outta the bag here. You're gonna get to know Mark Kendall here. So, out of the blue, some other guy approaches me. His name's Jeffrey Mangus, and he's written 38 books. He just finished Al Di Meola's book and all this. He approaches me… So I go, 'Man, yeah. I'm really into it.' So we've been working for about two and a half months, maybe three months. And we just get together, and I'm just going through the years. And the timeline's right. We're going album to album, telling stories, lacing in stories in between. And I'm trying not to make it a real dirt book, but I'm telling the truth, so some feelings could get hurt. I don't know. But I'm not gonna hold back anything. I'm just gonna be truthful about everything and just call it the way I've seen it."

Mark went on to say that "a lot of emotions" have been stirred up through the process of him writing his autobiography. "And also Jeff asked me a lot of questions, which brings up even more memories," he explained. "So the back-and-forth, it is kind of a good way to write a book with a ghostwriter because, for one thing, I'm no writer. He's writing it like a writer would, but getting my story told. So, yeah, it's interesting. A lot of things are coming up, childhood stuff. And God, man. It's gonna be a trip to see my whole life laid out in a book, man."

Born into a musically gifted family, Kendall grew up in Huntington Beach, California. His father played jazz trumpet; his mother sang her heart out to jazz tunes before adoring audiences. His grandfather, too, was a virtuoso on the piano. Citing Jimi Hendrix, CREAM and THE DOORS as early influences, Kendall's passion and natural abilities got him hooked on guitar.

"The thing I love about the guitar is it's an instrument that allows me to express myself in how I'm feeling at any given time," Kendall said. "All the musicians that made me want to play guitar, played straight from their heart with a lot of feeling in their playing. They pour their very soul into every note. My feeling is no matter what instrument you play, do it with passion and feeling. When music is delivered in that way it creates emotions, which can even make a person cry at times. That to me is real music with a human feel that no machine could ever duplicate."

Kendall's band DANTE FOX had two singers before settling with Jack Russell. The band's 1982 performance at the Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood caught the eye of record executive Alan Niven. Niven suggested the band change it's name to reflect upon the striking color of Kendall's blonde hair — GREAT WHITE.

Since 1982, the GREAT WHITE sound has captivated audiences worldwide with crushing blues-based guitar riffs and swagger that invokes an emotional high for anyone that listens. The band's core writing team of Kendall and Michael Lardie (keys, guitar) forged numerous hits over the years, and when Audie Desbrow joined in '85, the grooves hooked an amazing stride.

Best known for their Grammy-nominated "Best Hard Rock Performance" hit, the gold selling "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", GREAT WHITE has sold over 10 million albums worldwide, has six Top 100 Billboard hits, nine Top 200 Billboard albums, two multi-platinum albums, five gold records and clocked the top of MTV video four times.

Mark has been married for more than two decades years to his wife Bridget and has four children: Jonathan, Taylor, Shane and Ashley.