Metal Anarchy

In a new interview with Metal Hammer, Austin Carlile (Of Mice & Men) opened up about the health issues that set him back this year. You can see some of his responses below.

Here’s what he said about the injuries he faced on tour tour:

“Between the Linkin Park tour and our headlining tour in the States was when I started having problems with my rib and my head. In the first few days of our headlining tour, I tore my dural sac, which is a sac membrane in your skull that holds all the fluid in your brain. People would see me grabbing my head and not understand why. That was why. I didn’t tell anybody about it during the tour, other than my band and the tour manager. The tour was too important to us.”

He added the following about his rib, which was removed due to his Marfan Syndrome:

“For the whole tour, any time I would inhale, my rib would pop out of my muscle and re-tear it – and I’d have to pop it back in. The whole tour I was going from spinal epidural to spinal epidural just so I could tour, on top of the dural sac tear, so the tour was rough! I couldn’t even masturbate or have sex with my girlfriend for months!”

He also added the following about his surgeries:

“They saw that my body was just done and we cancelled the last two dates. Four days later, I was at Stanford University under anaesthesia and, in the same eight-hour surgery, I got four inches of my rib and my cartilage removed through my stomach, and I had the tear in my dural sac repaired.”

He then later discussed his and the band’s future plans:

“My body’s not ready to be back on the road, which is fine, because guess what I’m doing right now? Physical therapy and writing music, and this next album… I thought I had ammo for the last one, but on this one it’s tenfold! It’s awesome to have something like Of Mice & Men to pour these experiences into and to share my story with people that are dealing with that same stuff.”