	METALLICA Announces 'Load' Deluxe Box Featuring Pr... 48
	Would GARY HOLT Have Joined METALLICA If He Had Gotten The C... 29
	ROB HALFORD Says K.K. DOWNING's 'Place In JUDAS PR... 24
	TOBIAS FORGE On GHOST's Phone 'Ban' For 2025 ... 23
	SCOTT TRAVIS: Why JUDAS PRIEST Doesn't Perform Any TIM ... 22

все новости группы

Iron Maiden

Великобритания

Heavy Metal

http://www.ironmaiden.com
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/ironmaiden
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ironmaiden

24 апр 2025 :	BRUCE DICKINSON Says He Was 'Pleasantly Shocked' By IRON MAIDEN's First Rehearsal With New Drummer SIMON DAWSON
12 апр 2025 :	IRON MAIDEN To Begin Rehearsing With New Drummer SIMON DAWSON 'In A Couple Of Weeks': 'It Should Be Great', Says ADRIAN SMITH
20 мар 2025 :	ALICE COOPER Says IRON MAIDEN Should Be Inducted Into ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME: 'They Have Their Own Army Out There'
19 мар 2025 :	IRON MAIDEN's Aviationtag Celebrates History Of Band's Chartered 'Ed Force One' Plane
17 мар 2025 :	Official IRON MAIDEN Documentary Coming This Fall
15 мар 2025 :	IRON MAIDEN – Limited Edition Trooper Warrior Pack, The Ultimate Collector Set Available For Pre-Order
12 мар 2025 :	BRUCE DICKINSON Considered Quitting IRON MAIDEN In 2015 – “I Would Have Offered To Help Them Find Another Singer”
10 мар 2025 :	IRON MAIDEN: 'Infinite Dreams - The Official Visual History' Book Due In The Fall
23 фев 2025 :	IRON MAIDEN's DAVE MURRAY: 'We Will All Know' When It's Time To Retire
10 фев 2025 :	BRUCE DICKINSON Rules Out Using Backing Tracks At IRON MAIDEN Concerts: 'If It's Not Real, It's Not MAIDEN'
7 фев 2025 :	NICKO MCBRAIN Opens Up About Decision To Retire From Touring With IRON MAIDEN: 'I Wish I Could Still Play With The Guys'
4 янв 2025 :	BRUCE DICKINSON On IRON MAIDEN's 2025 Tour: 'We're Gonna Be Doing Stuff We've Never, Ever Done Before'
23 дек 2024 :	IRON MAIDEN’s ADRIAN SMITH Remembers Meeting DAVE MURRAY – “We Were The Only Kids In Our Neighborhood With Long Hair”
19 дек 2024 :	IRON MAIDEN's STEVE HARRIS: 'It's Amazing That This Band's Been Going For 50 Years'
13 дек 2024 :	IRON MAIDEN Guitarist ADRIAN SMITH On Writing "Wasted Years" - "If STEVE HARRIS Hadn't Heard It By Accident, I Would Never Have Played It To Him"
12 дек 2024 :	IRON MAIDEN Shares Video Recap Of 'The Future Past Tour'
11 дек 2024 :	CHRIS JERICHO Says NICKO MCBRAIN Has 'Earned His Right To Step Down' From Touring With IRON MAIDEN
11 дек 2024 :	IRON MAIDEN Pays Tribute To NICKO MCBRAIN In New Video Recapping His Final Concert
8 дек 2024 :	Watch: BRUCE DICKINSON Pays Emotional Tribute To NICKO MCBRAIN At Drummer's Final Concert With IRON MAIDEN
8 дек 2024 :
7 дек 2024 :	IRON MAIDEN's NICKO MCBRAIN Announces Retirement From Touring: Tonight Will Be 'My Final Gig' With The Band
3 дек 2024 :	IRON MAIDEN's 'Legacy Of The Beast' Mobile Game Is Coming To A Close
6 ноя 2024 :	BRUCE DICKINSON Was Willing To Help IRON MAIDEN Find 'A Great Replacement' If He Couldn't Sing Following His Cancer Diagnosis
3 ноя 2024 :	See IRON MAIDEN Perform In Philadelphia During Fall 2024 'The Future Past' Tour
2 ноя 2024 :	IRON MAIDEN's The Future Past World Tour Lands In Toronto; Fan-Filmed Video Of Entire Show Streaming
31 окт 2024 :	IRON MAIDEN’s Debut Album Hitting UK Charts For The First Time Following Death Of PAUL DI’ANNO

7 дек 2024

IRON MAIDEN's NICKO MCBRAIN Announces Retirement From Touring: Tonight Will Be 'My Final Gig' With The Band

IRON MAIDEN drummer Nicko McBrain has announced his retirement from touring.

The 72-year-old musician, who has been a member of MAIDEN for more than four decades, revealed his decision to "step back" from being on the road earlier today (Saturday, December 7) in a statement on the band's official web site and his social media.

Nicko wrote: "After much consideration, it is with both sorrow and joy, I announce my decision to take a step back from the grind of the extensive touring lifestyle. Today, Saturday, December 7th, Sao Paulo will be my final gig with IRON MAIDEN. I wish the band much success moving forward.

"I will, however, remain firmly part of the IRON MAIDEN family working on a variety of projects, my long time managers, Rod Smallwood and Andy Taylor, have in mind for me. I'll also be working on a variety of different personal projects and focusing on my existing businesses and ventures, including The British Drum Company, Nicko McBrain's Drum One, TITANIUM TART, and of course, Rock-N-Roll Ribs!

"What can I say? Touring with MAIDEN the last 42 years has been an incredible journey! To my devoted fan base, you made it all worthwhile and I love you! To my devoted wife, Rebecca, you made it infinitely easier and I love you! To my kids, Justin and Nicholas, thank you for understanding the absences and I love you! To my friends that are always there for me, I love you! To my bandmates, you made it a dream come true and I love you!

"I look into the future with much excitement and great hope! I'll be seeing you soon, may God bless you all, and, of course, 'Up the Irons!'"

MAIDEN's longtime manager Rod Smallwood of Phantom Music Management commented: "Nicko, and we all love you too!! Thank you for being an irrepressible force behind the drum kit for MAIDEN for 42 years and my friend for even longer. I speak on behalf of all the band when I say we will miss you immensely!

"Ever since Rock In Rio in 1985 we have had a special relationship with Brazil so to bow out of touring in front of 90,000 fans here in Sao Paulo over 2 nights is poetic and you are deserving of all the accolades I am sure these marvellous fans will give you on this last show.

"Phantom look forward to many more years of working with you on the projects you mentioned and I am sure we can find a few more special ones around the MAIDEN family and FC!

"The band and I all have a thousand great memories of the past 42 years, great gigs, copious platinum and gold discs and awards, love from the fans and one beer too many on too many occasions! Such a bond is forever! And, as Steve Harris says, 'Nicko is and will always be part of the MAIDEN family'.

"P.S. MAIDEN always get their man and our already chosen new drummer will be announced very shortly."

In January 2023, Nicko was at his home in Boca Raton when he suffered a stroke with partial paralysis. That was the beginning of a challenging journey of physical rehabilitation that followed rapid and precise treatment by stroke specialists at Marcus Neuroscience Institute at Boca Raton, Florida's Boca Raton Regional Hospital, part of Baptist Health.

McBrain addressed his health issues during an appearance on an episode of The Washington Tattoo podcast. He said: "It happened on January the 19th last year. I was actually having cataract surgery that day. And I guess there was a lot of stress and angst, with somebody messing with your peepers. And I was getting them both done at the same time. In the old days, I'd do one at a time just in case it didn't work. You'd be walking around blind in one eye, not both. And I had it on good authority that's the only reason they don't like to do, even today, both at the same time. But I had confidence in the surgeon, with the way they do it nowadays. And I said, 'Oh, can I get done both at the same time?' 'Yeah, no problem.'"

He continued: "Anyway. So I remember I was watching some tennis on the telly. I was up at six o'clock in the morning, which is unusual for me, 'cause I get up about 7:00, 7:30 nowadays. And I got up and I was a little bit anxious. And I lazed on the chaise lounge, and I went to sleep. About eight o'clock I thought, 'I'm gonna have a nap. I feel really tired.' And I woke up about 45 minutes later, and I'd had this stroke. And I thought it was pins and needles, but I couldn't feel the pins and needles. I picked my arm up, going, 'What's going on here?' And I could feel [the arm] but nothing was happening… And I let my arm go and it just dropped, and I'm, like, 'Oh, shit. Something ain't right.' And it didn't paralyze my leg, although my leg was wobbly. Which is a good thing, because my foot still worked. At least one saving grace — God gave me my right foot. It's not quite as good as it was, but… Anyway, I went to the doctors, or they took me to the hospital. I had a whole team of people work around me. It was like I was a superstar. And they didn't even know who I was. That's the sort of treatment that everybody gets when they have a stroke and they go to the Boca Baptist Hospital, [Baptist Health] Boca [Raton] Regional [Hospital]. They have a crew of, like, 12 people around you instantly, no matter who you are. And so after the MRI — they did a CT scan, then I went to an MRI. And [when] I came out, [Marc A] Swerdloff, my neurologist doctor, he had a plethora of students around him, and he had about six kids, young 'uns — I call them kids; they're probably all in their 20s or 30s. Anyway, he goes, you've had a stroke, Mr. McBrain, I went, 'Yeah, tell me something I don't know.' And he laughed. And he said, 'It's a TIA.' I said, 'Okay, so it's not a major stroke.' He said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'We've got this drug called TNK [tenecteplase],' which, what it stands for I've no idea. And he said it's a clot buster, and it prevents any further damage being done to your brain that may have or that has already occurred. He said, 'But there's a risk.' And I said, 'What's the risk?' He said, 'You could die.' I went, 'Okay. So what's the percentage of failure from people [treated with intravenous tenecteplase]?' It [was] seven to nine percent. He says, 'So if you have it, we have to put you in intensive care for 24 hours and monitor you every hour.' And I went, 'Well, okay, let's have it.' He says, 'Sign here.' And I'm right-handed, so I had to put a cross. And he said, 'Just make out as much as you can.' I sort of squiggled my name on a line. He gave it to me outside the MRI. About three hours later, I'm upstairs. And finally, I could move my thumb a little bit — the first thing I could move. I was in for two nights, and the day after I got out, I went for therapy, and I had three physiotherapies a week and OT, occupational therapy. My scapula had dropped and apparently my face was down here, although I could talk. So the only thing I had was a paralysis."

McBrain added: "The first three months of a stroke is where you have the most recovery. After that, the next three months, it's a little less and then the three months after that, and so on and so forth. I'm over — almost a year and a half now, but it will be next week. What's the date? Yeah, 10 days' time. So I'm still not back to where I wanna be. I've probably got… I can't do, I can't do… So if this is a tempo, I can't do a 16-note roll going into 32nd-note rolls anymore. What happens is I can play eighth notes, like that kind of groove. I can do doubles, but when I try and play that 16th at that speed, instead of going up and down, it wobbles from left to right, when I start playing fast, when I try to play fast. So I've had to adjust my fills now. I mean, I don't play 'The Trooper' fill anymore because I can't get it… It's the speed of it. I can do everything slow, but I've had to make sure that as long as I can keep the groove of the song, which is normally…"

Elaborating on how his stroke has affected his playing, Nicko said: "We had the rehearsal [for the spring 2023 MAIDEN tour] starting in April [of 2023], end of April. So I had that three months — March, February, March, April. I had 12 weeks of recovery, basically, before I went and had rehearsal. And, so today my routine now is I do the eight on eight to warm up and try and get my fingers working, but they're not… I'm at the stage now where I've peaked. I've noticed in some of the rehearsals — I play with the TITANIUM TART [side-project] band I've got, which are doing the same set that I'm playing with MAIDEN later this year; we're doing exactly the same set. I've got a couple of gigs coming up this weekend. We rehearse once a week. I've got a rehearsal tonight and tomorrow. So, I'm allowed to be out to try these things out. And they're not working. So, I've reverted back to what I was doing with the band last year, which was playing straighter on those kind of fills. [The song] 'Fear Of The Dark', I'm getting the triplets again and a couple of the hi-hats snap. Those kind of things. It's all about the tempo of the songs. When they're fast, I have a struggle. When they're slow, I can do it."

Seven months ago, Nicko reflected on that fateful morning when he suffered a stroke in an interview with Baptist Health. He said: "It was about probably 8, 8:15. I had a sleep. I woke up about quarter to 9. And as I got turned over, my arm wasn't moving. And I thought, 'What's going on?' And I pulled my hand up. I could feel — I had sensation in my hand. And I thought, 'Well, where's the pins and needles? Why has it gone to sleep?' And I started to [squeeze my hand]. And I let my hand go, and it just dropped. And I thought, 'Uh oh.'"

Nicko went on to say that he didn't know if he would be able to recover from the stroke quickly enough to join his MAIDEN bandmates on a tour they had scheduled for that spring.

"I did honestly think that was it," he admitted. "Now I'm laying in the bed, and I'm trying to move, move my hand, at least my fingers or something, encourage my body to, 'Come on, you can do this. You can do this.' Because we had scheduled this tour two years prior. And we were starting in May, and we were gonna do rehearsals starting the last week of April. So I thought, 'Well, I've got three months to see if I can at least play again.' And even holding a drumstick, there was nothing there."

McBrain previously talked about his post-ministroke recovery in December 2023 in an interview with Metal Hammer magazine. At the time, he said: "Well, it was very, very difficult. When it first happened, I thought, 'This is it. I'm not going to be able to play. I've got a tour coming up in three months' time.' I had a lot of time for reflection in the hospital. My wife was really my bastion of strength and encouragement and she was with me throughout. I did a lot of strength exercises, a lot of stretches with weird weights that they have and I got my stamina back."

McBrain told Metal Hammer that his MAIDEN bandmates, especially bassist Steve Harris, were very supportive during his recovery.

"Through all this period of time I was in touch with Steve, obviously all the guys, and I'd have a bit of a chat with them on the phone and they were all very, very encouraging, and none more so than Steve," Nicko said. "He said, 'Look, the most important thing is that you get well and work on getting yourself together.'"

In October 2023, Nicko spoke about his latest health scare during an appearance on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation Power Trip Special". Asked how the shows on MAIDEN's "The Future Past Tour" have been, Nicko said: "It's going great. It started off a little shaky for me, but as the time [went on] and the more shows we performed, I started to get a little bit more strength and they'd been really rocking out well. And the last couple of months have been fantastic."

The 72-year-old McBrain also talked about his recovery in more detail and touched upon how his health setback affected his drumming. He said: "[I'm] doing good [right now]. I'm still probably — I'd say I'm 85 to 90 percent back to strength, but I still have a little less dexterity with speed in my fingers. My fingers are the ones that — this is the last thing to strengthen up. But I had to change certain drum fills. Some fills that everybody knows me for on certain songs, I've had to improvise those at rehearsals to be able to actually play the songs. So now I'm starting to actually be able to kind of embrace it a bit more. And I can't do that live. I have to wait until we start doing some rehearsals again or whatever it is. But I'm definitely getting stronger. And I've had great support from [MAIDEN manager] Rod [Smallwood], the band, and all of the fans out there. They've been absolutely — they've shown me so much love, it's amazing."

When Nicko first went public with his stroke in August 2023, the drummer said in a statement that the episode left him "paralyzed" down one side of his body and "worried" that his career with the band was over.

McBrain's statement read as follows: "I hope this message finds you all well!

"The reason I'm writing to you all today is to let you know of a very serious health problem that I have been through. In January I had a stroke, thank the Lord it was a minor one referred to as a TIA. It left me paralyzed on my right side from my shoulder on down, of course I was very worried that my career was over but with the love and support from my wife, Rebecca and family, my doctors, especially Julie my OT (Occupational Therapist),and my MAIDEN family I was able to bounce back to somewhere near 70% recovered. After 10 weeks of intense therapy it was almost time to start rehearsals for our tour.

"I feel it's important to let you know about this now instead of earlier as I was mainly concerned with doing my job and concentrating on getting back to 100% fitness. I'm not there yet but by the grace of God I'm getting better and stronger as the weeks go by.

"Thank you all for a most wonderful and magical tour so far, you have all been so amazing.

"Well that's it from me. God bless you all, stay safe and well and I look forward to seeing you all somewhere in time. "

Smallwood added: "The rest of the band and l think that what Nicko has been able to achieve since his stroke shows incredible belief and willpower and we are all very proud of him. With this new and musically very complex set to learn ahead of him, he just got his head down and concentrated on recovery. We honestly did not know if he would be able to play a whole show until band rehearsals started in May and there was just so much support for him from the band and then genuine relief for all when we saw he was going to be able to do it!

"Nicko being Nicko he did not want to make a fuss and cause any distraction to the tour at the time but, now that he is sure he will soon get there, he thought you fans should know straight from him rather than by any rumours! We are all of course delighted he battled through this so well and look forward to many more tours together!"

Four years ago, McBrain was diagnosed with stage 1 laryngeal cancer and opened up about it in a single interview in 2021 but otherwise kept it mostly under wraps. The musician received his cancer diagnosis after undergoing an endoscopy at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University Of Miami Health System and the Miller School of Medicine. Within a week, McBrain's cancer was surgically removed and he now gets check-ups every few months to make sure the cancer hasn't returned.

McBrain, who had the cancer in a part of his vocal cords, isn't the first member of MAIDEN to beat cancer. Back in late 2014, IRON MAIDEN's Bruce Dickinson was diagnosed with throat cancer. The singer, who had a golf gall-size tumor on his tongue and another in the lymph node on the right side of his neck, got the all-clear in May 2015 after radiation and nine weeks of chemotherapy.

In a 2015 interview with Overdrive, McBrain admitted that he thought MAIDEN was over when it was discovered that Dickinson had a cancerous tumor. "Well, I'd be a liar if I didn't think for a minute that IRON MAIDEN [was] finished," he said. "[But] I thought more about the possibility of losing my friend than anything else, to be honest. Then later, I was thinking, 'God forbid if the worst ever happened, the legacy would be the last 16 albums.'"

McBrain, who is a dedicated Christian, continued: "I've got to be honest, I did question his mortality at one point and thankfully that didn't last long. Honestly, I got down on my knees and said a prayer, picked my thoughts up and got positive about it all, thinking to myself, 'If anyone can beat this, it's Bruce.' He's so positive about everything he's ever done in his life, or whatever he is about to do. Basically, I prayed for him and my prayers were answered, as well as everybody else that knows and cares for him."
An Announcement from Iron Maiden..

I love you too All and up the Irons 🤘🤘 pic.twitter.com/zterPYFGtS

— Nicko McBrain (@NMcbrain28871) December 7, 2024

+19

-2


	( 34 )

Комментарии могут добавлять только зарегистрированные пользователи.
Вы можете зарегистрироваться на сайте или залогиниться через социальные сети (иконки вверху сайта).

7 дек 2024

Вашингтон Ирвинг

Эх, грустно