AEROSMITH Bassist Back In The Saddle Again
April 5, 2007, 17 years ago
The following report is courtesy of Carol Beggy & Mark Shanahan from Boston.com:
If you were expecting Tom Hamilton to take time off, forget it. The AEROSMITH bassist, who has spent the better part of a year battling throat cancer, is back on his feet and ready to rock. Tuesday the band is bound for Brazil for a few South American shows and then to Europe for a full-blown summer tour.
"The doctors warned me that the treatment would be an ordeal, and it was," said Hamilton, talking for the first time about the tumor detected last May at the base of his tongue.Tonight (April 5th), as he has for the past several years, Hamilton is taking part in Banned in Boston, the annual madcap musical revue benefiting Urban Improv. An aspiring actor once upon a time, he'll play Borat in the show.
"Part of this is about giving back," he said, "and part of it's about having fun and participating." Talking about the cancer, Hamilton said he was treated at Massachusetts General Hospital for seven weeks last summer, receiving both radiation and chemotherapy. "Initially, I remember thinking, 'This really doesn't go with my plans,' " the fit, 55-year-old rocker joked. "But I was told I'd crash eventually if I tried to keep up my schedule, so I just surrendered."Hamilton, who admits he was in excruc iating pain by the fourth week of radiation, missed several Aerosmith dates last fall - his first absences since the band got together in 1970. "Something like this really forces you to think how you're going to live without the band, and it's not pleasant," he said. "But then you get little whispers from inside saying, 'It'll be OK.'" For now, Hamilton is cancer-free and focused on the future. "I'm having a good time," he said, getting into his powder-blue Maserati. "I feel good again."
