World Management and Florida black metallers MORBID ANGEL have announced that they will be carrying a Pete Comando Sandoval t-shirt on upcoming tours. This shirt (see below) is to help raise money for drummer Pete Sandoval and his extensive medical bills as he currently recovers from back surgery.

Tim Yeung (DIVINE HERESY, ALL THAT REMAINS, NILE, HATE ETERNAL, VITAL REMAINS) is currently filling in for Sandoval on the band's new album, Illud Divinum Insanus, and supporting tour.

According to a band update: "As many of you know Pete has had a back operation and is still in long term recovery. We plan to sell this shirt at all of the band’s touring and 100% of all the profit will go to Pete directly. There have been many false rumors regarding Pete’s condition and we all wish him a full recovery as he is still and always will be part of our family."

Morbid Angel frontman David Vincent spoke with BraveWords.com about Sandoval's status recently:

"The long and the short of it is that he had been complaining for years that he had back pain and that he was sore and had pain in his leg and so on. Listen, I get sore too, we all get sore. My neck gets sore, my hands get sore, my fingers bleed. They’re the hazards of the job. We’re not playing soft music here. But the reality of it all came to light when we first started, after the 'Nevermore song', working on a couple more tracks and Pete was getting really sore. We just said ‘Let’s not push it so hard…’ So we’d play for 45 minutes or so and he’d get sore and so I’d say ‘Okay, let’s start again tomorrow’. But tomorrow would come and 15 minutes into it, Pete was yelling ‘Aargh!’ So I’d say ‘Okay, maybe you pulled something. Let’s take a couple of days…’ It continued like that for a while, until he said ‘Man, I’ve got to go and see a doctor or something because it’s worse than it’s ever been...’ So he went and had some x-rays and MRIs done and he came back and it was like ‘Dude, I’m gonna be honest with you, you’re gonna have to get somebody else to do this record because I just can’t do it. I need to go get surgery right away and I may never be able to play drums again. I may never be able to walk again if I keep pushing this!’ So we said ‘Dude, do what you got to do and we’ll figure this out!’ The guy’s been a friend and an associate and a family member since 1988. We were going to make some difficult choices, it wasn’t something we wanted to face. We hoped it would work itself out but that’s now how it happened. He said ‘Look at the damn tests, man. That’s just how it is!’”

Read the entire interview here.