Meshuggah Drummer To Undergo Shoulder Surgery

Band Photo: Meshuggah (?)

MESHUGGAH drummer Tomas Haake has revealed to Petri Silas of Finland's Soundi magazine that he may be forced to miss some of the shows on the band's current North American tour with MINISTRY in order to undergo surgery for an impingement of the shoulder.

Tomas said, "We are going to make this public with an official statement soon, so I guess I can talk about it here. I have shoulder impingement in my right shoulder and will have to undergo surgery. It's quite a usual ailment with men of my age and the surgery is a totally routine operation. But the recovery period will make me have to forget about playing the drums for a couple of months. In fact, I shouldn't even go on the MINISTRY tour as my doctor would prefer to operate right now. But we managed to negotiate our showtime down to 35 minutes in order to make it easier on me. And I hope everything works out. As a matter of fact, we were just hatching up a plan B yesterday [the interview was conducted on February 3 at the Fear & Loathing Studio in Spånga, Sweden — Ed] with the guys. If worse comes to worst during the MINISTRY tour, the band will continue to the end with another drummer. Luckily I should be in full condition and recovered at the end of the summer, as we will then play some more festival shows. In September we will embark on our own European headlining tour and expect to play a total of three shows in Finland."

MESHUGGAH and HEMLOCK were forced to miss the first Canadian show on MINISTRY's final world tour — C U LaTouR — which made a stop Wednesday night (March 26) at the Whiskey nightclub in Calgary, Alberta. According to local promoter Union Events, the two bands — who are believed to be sharing a tour bus — were unable to make the gig due to "immigration challenges." The rest of the tour will not be affected by this cancellation.

MESHUGGAH's latest album, "obZen" sold 11,400 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 59 on The Billboard 200 chart. This is substantially more than the 7,000 first-week total achieved by its predecessor, "Catch 33", which landed at No. 170 on The Billboard 200 chart back in June 2005.

Source: Blabbermouth