Chris Holmes kept it quiet for as long as he could. The former W.A.S.P. guitarist has now laid out the full picture, a diagnosis he spent a year explaining away as age, an insurance policy that covers almost none of what he needs, and the fundraising campaign that became the only way through.
Speaking with Canada’s “The Metal Voice“, the 68-year-old guitarist walked through how the cancer was caught and why he eventually went public.
Holmes has lived in Cannes, France with his wife and manager Catherine Savean Holmes since 2014. He is currently undergoing radiotherapy for prostate cancer — four years on from the throat and neck cancer he was diagnosed with in February 2022 and beat after seven weeks of radiation.
The warning signs were there long before anyone looked. Holmes raised them himself and was waved off.
“What happened was last February [of 2025] I went in for the check on my throat, to the doctor here [in France], the throat doctor. And I told him about a year ago, ‘Hey,’ I go, ‘Hey, doc, I’ve been kind of like whizzing weird. And I wake up three, four times a night, whiz, go right back to sleep. Wake up. It’s weird. I have never done that.’ And I go, ‘I think I got a problem down there.’ And he goes, ‘Ah, you’re just getting old. That’s just your prostate.’ And for a year I just was, like, ‘I’m just getting old. And that’s okay.’ And then I went in. They did a scan. They did a full body, all the way down past my knees this time. Usually they just do the neck to see if the cancer from my throat’s coming back. And this time then I went in to see him and he goes… I went in and I thought he was gonna go, ‘Chris, everything’s cool. We’ll see you next year.’ And he goes, ‘Everything’s not cool.’ He showed it up on a screen, he goes, ‘See that? You got prostate cancer.’ I go, ‘Damn!’ My dad had it, and they say it’s hereditary or whatever. And the good thing is it’s 100% curable. It’s just going through what I gotta go through,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
The scan that found it was a routine follow-up on his throat. Had the imaging stopped at the neck, as it usually did, the tumor would have gone unseen for longer.
Holmes and his T3RMINAL bandmate Brian Wheat of Tesla had agreed to keep the news off the record. The reasoning was commercial as much as personal — a new band with a debut album on the way does not need the word “cancer” attached to it.
That plan collapsed once the bills started arriving.
“[Tesla bassist and Chris‘s bandmate in T3RMINAL] Brian Wheat and I and everybody, we tried to keep it quiet because we didn’t want the word cancer and this and that,” Holmes explained. “It’s bad, ’cause we just think T3RMINAL, it’s gonna break out next year, hopefully. I had a [solo] concert [scheduled for] Wales this month. I had one, but I can’t go. But what happened is I went in and did a biopsy. They wanted me to pay for it, which wasn’t cheap. And we were, like, ‘Well, we’re gonna get it on the insurance.’ And [my wife] goes, ‘Okay, then we’ll work it out then when you find out,’ blah, blah, blah. Well, months go by. They come in and find out that it’s a cancer. They gotta take care of it, whatever. And then the insurance thing came in. They only give me emergency insurance, which only pays for the radiation. That’s it. Not for any of the scans, not the medicine, not traveling to the hospital, whatever. So anyway, that happens, and then about maybe last month, [my wife] and I were sitting here. We were adding up everything to see if we can get through the year, and we just went, ‘There’s no way we’re gonna get close. There’s no possible way.’ And so I called up Brian. I go, ‘I need to do a GoFundMe. It’s the only way I’m gonna make it through.’ And it’s helping me, so I won’t be kissing the credit card company and having to claim bankruptcy. I’ve never done that. But it’s okay. I’m getting through it. A lot of people are donating, helping me out. I appreciate it.”
The campaign, launched by Catherine Savean Holmes, is targeting 50,000 euros, roughly $57,000, to cover medication, scans and hospital transport while her husband is off the road. His emergency coverage pays for the radiation itself and nothing around it.
The 2022 throat cancer treatment gave him a rehearsal for this. Asked whether that experience had prepared him mentally, Holmes said it had, then described exactly what the current sessions involve.
“Definitely. I know getting on the machine that you go inside and it does the radiation, I’ve done that with my throat. I did seven weeks of that. At first they were gonna make me do five weeks. And I was supposed to start in May, and then they pushed it back to June, then they pushed it to July. And I was worried about, if it was gonna metastasize. The doctor said, ‘No, if you’re doing a hormonal therapy, it won’t.’ So I started doing it last month, and I’ve done three weeks. And it’s a little harder than getting on the table and putting a mask on that goes around your chest and then goes up, ’cause it’s on your waist. So they put two tattoo marks, one by my wiener, one by my belly button and one on each side. And you get on the table, and then the computer has lasers on the side. They line you up, and then you go in… It X-rays you and it pulls you out, and then it calibrates how the mechanism, how it shoots the radiation. You can hear it… And then you go in and it starts the treatment. It takes about six to eight minutes, each run… But I’ve done three weeks. I got five more [weeks] to go. Every day, except Saturday and Sunday,” Holmes said.
There were early signs of the current situation, too: this past April, Holmes scrapped a planned May 2026 tour of the U.K. and Scandinavia. At the time, after his show at Gothenburg’s The Abyss club was pulled over “health issues that require immediate attention,” Catherine described it as a “minor prostate issue” that was “already being taken care of,” expressing hope he’d be “back on his feet and on stage soon.”
“The treatment is essential and cannot be interrupted,” Catherine wrote last week. “Because of an administrative error linked to our marriage registration, the health insurance system placed Chris under ’emergency only’ coverage.” As a result, she said, Holmes “was forced to wait three months before receiving any care at all, and only the radiotherapy given during the month of July is covered.” Everything else — from hormone therapy, scans and PET scans to biopsies, blood tests and the daily trips to and from the hospital — has fallen to the couple. “Everything else falls to us,” she added.
The costs have piled up quickly. Catherine revealed that the couple is now sitting on “€20,000 in medical debt,” with “treatment ahead” set to “keep adding to it every month.” Compounding the problem, Holmes has no way to earn while he’s being treated: “Chris must remain in France to receive radiotherapy. Leaving the country would risk his emergency status lapsing, so he cannot travel and therefore cannot work,” she explained. “Chris has given everything to his music and to the people who listen to it. It is his whole life. Today we cannot carry this alone.”
While thanking France for “granting the emergency coverage that allowed Chris to begin radiotherapy,” Catherine asked, “humbly, for help covering everything else.”
W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless urged the band’s fanbase to rally around around Holmes two days ago.
He wrote: “The entire W.A.S.P. family are devastated with the news that our Brother and originator, Chris Holmes is now in a serious fight. We ask that all of you, who have been moved and touched by the Band stand with us all, to support, as well as to honor him with whatever you can do, be it financial, or words of peace and encouragement. Let him know what he’s meant to you. W.A.S.P. Nation Support You All !!”
Holmes has been building toward something new. T3RMINAL pairs him with Josey Scott, the original voice of Saliva, on vocals, Brian Wheat on bass, former Tesla and current Bad Marriage guitarist Tommy Skeoch, and Sal Giancarelli of Staind handling drums on the studio recording.
The band went public in April 2026 with a debut album in progress. By June, the group had reportedly tracked 18 songs, with release expected late in the year.
Holmes played on W.A.S.P.‘s first four studio albums during his original 1983–1990 run, returning to the band from 1996 to 2001.
