Dez Fafara, the frontman of DevilDriver and Coal Chamber, has moved to set the story straight after a number of outlets reported that he had a “brain tumor” and had been diagnosed with “brain cancer.” According to Fafara, both claims are wrong.
The singer recently opened up about his health on “The Garza Podcast,” where he said doctors “found a tumor” in his head close to two years ago, and that it needs to grow before surgeons can safely remove it. He explained that the tumor is non-cancerous, sits just above his jawline near a salivary gland, and has actually been shrinking on its own — something that has surprised his doctors.
“The vertigo thing really f**king threw me off, dude, ’cause it was a great Saturday afternoon. I’d been running miles and miles on the treadmill every day, and all of a sudden I had vertigo out of nowhere, and that took me out for almost a year. They had to do all sorts of MRIs and all sorts of crazy s**t to me to figure out what the f**k was going on,” he said at the time.
He described the moment he collapsed at home:
“I don’t know if anybody’s ever experienced vertigo, but it happened on a Saturday afternoon. I ran upstairs, and next thing I knew, I was out cold on my floor. My wife was slapping my face to wake me up. I woke up spinning. Then next thing you know, I’m in an ambulance.”
At the hospital, scans meant to investigate the vertigo turned up something else entirely:
“My vitals were all over the place, and they did a head scan with me, and I came into the doc and he’s, like, ‘Hey, good news. I think you got the vertigo thing under control. I don’t think that’s really gonna happen anymore. But I wanna show you something.’ And it was a picture of my head, and you just saw a tumor.”
Fafara explained that he sat on the diagnosis so it wouldn’t derail work:
“You don’t wanna say this stuff before you book tours or before you’re doing deals or before you’re going out. But for, I would say, over a year, maybe almost two years now, we’ve been dealing with a situation where they found a tumor in my head.”
The tumor sits near Fafara‘s jawline, close to a salivary gland, and his doctors have chosen not to operate for now because of where it is. As he explained, surgery in that area carries real risk:
“It’s in my jawline, a little bit higher, on my saliva gland. And they’re, like, ‘It’s gotta be bigger for us to f**k with this because this could…’ It could affect my blinking, my smiling, my speaking.”
Once several music sites ran with the “brain tumor” framing, Fafara went to his own Instagram to clear things up. His full statement, posted earlier today (Wednesday, July 29), reads:
“READ CAREFULLY CAUSE PRESS HAS GOT IT WRONG!”
“A few days ago I let everyone know that for the last two years I’ve been dealing with an issue.”
“I DO NOT HAVE A BRAIN TUMOR, I DO NOT HAVE BRAIN CANCER as reported and this is the problem with the internet! I have a tumor THATS NOT CANCER ON MY SALIVA GLAND – not on my brain.”
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way let’s discuss.”
“Two years ago on a Saturday afternoon prior to preparing for TOUR I had an episode of VERTIGO. I passed out when I awoke I was spinning & ended up in an ambulance & straight to the ER. After a myriad of tests and a very long day & night they put me in an MRI MACHINE-they discovered the tumor. The VERTIGO was my body saying hey ‘you need to check some s**t out!'”
“On Xmas Eve 2024 is when I went in they put a large needle in the side of my face near my ear & took cells from the tumor as you can imagine this was very stressful-within 20 min the doctor came in and told me IT IS NOT CANCEROUS. What a fantastic Christmas Eve that was, trust me.”
“Now, it’s in a dangerous spot & can not be operated on until it grows and in fact the last time we checked (I go in every 9 months) it had not grown; in fact may have gotten smaller. This, other than it being there, doesn’t interfere in my daily life my performing, singing etc only that I realize it’s there & that’s that! It is however in a very delicate spot & at this stage would be dangerous to operate on at its current size because that area affects your smiling your blinking facial nerves.”
“I live an incredibly healthy life & my MINDSET is that I’m going to make this thing shrink/go away which they have been known to do and if it can be done THEN I CAN DO IT!”
“I was asked ‘why share this with the world, why now?’ The answer is simple: for 30 years the heavy metal community, the heavy metal family have had my back and how long do you keep things from your family?”
“I’ve been dealing with the weight of this alone only close family knew but I’m inspired to tell people not to ever give up or get down about things that happen. Instead take a positive outlook & fight & deal with it. Humor helps too – let me tell you.”
This is not the first serious health scare Fafara has spoken about publicly. After COVID-19 nearly killed him in 2021, he was open about the brush with death and the lingering after-effects. Those problems came back into focus when DevilDriver pulled out of the 2023 Bloodstock Open Air festival in the U.K. because of inflammation in his lower heart.
DevilDriver released their latest album, Strike And Kill, on July 10 through Napalm Records. The band heads out on a western U.S. run with Upon A Burning Body and Ov Sulfur, opening August 14 in San Diego and closing September 5 in Anaheim.
