Former Whitesnake and Dio guitarist Doug Aldrich has provided an update on his health following his battle with throat cancer. In a new interview with Anthony Bryant of “The Hair Metal Guru,” the current The Dead Daisies axeman opened up about the terrifying moment he received his diagnosis and the grueling recovery process that followed.
Nearly a year and a half after undergoing surgery, Aldrich recalled the night he found out, which happened while he was away with his family.
“I was scared in the beginning, ’cause I was actually — we were off and I was in Texas at the Junior Olympics with my family. My daughter was running. So I’m laying in bed, I’m laying in bed with my wife and my kids are in the next bed right next to us, and I get a call from my doctor. We had been doing a little testing and poking and stuff, and I get a call from my doctor. It was, like, at night, and I’m, like, he never calls me. First of all, he never calls me, and then he never would never call me at night. And he said, ‘Yeah, we got the test back and it’s positive for cancer.’ So, HPV 16 square cell, carcinogenic, whatever. And I was, like, ‘Oh, man.’ At that point you don’t know how serious it is, and you’re just going, like, ‘I got cancer. It’s confirmed now, and I got my family here and I gotta be cool because I don’t wanna freak anybody out,'” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
Once the initial shock subsided, Aldrich and his medical team developed a plan. He revealed that while the specific type of cancer was treatable, the necessary procedures were invasive and required him to step away from touring, with Reb Beach (Whitesnake, Winger) stepping in to cover for him.
“But, yeah, it took us a while to get answers about how far it was and that it was actually the kind of a cancer that was a little bit easier to deal with. It was a little more slower growing, and the success rate, after five years of still being alive, was pretty good. I mean, you can get hit by a car every day; you never know. So, once I got the word on what to do, we found a surgeon that my wife and I liked. And he took out one tonsil on the inside, and then he took out the lymph nodes and the bump, the stuff. And then I had to do radiation. So the surgery sucked, ’cause after the surgery I couldn’t do a [The Dead Daisies] tour. So Reb [Beach, Whitesnake and Winger guitarist] actually came and filled in. ‘Cause I couldn’t open my mouth. I mean, to do the surgery inside, they had to pretty much open my jaw, and they cut here and took out a bunch of stuff. And so then theoretically they cut out everything they could, and then you have to do radiation to just blast the rest, whatever little particles. So I did six weeks of that, which was — that was really a bummer, because it just kicks your a**. You’re tired and your neck is basically down to just raw skin… And then eventually after two weeks, you lose your taste, your skin starts peeling off.”
Despite the physical toll of radiation, Aldrich credits his mindset and his wife’s support for getting him through the worst of it.
“And my wife helped me a lot to where I got through it. And I kept a good attitude. I kept trying really hard to eat, keep my weight up as good as I could, and eventually got done with the radiation and got checked and came back as a really good negative for cancer. So that’s where I stand right now. I got some scans and stuff I gotta do later this month to see where we’re at. But I do my best, and God willing it’ll be clear.”
In a previous interview from February 2025 with Ernest Skinner of Canada’s “Border City Rock Talk,” Aldrich spoke about the mental hurdles he faced when he first learned of the illness.
He said at the time: “Once I met with the oncologist, he said, ‘Hey, this is very treatable. You’re gonna be fine. It’s gonna be a pain in the a**, but it’s very treatable.’ But prior to that — it was about two or three weeks [earlier] when I got the news that it was cancerous, it was definitely cancer — I didn’t know what kind of cancer [it was] and how advanced it was. That’s the scary part, because, man, I was, like… It was just a nerve-racking situation because I’ve got kids. I’ve lived a great life, I’m super blessed and lucky, and if it’s my time, I’ll go, but I don’t wanna leave yet because I’ve gotta help my kids get through life a little bit.”
He concluded: “It was definitely a setback mentally. And I just had to kind of go, ‘Look, I’m gonna leave it in God’s hands and just whatever it is, it is, and I’ll just deal with it my best I can.’ And then the doctor said it was very treatable and it would be a pain in the ass. It would be a surgery and also radiation. And I thought, ‘Okay, the surgery is the worst part of it,’ but actually radiation is [the worst]… Fortunately, I didn’t have to have chemo, so that was good. They took out my tonsil where it was, and then they took out a bunch of lymph nodes right here. And the scar is pretty good, actually.”
