Skunk Anansie’s long-time bassist Richard ‘Cass’ Lewis was diagnosed with stage four cancer while making the band’s first album in almost a decade.
The British rockers – completed by Skin, Ace and Mark Richardson – will release ‘The Painful Truth’ on May 23, the follow-up to 2016’s ‘Anarchytecture’.
And during an emotional album playback of the album in London this week, Cass admitted he thought his “f***ing cards had been marked” after getting the devastating diagnosis.
As quoted by The Independent, he shared: “During the process of recording I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and so I was having chemo while we were making the album.
“I thought my f***ing cards had been marked, actually, and so I was just, I was happy with having had a good life, and I was quite content, you know, I accepted whatever my fate was.
“I wouldn’t think about the work, the record, I would think about my life. I’d had some very intensive chemo sessions, and no one knew [anything]. I just thought, I’m on this long road of chemo. And that took a year.”
Cass was thankfully declared cancer-free, and the first thought on his mind was to get back into the studio to finish the record.
Recalling how singer Skin’s daughter informed her that “Uncle Cass” wasn’t sick anymore, he said behind tears: “About two weeks later, I had to go and have tests to see how the chemo was affecting me, and they couldn’t find any cancer.
“So from stage four, it disappeared. So her little angel is my little angel. As soon as I knew that I wasn’t going anywhere, I was ‘Just get back on the record. There’s nothing better to work for!”
The “emotional” album chronicles everything Skunk Anansie have faced together “over the last few years”, with Cass choosing the poignant title.
Skin said: “That’s what all the songs are about, that connects everything, that connects what we’ve been through over the last few years.
It’s the connection with these guys. I love them to bits, you know, they’re my brothers.
“What we’re going through, and everything, it’s quite emotional, it’s the painful truth. It’s what you’re here for, and what’s important in your life, and what you’re going to do about it. That’s the painful truth!”
In a statement about ‘The Painful Truth’, Skin declared: “I don’t care that we were big in the ’90s. Creatively it’s irrelevant because in my rock bible the first commandment states, ‘If thy rest on them laurels thy shall wither up and die artistically, musically, mentally. And then financially.’”