Rockett said in the radio interview (via Loudwire), "[In] June, I kind of got sick. I had this horrible cold, sore-throat thing, and they were scoping me and they were doing biopsies, and nothing was coming up. And finally a doctor at USC did a biopsy and took a look and he said, 'I believe you have oral cancer.' And what it was is a tumor at the base of my tongue �

"This is very similar to [Iron Maiden frontman] Bruce Dickinson, very similar to [actor] Michael Douglas, similar to [Aerosmith's] Tom Hamilton, as far as I know; I don't know the details of his. And two adjacent lymph nodes that it kind of � Normally, it does spread to the lymph nodes; that's typical. That's how you find out you have it ninety percent of the time."

The drummer then explained the treatment he received, "I did thirty-five rounds of radiation; it was five days a week for seven weeks, and that kicks your dick into the dirt. But I went, 'Okay, this is what I'm gonna do. I wanna beat it, so I'm just gonna go head first into this. I'm gonna set myself up where every single day, I do something positive for my health. I'm gonna work out one day, I'm gonna go to therapy one day.'"

He then reflected, "At the end of the day, it was really the worst thing that you can go through, for me. I've had a decent life, you know what I mean? I mean, we all go through our stuff. I'm not saying my life is a bed of roses, but I'm not a war veteran who got this too. I didn't get my leg blown off and get cancer. Those guys are the guys that are really the heroes and paying for it.

"So for me, it was just a battle that I had to get through, and I got to the point where I couldn't really talk. I had, I think, sixteen canker sores in my mouth at one time. And it's, like, if you could take your throat and turn it inside out and sunburn it� I had to use this stuff called Magic Mouthwash just to drink the water. It hurt so bad, I couldn't� And I'm still on a liquid diet."