Tomas Haake, the renowned drummer Swedish extreme metal innovators Meshuggah, has opened up about his physical health issues. In a new conversation with Rolling Stone, the 50-year-old drummer revealed that he has been suffering from a curious case of eczema on his hands. He told the aforementioned publication of the matter:
“I have this eczema inside my hands. I’ve got to tape up all my fingers and put on gloves just to mess around on the kit, even. That means I haven’t really touched the drums since we recorded the album, and that was, like, early April. So I’m almost a year out, without even hitting a drum.”
Thus far finding an adequate treatment for the condition has remained elusive, as Haake relayed:
“I’ve been to so many specialists and dermatologists about this at this point and they’re all like, ‘Huh?’ They say it looks like contact eczema, but we’ve ruled that out because I’ve done all the tests that you can do, as far as anything that I might come in contact with. It goes up and down, but it’s a bummer, for sure, whether you’re a drummer or not. I mean, we all need our hands to function for daily life.”
While the condition previously played a part in the postponement of some of their tour dates this year, Haake remains committed to working through the discomfort, adding:
“These hands are bumming me out, man. I try to stay positive about things like this and not allow myself to just get all depressed over it. It is what it is. We’ll see if some new doctor has something important to tell me that helps me clear this up. But, yeah, I mean, if not, I will still have to play.”
In the aforementioned interview Haake also spoke of the meaning behind the band’s latest two singles, the return of guitarist Fredrik Thordendal, their upcoming new album “Immutable” (due out April 01st) and more. You can dig into that here.
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