Coal Chamber drummer Mikey “Bug” Cox has spoken a bit further about his battle with cancer and the complications he still faces as a result of the treatment he received for it. Cox shocked fans earlier this year when he revealed that he had privately battled the disease, after being diagnosed with stage 3 cancer on April 01st, 2025.
In a new interview with We Were Loud Once, Cox spoke more about his battle, and the surgery he is facing down at the moment to alleviate some medical issues created by his initial cancer surgery and treatment. While Cox joined his bandmates onstage in the gold-certified nü-metal band this spring for a trio of festival dates, the group were recently forced to vacate their appearance on this fall’s ‘Louder Than Life‘ festival due to Cox requiring further surgery.
In this new chat, Cox confirmed that he currently remains cancer free, with his impending surgical procedure set to correct some lingering functional issues Cox told the aforementioned podcast [transcribed via Blabbermouth.net]:
“I did five weeks of radiation, which, by the end of it, was pure hell. I was down to 152 pounds. I could barely walk. It was brutal. They gave me the highest dose of radiation the body could take. So we treated it really aggressively because I had a bigger tumor, so we wanted to shrink it down. And then I did five months of chemo through a PICC line in my arm. So I had to go sit in the chemo chair for three hours a couple of times every other week. I did that for five months, I believe.
And then it shrunk the tumor down to about a half inch. So that was exactly what they said was gonna happen, and I was able to have surgery. So I went in and had a five-and-a-half-hour surgery. This was in January. I had a five-and-a-half-hour surgery, and they cut out the rest of the cancer. Then we had to wait for the test to come back, and the test came back and they said they got all of it; all the margins were good. So, as of right now, I’m cancer-free, but I do need to have another surgery in the next month to put the rest of my insides back together, ’cause right now I have things that are rerouted.
They’re gonna reroute everything back to normal in January, and hopefully that’s the last surgery. But right now I’m dealing with a lot of the side effects from cancer. Like, my feet are numb all the time, and my hands and my joints and all that stuff. So the last two shows we just played were an adventure. We just played a couple of weekends ago.
So it’s a little harder to play. My energy level’s still not where it used to be, ’cause I play semi-crazy. So, we’re getting there slowly, and every show gets better. And, yeah, that’s basically where we’re at with the whole thing.”
