EVILE

Guitarist fractures his jaw during tour with SATYRICON

Ol Drake, lead guitarist of UK thrashers Evile fractured his jaw after the band's show in Rotterdam, Netherlands supporting Satyricon. The band was forced to pull out of the tour.

Evile frontman Matt Drake comments: "Ol collapsed last night and fractured his jaw and split his chin on the ground. Luckily his beard absorbed some of the blow. He's been in hospital and had X-rays and been stitched up, but he's unable to play - he can't really move - he's a mess. Ol doesn't drink, it seems to be some medical problem that's being investigated. They did an ECG and we're awaiting results. Unfortunately we're having to pull out of the tour to get home to the UK where Ol can recuperate and have some follow-up tests. We apologise to all our fans and to anyone planning to see us at the shows. As you can imagine we're devastated we can't play, but Ol's health comes first and that's currently our priority. We will update our fans through the MySpace with news when we're back home. We won't be on any of the Satyricon tour from today."

Three days after the accident Ol Drake himself issued the statement:

"Thank you for all the get-well messages (even the guy who said we suck, you rule). [I] want to start by saying a HUGE sorry to all the people wanting to see us play on the SATYRICON tour, I couldn't be more pissed off. I'm the first person to oppose cancelling any gig or tour, unless it's completely necessary. My first worry wasn't even for my health, it was for the tour... And that my beard would be OK. I literally can't stand up for longer than five minutes or I just feel like going back down (took four goes to get the X-ray done). I did a highly medical thing called 'lose blood.' I wish I could have carried on the tour. No energy at all.

Will get myself checked but I think I pretty much know why it happened: during the Canada tour, I developed a really bad cold/infection (which Ben [Carter, drums] caught, putting him in hospital on our return). It got worse when we got home. It developed into a URTI (Upper Respiratory Tracht Infection) so I was put on medication for that. My system was pretty low but I carried on anyway. With the long drives on this tour, and the vast boredom between shows, I basically slept all the time. When it came to eating, we didn't have much food but I ate what I could that we were given by venues. On top of that, we didn't have too much money to buy food (most of it going to lots of petrol), so I was basically not eating enough. I've done enough gigs and tours and not eaten a lot, and physically got by, as the shows themselves are usually good excersise. But I think this time it just caught up with me at a bad time and said, 'You hit the floor now.' I've broken one side of the top of my jaw, detaching a bone which holds the muscle in place. Therefore the muscle is pulling my jaw up on one side. I sound like Stephen Hawking when I talk. Also a bone deep gash on my chin. I will have to just get myself into good health, as this was basically my own fault. So again, huge apologies to our fans, SATYRICON + crew (thankyou for being cool with us!) and ZONARIA.

www.evile.co.uk