Frankie Banali outlines his rationale for not explaining his missed Quiet Riot gigs for almost six months

Frankie Banali outlines his rationale for not explaining his missed Quiet Riot gigs for almost six months

Earlier this month, Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali revealed that he had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer back on April 17th of this year. From May to September 2019, Banali missed a number of Quiet Riot gigs without providing any explanation. Banali‘s replacement on drums during the various Quiet Riot shows that he missed was Johnny Kelly (Type O Negative, Danzig, Kill Devil Hill).

In a recent interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, Banali revealed his rationale for not explaining his absences or revealing his cancer diagnosis during that six-month period as he stated:

“Well, after worrying about my wife, my next concern was — because not only am I the drummer in Quiet Riot, but I’ve been managing the band since ’93 — we had a number of dates contracted on the books. My next thought was, “Let me see how many dates I can do.” I was able to do a date that we were scheduled for in late April in Florida, and then another festival date in May, but then after that, it just became impossible for me to travel for a number of reasons — one of them being that now I was having to inject myself in the stomach every single day with blood thinners. Between that and the medication and the prospect of starting to have chemotherapy, it just became too much. So my thought was, “How do I keep my guys working?” Because they all have bills, they all have families. So I worked out a plan that kept the band working all through the summer festival period. … There were some concert promoters that I did have to talk off the ledge, though.”

Banali continued: “Well, the difficult part for me was having to the fact that for 38 years, I was very proud of the fact that I had never missed any show whatsoever that I was scheduled to play. So, that was a bitter pill to swallow. … As far as the fans were concerned, I didn’t make any kind of statement, because once you make one statement, it opens it up to the form of questions, and I wanted to make sure that my guys were able to work through the touring cycle for 2019. So I didn’t go public, and I took all the hits — all the mean and nasty posts. You know: “Frankie Banali is sitting at home getting fat, while the band is playing without him.” And the reality was that on April 17, I weighed a hefty 197 pounds, and three months later I was down to 135 pounds. So I certainly wasn’t sitting at home having a great time! But I just didn’t say anything. And I took all the abuse.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Frankie Banali at Yahoo! Entertainment‘s website.