Paul Citone

moe. bassist Rob Derhak learned of his nasopharyngeal cancer during a band conference call in mid-July. He clicked over to speak with his doctor, who was reporting test results after a lymph node had been removed from his neck, and received the startling news.

“I got off the phone with her and I went back to the band call, and I just sat there listening to them talk,” Derhak recalls. “I was in shock. It was an hour of me sitting there listening and just being out of it. I went through the whole meeting and then I was like, ‘Look guys…’”

At the end of July, moe. announced that other than three upcoming dates, “We will be closing our doors until further notice.”

In short order, the Maine resident began traveling to Boston for chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Three months later, on November 29, Derhak reported on Facebook that “Although I’ll need to continue the Dr.’s visits for the next five years, they’ve given me a clean bill of health and declared me cancer-free, with only a minimal chance that it will return.”

However, Derhak is still on the mend. “Due to the chemo, I’ve lost part of my hearing,” he explains. “I also get ringing that hasn’t gone away. Hopefully, it’ll clear, but it doesn’t always.”

Though the cancer was located at the base of his nose rather than his larynx, as the doctors initially suspected, there was some concern as to whether the medical procedure might impact his voice. “You’re talking about a centimeter away from where it would be,” the bassist says. “So the treatment was all in my throat and the face area. It still beat