After being repeatedly hospitalised over the past year and a half, Morrissey has said in a recent Spanish-language interview that he has undergone a series of cancer treatments.

“They have scraped cancerous tissues four times already, but whatever,” Morrissey told El Mundo, via the Morrissey-Solo messageboard. “If I die, then I die. And if I don’t, then I don’t. Right now I feel good. I am aware that in some of my recent photos I look somewhat unhealthy, but that’s what illness can do. I’m not going to worry about that, I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

Despite several recent illnesses, this is Morrissey’s first mention of cancer. He was diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer in early 2013, double pneumonia in March 2013, food poisoning in July 2013 and then a respiratory infection in June 2014. Doctors had “cautioned” him to stop touring, he admitted last year, “but it’s difficult for me because it’s very ingrained within me”.

In this latest interview, Morrissey stated that he is “now at an age when I should no longer be making music … Many composers of classical music died at age 34. And I’m still here, and nobody knows what to do with me,” he said. The 55-year-old is currently finishing his debut novel, which he hopes to publish next year. “With luck I will be able to stop singing forever, which would make many people happy!”

Besides this gallows humour, Morrissey reiterated that he had been dismissed by his label, complaining that Harvest Records boss Steve Barnett “does not like artists to give their opinion”. His sentiments were made visible at his recent live show in Lisbon, where his band wore T-shirts bearing the words Fuck Harvest.

Elsewhere in the interview, Morrissey also fired verbal barbs at the Beckhams, bullfighters and the British royal family, and accused the BBC of conspiring against the yes vote in Scotland’s recent independence referendum. “The BBC did everything possible to tilt the vote toward no and never reported on the potential benefits of an independent Scotland,” he claimed. “They speak in the name of democracy only when it suits them.”

World Peace Is None of Your Business, Morrissey’s first solo album in five years, was released in July. He is currently performing on a European tour, arriving in Madrid on 9 October.