Headbanging Causes Strokes 2006-11-09 by Jom | 12 Comments | Evanescence's The Open Door was recently certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Platinum status means that over 1,000,000 copies of the album have been shipped for sale. The album sold approximately 447,000 copies its first week of release.
Recently, Ultimate-Guitar.com conducted an interview with new guitarist and co-writer Terry Balsamo, who had a severe stroke in November 2005, rendering his entire left side of his body paralyzed while recording. Balsamo reflects on the stroke and discusses how it still affects him today.
About his recovery from his stroke:
Yeah, I still have paralysis in my left arm and hand. I'm, like, at enough where I can get by on tour. Basically this tour is like therapy right now for me. I'm hoping it will get better, you know... it's kind of like the knowledge is there. My mind would tell my hand what it should do, but it wouldn't do it. The knowledge was still there, it's just training my hand to do what it's supposed to do.
When asked if the doctors knew what caused the stroke:
When I went in the hospital, my whole left side was paralyzed. All of my vitals were fine, my blood pressure and cholesterol and all that crap. So they had no idea what was going on. They had to do an MRI. When they did the MRI, the doctor came back in the room and he was like, "Have you ever had any neck injuries like from a car accident or anything?" And I was like, "No." Then we were like, "Other than banging his head all day and every night for an hour and a half." I've always had weird thing in my neck doing that, but I never would have thought it would have given me a stroke... they actually saw the clot in my artery in my neck.
When asked to re-live the events leading up to his stroke:
I finished all the guitar tracks on Saturday. On Monday I woke up to get ready to go to the studio and all of the sudden my body went paralyzed. It was so weird. My girlfriend was there. She was like, "I'm gonna call 911!" And I'm like, "No, don’t worry about it. I'm all right." I didn't say that I didn't know what the hell was happening.
About the doctors' diagnosis that he may never play guitar again:
You're crazy. One of my main neurologists, he never said that I would never be able to play guitar again. I don't think he was sure about if I was going to be able pick it up. Then after a couple of months had passed, he saw how mentally, I think, I was just overcoming it and stuff. He was like, "I can't believe it's only been two months! If you keep doing your therapy and stuff like that, I think you'll be all right after a while." But he thought also it would be a couple of years.
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To read more about Balsamo's stroke, how he collaborates with Amy Lee, what musicians influence his songwriting, and more, be sure to check out the entire lengthy interview at the below address (be sure to finish the url with .html, and not .htm l):
http://ultimate-guitar.com/interviews/interviews/evanescence_guitarist_filling_ben_moodys_shoes.htm l
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Tagged: Evanescence
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Wow, that's some crazy stuff.
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Well no one said anything about metal horns!
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Getting paralyzed for rocking? thats nuts man.
That kind of reminds he of how STDs are supposed to scare people away from having sex but they still do it. A little paralysis here and there wont stop headbanging by anymeans.
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Headbanging to Evanescence?
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im scared to headbang now
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Wow, getting a stroke from headbanging, that sucks.
I won'T stop doing it though.
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u can neva hav to much headbangin wooooooooo :D m/
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haha this is pretty weird but i've not heard other cases caused by headbanging...?
maybe it's just a one in a million sorta thing.
won't stop me tho.. heh
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I will never stop the head banging
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god that sucks. but headbanging u cant stop
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Ha, this is definitely the most bad ass way to have a stroke.This Message Edited On 11.11.06
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Headbanging to Evanescence? actually i think it's mostly from his days in cold.
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