A London cancer surgeon who is also an amateur photographer, Chan approached the guitarist after one of his farewell shows. The striking visual disparity that resulted, coupled with the fact he was somehow still performing, caught the eye of Johnson’s acquaintance, Charlie Chan. As a result, his electric guitar stuck out at a decidedly odd angle when he played it on stage. “I just hope I carry some of them on with me into this new life I’ve found.”ĭuring Johnson’s highly emotional farewell tour, the tumor in his abdomen grew larger and more pronounced. “Sometimes, you think that it’s almost worth it - having cancer - to get these insights,” he said. Johnson, whose slash-and-burn guitar style influenced a generation of punk-rockers in England, chuckled ruefully. Things that would really freak you out before, you say: ‘Man, it doesn’t matter.” It makes you realize what things are important and what things aren’t. If you know in your mind that this life is going to be taken from you, very soon, oh, man! I just had so many deep feelings of being. I mean, you see things really intensely and you actually realize you’re alive. “But, certainly, during the year that I was dying, well, it was great. I just believed I’d return to the oblivion I came from!” Johnson said with a hearty laugh. “Well, first and foremost, I’m an atheist, so I never had to reflect about that. He has not, however, grown more spiritual after somehow cheating death (about which more in a moment). But it had exactly the opposite effect on Johnson, who - against immense odds - is still alive, if not yet completely well, and looking forward to celebrating his 68th birthday in July. The prospect of imminent death might cause most people to plunge into depression. And they said: ‘You’ve got pancreatic cancer and about 10 months to live’.” Eventually, my son forced me to go to the hospital.
“I was treating it by ignoring it and hoping it would go away. “I had this tumor in my stomach that you could see it's about the size of a fist,” Johnson recalled, speaking by phone in late December from his London home.
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The life-and-nearly-death sequence of events that ensued was more surreal than any TV script writer could dream up. In this case, “farewell” took on a decidedly ominous tone. The hulking Johnson, whose bald head and perpetual scowl were perfectly suited to his role as executioner Ilyn Payne on “Game of Thrones,” then mounted a farewell concert tour in his homeland.
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