Marc Lopes talks about the Metal Church tour cancellation

Marc Lopes discusses Metal Church’ cancellation due to Kurdt back issues.

Metal Church recently announced that they were forced to cancel concerts planned for 2024 due to back problems suffered by its guitarist and leader Kurdt Vanderhoof. Last Wednesday, January 24, vocalist Marc Lopes was asked about these problems that have led Metal Church to cancel their concerts at the Metal Hall Of Fame gala.

“We did this whole tour from May till December, finishing in Australia. He’s had a chronic problem with his back for a long time and I can understand that, ’cause I do too. It’s a little bit different but he battled through as best as he could always; I mean, he never not did what needed to be done“, said Lopes. “And it just got to the point where if he didn’t address it, it would just end up being — he wouldn’t be able to play. So, rather than take that chance, it was better off that he go and get it taken care of and then carry on from there“.

In Lopes‘ interview with Jimmy Hay from The Metal Voice, the vocalist was asked if the band had planned to continue without Kurdt during the scheduled dates: “As far as I know, I haven’t got that memo. And in all honesty, if it did happen, I would understand. It would suck, but I would totally understand”, said Lopes. “But we’re not there. So that’s good, hopefully we’ll get together and write more. We were actually starting to get into that mode of writing the next record. I had a billion ideas ready to go — you know me — so, that probably will happen at some point, depending on how his recovery is“.

You can see the whole Marc Lopes interview with Jimmy Hay below:

“As some of you may have recently noticed during our live performances, I frequently will disappear to the side of the stage during a set and continue playing while sitting on a chair. This is due to an ongoing back issue that I’ve needed to deal with for a while now. I kept putting it off and it’s finally caught up with me, so I’m going to get this taken care of so I can continue performing live in the future“, stated Kurdt when the Metal Church tour cancellation was official.

Metal Church released their latest studio album entitled Congregation Of Annihilation in May 2023 via Rat Pak Records. The album was produced by guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof himself with the help of sound engineer Johnny Hyatt on drums. The album’s artwork was by artist Jean Michel (Keep Of Kalessin, Queensrÿche).