Cult guitarist Wilko Johnson is battling terminal pancreatic cancer with less than a year to live -- but true to the name of his 1970s beat band Dr. Feelgood, he is feeling better than ever.
Johnson, 65, who faced a mixture of obscurity, fame, turmoil and rediscovery during his rock 'n' roll career, according to ABC News, is embarking on a farewell tour - a permanent farewell. Despite his knowledge that death is imminent, he has felt unexpectedly happy.
"I suddenly found myself in a position where nothing matters anymore," he told ABC News. "I'm a miserable so-and-so normally .... I'd be worrying about the taxman or all the things that we worry about that get in the way of the real things. And suddenly it doesn't matter. All of that doesn't matter."
"You walk down the street and you feel intensely alive," he added. "You're, 'Oh, look at that leaf!' You're looking around and you think, 'I'm alive. Ain't it amazing?'"
According to ABC News, Johnson has refused chemotherapy, which doctors say could prolong his life for few months. His diagnosis has increased his musical motivation -- he played gigs in Japan and planned a goodbye tour in Britain for March. He even plans to record a new album, ABC News reported.
"After getting this diagnosis, I suddenly find myself writing bloody songs again," Johnson said.
He doesn't fear death, he told Reuters, but he does worry about getting sick.
"I'm not going on stage sick," Johnson said. "I'm not going to have someone pushing me around in a wheelchair."
Wilko Johnson - a variation on his birth name, John Wilkinson, is an "unlikely rocker," as ABC News puts it -- he studied Anglo-Saxon literature and worked as a schoolteacher before joining Dr. Feelgood. Later, he spent time with Ian Dhury and the Blockheads, before he moved on to the Wilko Johnson Band, which released its last album in 2005, Reuters reported.
His eccentric presence became the highlight of "Oil City Confidential," a documentary about Dr. Feelgood and the UK's Canvey Island, ABC News reported. It depicted the band as a close-knit team who sometimes faced struggles because of the pressure of the road, ABC News reported.
"We were just such good friends," Johnson said. "And on the way up you felt this absolute power in the friendship we had. No one could penetrate that."
Dr. Feelgood never really became a superstar band, ABC News reported, but for Johnson, that's OK. "I never meant to do it, so everything that's happened with rock 'n' roll has been an adventure, really," he said.
Most recently, Johnson was cast in Game of Thrones, where he played the executioner Ser Ilyn Payne, who had his tongue ripped out.
"Basically, all I had to do was go around giving people menacing looks," he said. "I can do that."
Johnson's new-found positive attitude shines through in his interviews with reporters -- and he tells them he isn't worried that his time is running out.
"I haven't any botherations about death," he told ABC News. "So far, so good. Happy."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
