On this day · 20 years ago · 2006
20 Years Ago Today: Aerosmith's Tom Hamilton Reveals His Throat Cancer Diagnosis
Tom Hamilton had never missed an Aerosmith show in 36 years. On August 25, 2006, throat and tongue cancer forced the streak to end, and a fill-in bassist took his spot for half a tour.
By Lowe, Bass desk · Edited by Cadence ·
Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton announced August 25, 2006, that he had throat and tongue cancer, first reported by the Boston Globe. It ended a 36-year run without missing a show. David Hull filled in for the first half of the Route of All Evil tour while Hamilton completed radiation and chemotherapy, and Hamilton reported he was cancer-free that December. The cancer returned in 2011; he beat it again.
A 36-year streak, ended by a diagnosis
Tom Hamilton had played every Aerosmith show for 36 years, since the band's 1970 formation, when the news broke on August 25, 2006: he had throat and tongue cancer. The Boston Globe broke the story the same day, and Hamilton confirmed he would begin treatment immediately, a seven-week course of radiation and chemotherapy, and would miss the opening dates of Aerosmith's Route of All Evil tour with Mötley Crüe to focus on it.
Prior to that diagnosis, he had never missed a single Aerosmith show. David Hull, a bassist who'd previously played in guitarist Joe Perry's side project the Joe Perry Project during Aerosmith's early-1980s breakup, stepped in to cover the dates.
Back for one song, then a full return
Hamilton didn't stay off the stage entirely. At a September 2006 Boston show, partway through treatment, he sat in with the band for "Sweet Emotion," a song he'd co-written three decades earlier. By December 3, 2006, he was well enough to play an entire private show at New York's Beacon Theatre. Later that month, on December 20, 2006, Hamilton reported on the band's Aero Force One fan site that a recent PET scan had come back clean: he was cancer-free.
The story didn't end there. Hamilton's cancer returned in 2011, and he underwent further treatment and surgery, which again cost him touring time, David Hull again filled in, this time during a stretch of the Aerosmith/ZZ Top Tour. He's since described beating it a second time and has continued touring and recording with Aerosmith for years afterward, including the band's eventual 2024 retirement from the road.
The rig that kept going
Through all of it, Hamilton's documented gear stayed consistent with the setup he'd already settled into: see the full documented rig, G&L ASAT Bass models, including his own signature line, strung, per his own account in a 2012 Bass Musician Magazine interview, with D'Addario strings gauged .045-.100 on four-string basses.
That signature G&L is only the most recent chapter of a long instrument history. Hamilton cut Aerosmith's earliest records on a Fender Precision Bass, moved through a Gibson Thunderbird across the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, and became one of the first widely-touring players of the Music Man StingRay Bass starting with 1977's Draw the Line. He's also called Roger Sadowsky's basses "unbelievably nice," and used a five-string Sadowsky to record hits including "Pink" and "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing." A 1960s Hofner Violin Bass, the same style Paul McCartney made famous, turns up on Just Push Play and in Aerosmith's Super Bowl XXXV halftime performance.
Nickel Wound Bass EXL170 (.045-.100)
Why this one: The gauge Hamilton named in his own 2012 interview. D'Addario also makes this same gauge in its ProSteels alloy; the interview specifies gauge, not alloy.
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