Y&T Frontman Says He Couldn't Do Anything For Four Months After Back Injury

Y&T frontman Dave Meniketti spoke to SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation" about the back injury that forced his band to pull out of a European tour with SAXON last fall.

"I just came on crazily," he said. "I did something stupid. I was lifting a lot of heavy stuff and then I sort of bent straight over and tried to move something heavy from left to right and twisted and, oops — out on my back for about four months."

According to Meniketti, doctors gave him "two rounds of cortisone shots in the back, which did fuck all. They didn't do anything." He added: "They were trying to get me ready to get to the European tour that we were doing in the fall, and it didn't work. And there was no way I could do the tour. It was the first time I've ever had to cancel dates in my career — truly cancel. We couldn't move those. That was a full tour. So we lost 25 shows in Europe. And while I was home, it was very depressing, just laying there on my back. I couldn't do anything for a while."

Meniketti also talked about the delay in the release of Y&T's long-awaited documentary. The film is being built out of the hundreds of hours of personal footage shot over the years. It is set to cover the band's earliest days of rehearsing in drummer Leonard Haze's grandmother's house, then move through the first two albums, touring with JOURNEY, BOSTON and QUEEN, to their big breaks with AC/DC, OZZY OSBOURNE and DIO.

"Well, the last I heard, and believe me, I've been really going crazy on this whole thing, because it's driving me nuts, is that they said that they're gonna have a first rough cut ready for us to see when we get back from this tour, which will be the end of March," Dave told "Trunk Nation". "And then Jill [Dave's wife and manager] has been telling them we've gotta have that thing done by July 1st this year so that we can get this thing out to the people. So we'll see what happens. We're all hopeful that the guys are gonna come through for us and get this thing done, for God's sake."

Meniketti is the only surviving member of the Y&T lineup — then known as YESTERDAY AND TODAY — that recorded the band's self-titled debut album.

Original Y&T rhythm guitarist Joey Alves died in March 2017 at the age of 63. Two founding Y&T musicians — Haze, 61, and bassist Phil Kennemore, 57, who both had left the lineup — died from complications of lung cancer: Kennemore on January 7, 2011, and Haze on September 11, 2016.

Y&T's current lineup is rounded out by guitarist John Nymann, drummer Mike Vanderhule and bassist Aaron Leigh.

Y&T released its first-ever acoustic EP, "Acoustic Classix Vol. 1", in January 2018.