Music

Daniel Lanois "lucky to be alive" after motorcycle accident

by Ciaran Thompson

Last month singer/songwriter/music producer Daniel Lanois suffered a fractured pelvis and collarbone, six broken ribs and internal bleeding after a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles. He was riding his BMW HP2 Megamoto when a car directly in front of him turned quickly in which Lanois had to react fearing a collision.

“I realized I was going to hit him, so I swerved to miss him,” he told The Canadian Press. “I missed him, but then I hit a static box on the sidewalk. It was like a little telephone box, and I smashed into that. That’s it. I blacked out. When I came to, I was looking at the sky, and just people trying to help me. And somebody called 911, and that was it. They hauled me away.

“I’m lucky to be alive,” he added. It could have been spinal. Luckily, I was wearing a full-face helmet. It could have been a head injury. It could have been anything.”

Lanois spent the next three weeks in the intensive care unit at a California hospital, but despite his injuries he has still managed to forge ahead with some of his projects, which includes producing a new album from Neil Young.

“I’ve worked with Neil over the years in small doses … but we had never done something together from scratch,” he said. “So let me put it this way: there’s an automatic communication system that exists between two Canadian dogs. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’re very dedicated, and I think I finally met my match.” [CBC]