Refused has had one hell of a year. The band their "final festival" show at Stockholm's Rosendal Garden Party back in March, but sadly never got to play it due to vocalist Dennis Lyxzén suffering a heart attack.
Lyxzén has been doing well – well enough to announce Refused's 2025 farewell tour – but still, heart attacks are no joke. In a recent episode of his own Dennis Deep Cuts video series (transcribed by The PRP), Lyxzén detailed the day of his heart attack and his family history.
"So on the 13th of June this summer, I had a massive heart attack. I was at a hotel in Uppsala. We were getting ready to do our comeback show. We hadn't played in over four years, we were supposed to play a huge festival in Stockholm the next day.
"And I woke up with insane chest pains. Felt like I was on fire. It was pretty horrible. But I was mere minutes away from one of the best hospitals in Sweden, and I'm insanely grateful for the medical system that we have set up in Sweden.
"They blew up some arteries in my heart, and made sure that I am doing pretty well. It's hereditary. I'm trying to be like, the healthiest person alive, but that didn't help. But then again, my dad had a stroke when he was in his 50s, my uncle had a heart attack when he was in this late 40s, my grandad had a heart attack, so on and so forth. So it wasn't really much that I could do to prevent this from happening.
"And by doctor's account, me living a really healthy lifestyle probably made it so that I didn't have a heart attack earlier. This, of course, led to the fact that, well, that Stockholm show didn't happen and everything over the summer got canceled. And I told myself, I need to take a break from everything.
Lyxzén continued, saying he didn't do much this summer aside from focus on recovering. He noted that he's feeling way better than he was but is still a little paranoid after the incident.
"So the summer, I didn't do anything. I didn't even… I didn't answer emails, I didn't play guitar. I didn't do anything, which was extremely, extremely boring, and that is why I haven't been doing any episodes.
"And then I took a decision that most of the activities that was planned for this fall and winter was all going to be moved or canceled. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that, and my plans for the future, and how my different projects and bands have been affected by this and stuff like that.
"I'm feeling pretty great under the circumstances. I feel really good. I lost cardio, which was kind of frustrating. But I'm working on getting my cardio back. And apart from that, the only thing is the mental aspect of having lived through a weird trauma like this is that I'm super sensitive now. So as soon as anything in my body hurts remotely, I'm like, ‘What is this? What's happening?', which is super common.
"And that's something that I need to get over, and sort of put myself in a situation where I hope this is not going to happen again. With correct medicine, and so on, and so forth, I should be able to live a life as full-on as before. So that's why I haven't been posting. That's why I haven't been active here lately, but I'm back. I feel really good and I feel really optimistic about the future."
