Karl Wallinger Still Suffering A Decade After Aneurysm

The Ship of Fools hitmaker, a one-time member of cult folk rockers The Waterboys, suffered the major health setback while on vacation with his family after an artery ruptured and caused a clot.

He battled back from his most desperate days and returned to making music in 2006 - but he admits he's not fully recovered six years later.

He tells Mojo magazine, "During my rehabilitation I had to re-learn things because my eyesight is f**ked. For a while I couldn't see the end of the guitar... and now I can't see my right hand on the piano unless I look very strangely to the right."

And Wallinger has a theory about what brought on the medical crisis - and it has nothing to do with the fact he was a chain-smoker.

He explains, "I think it had more to do with me playing oboe in my youth. There's a lot of crazy blowing and pressure build-up with woodwind. Leon Goossens, the famous English oboist, had a brain haemorrhage (and) Quincy Jones played trumpet and he had two aneurysms.