Phil Mogg is talking about the time in August 2022 when he . “I’m good now. I think,” he says, grinning, checking his pulse theatrically.
“Hold on a minute...
Who paid for the last round? No...
I got lucky really.” is catching up with Mogg in Brighton, where the veteran singer now lives, to discuss the apparent dissolution of his much-loved band , as well as the latest repackaging of the band’s sixth album, . He also sheds light on the birth of a new solo project called .
It’s mid-January, and we are among the first customers to walk through the door of a pub near the railway station. For some unexplained reason we drink halves instead of pints, forgetting that doing that usually hastens consumption. Gradually the pub’s early drinkers arrive.
Those are gradually replaced by the lunchtime crowd. By the time we leave, following multiple exclamations of “Just one more?”, darkness is approaching. On that August 2022 evening, Mogg, now 76 years old, was at home with his wife Emma, a former glamour model, when he started to feel unwell.
“I thought it was indigestion or heartburn. But it was quite a bit more than reflux. Emma was watching a comedy show, with a glass of wine, and I was going [mimes choking],” he says.
“She’s laughing at the TV, and I’m realising it’s serious – ‘Hang on, I could be dying here.’ So I popped to the hospital down the road.” The eventual outcome was that Mogg had two stents implanted into his coronary arteries, and .
