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Artist News
Delays’ Greg Gilbert dies
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 1 October 2021
Delays frontman Greg Gilbert has died, five years after being diagnosed with bowel cancer. He was 44.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Gilbert’s brother and bandmate Aaron said last night: “I have no idea how to do this right now, but this afternoon at 2:22 we walked my brother back home to somewhere out there in the ether. Greg died surrounded in the endless love that us and all of you have given him on this journey, and we will never be able to fully express how much it meant to him (and all of us) to have you by our side lifting us up like a winged army. Your messages, your encouragement and your compassion have been our oxygen for the last five years”.
“He was my brother and my best friend, and we did everything together, and it was the greatest honour to be with him as he took one last gentle breath before leaving us”, he continued. “I could have sworn we were limitless… But now that ‘is’ has become ‘was’, I need to be mindful that there is still so much majesty out there in the universe, and so much to be thankful for despite the tidal wave of sadness washing over me right now”.
“He is, and always will be, in our melodies, and in all the breaths in between, he’s is in every brush stroke and every piece of art that his mind gave light to”, he went on. “These are the crutches I’ll try my best to lean on when it all feels too heavy”
“Death gives birth to a legacy, and it was his wish that he carried on living through your speakers from horizon to horizon, and through the technicolour delights he’s left for us to swim in. I’ll be singing with him in every blink and every gap and through every teardrop, and I’d love you to do the same, because his life was a chorus and the half life of music is infinite”.
Originally named Corky – and then Indoru – Delays found fame in 2004 with the release of their debut album ‘Faded Seaside Glamour’. They went on to release three more albums – the most recent in 2010. Although they started work on a fifth, it was never completed.
Following his diagnosis, Gilbert began to document his illness in art and poetry. As the cancer reached an advanced stage in 2017, a fundraising campaign was launched, successfully raising more than £200,000 so he could receive treatments not available on the NHS.
In August this year, Gilbert wrote on Twitter: “This isn’t a post I ever thought I’d write but it seems necessary. I have, unfortunately, been taken off of treatment and am now being treated for pain relief at Countess Mountbatten Hospice. The pains are mostly under control and the nurses here are nothing less than angels”.
“I’m now in an uncertain future where I don’t know how long I have and what the days will look like”, he went on. “I’m trying to get home for a couple of hours a day to see the kids, energy willing, and hope I can still find the time to create. I’m impossibly lucky to have the family and friends I have, as well as all the considerate souls out in cyberspace who regularly beam me their good vibes. I still believe in magic, the power of a good gesture and laughter. I want to fill the days ahead with all of these and so much more”.
Gilbert is survived by his wife, Stacey, and their children Dali and Bay.
