Chris Holmes, a founding member of the heavy metal band Wasp, is seeking financial support to cover the cost of cancer treatment.

The 68-year-old American rock legend recently began chemotherapy in France for prostate cancer, just years after undergoing treatment for throat surgery, his wife Catherine said in a GoFundMe fundraiser.

“The treatment is essential and cannot be interrupted,” she wrote. “Because of an administrative error linked to our marriage registration, the health insurance system placed Chris under ‘emergency only’ coverage.”

Holmes, who resides in France with his wife, was forced to “wait three months before receiving any care at all, and only the radiotherapy given during the month of July is covered,” Catherine revealed.

“Everything else falls to us,” she added, listing hormone therapy, scans and PET scans, biopsies, blood tests, and daily trips to and from the hospital.

Sharing that the bills have accumulated, leaving them “€20,000 in medical debt,” she noted that “treatment ahead will keep adding to it every month.”

“Chris must remain in France to receive radiotherapy. Leaving the country would risk his emergency status lapsing, so he cannot travel and therefore cannot work,” Catherine said. “Chris has given everything to his music and to the people who listen to it. It is his whole life. Today we cannot carry this alone.”

She expressed gratitude to the country for “granting the emergency coverage that allowed Chris to begin radiotherapy. Now we ask, humbly, for help covering everything else.”

The GoFundMe goal is set to €50,000. So far, nearly €17,000 has been donated.

In a recent GoFundMe update shared July 30, Catherine thanked everyone for all the support they have received. “Thank you for your donations, shares, and messages,” she said. “We are making this journey with all of you by our side, and that is invaluable.”

Holmes is best known as the co-founder and lead guitarist of Wasp, the heavy metal band credited with pioneering shock rock and glam metal aesthetics. Formed in Los Angeles in 1982, the “Wild Child” band’s current lineup includes core members Blackie Lawless, Mike Duda, and Doug Blair.

Holmes officially parted ways with the band in 2001 over creative differences and friction with frontman Lawless.

“[W.A.S.P. leader Blackie Lawless] should have kept the lineup, with Randy [Piper, guitar] and him and I, ‘cause the songs and ideas were great. When he changed it, that’s what ruined the band,” he told Blabbermouth in 2023.

Holmes was previously diagnosed with throat and neck cancer in 2022. He underwent treatment, and five months later announced he was cancer-free.

“I’m glad the kind of cancer I had is treatable,” he said at the time. “A lot of cancer isn’t. Anyway, as of now, I’m still suffering from all the radiation that was done to my neck. I still can’t taste anything. It’ll probably take six months from right now till my neck’s back to normal.”