Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan has opened up about his battle with cancer in 2009.

: “At first they said it’s a stomach virus. But this guy did ultrasound on me. He looked at the screen and said, ‘I can see something’. He got another guy who said, ‘OK, you have a tumour on your bladder. I can operate tomorrow’.”

The singer fell ill in the dressing room of a venue in Athens, Greece shortly before the band were due onstage, and he was taken to a hospital where medics revealed he had a bladder tumour. He told Q magazine

He added: “Being the old dope fiend I am, I start to negotiate: I’m on the road, an eight-month tour, we’ve got to do this later. My denial was amazing. So this oncologist knelt down beside my bed, looked up at me and said, ‘This is a chance. It hasn’t broken through the wall of your bladder. Do you know how many people get this chance when we see the cancer early like this?’”

A week after undergoing surgery, Gahan revealed that he hit a low point when he spoke to his wife. He added: “I looked into her eyes and said, ‘I’m gonna be OK,’ and she said, ‘But I’m not OK! I’m not OK with you thinking you can just go – go and die on me’. She knew that’s what I meant: ‘If this doesn’t work out, I’ve had a good life, the kids are fine and…’ She wanted me to shut up.”