Tracy Bonham on Her Divorce and Breast Most cancers Analysis (Unique)

Tracy Bonham isn’t one to dwell on the damaging.

“I am feeling nice,” the musician tells PEOPLE throughout a current  Zoom interview from her boyfriend’s house in Brooklyn.

The uplifting remark hides a little bit of the chaos that the “Mom, Mom” hitmaker, 57, has truly been going by way of, because the classically educated violinist and pianist turned various singer-songwriter was identified with stage 1 lobular breast most cancers on January 25, 2024. 

“Bodily, I did not really feel like something was flawed,” remembers Bonham, who rose to fame in 1996 along with her twice Grammy-nominated album, The Burdens of Being Upright. “Possibly spiritually and mentally, there was one thing there. One thing was sending me to get checked. One thing was giving me the message that I wanted to look deeper into what was occurring.”

Initially, medical doctors identified Bonham with invasive carcinoma, however after a number of biopsies, it was decided that she did in actual fact have stage 1 lobular breast most cancers.

“I am so glad that I caught it early,” she says. “I may have gone on for a really very long time with out realizing, till it may have the scale of a golf ball, which occurs to quite a lot of girls. You do not really feel it within the early levels.”

Mere weeks after her prognosis, Bonham underwent each a lumpectomy and lymph gland elimination at NYU Langone. Medical doctors efficiently eliminated the tumor and declared all her margins have been clear.  And shortly after that, she got here to her loyal followers with the information. 

“My unique thought was that I used to be going to carry this to myself and I am simply going to undergo or be silent about it,” remembers Bonham. “However then I noticed is that I had been hiding most of my life and I didn’t wish to try this anymore. And for a second, I believed that is all about me, me, me, and that makes me really feel bizarre. However then I noticed different individuals began sharing their story. That they had a totally completely different story, however they admired my vulnerability and openness. Out of the blue, I felt like I had this tribe and everybody else was supporting or being supported by it. I’m actually glad I did it.”

It is this new sense of vulnerability that additionally prompted Bonham to launch her achingly truthful single “Rattling the Sky (For Being Too Extensive)” earlier this 12 months, with the hopes that telling the story of her failed marriage would additionally assist all those that listened to the tune’s devastating lyrics. 

“My marriage was not going properly,” recollects Bonham of the day she wrote the tune again within the early spring of 2019. “It had been exhausting for fairly a while, and I felt very lonely and remoted. I felt one thing coming, and I simply sat down on the piano and I hit file. From the second I put my fingers on the piano, this tune got here out, lyrics and all, and I’ve by no means actually accomplished that earlier than.”

In 2021, Bonham and her husband Jason High-quality started divorce proceedings after 15 years of marriage.

“I attempted actually exhausting,” says Bonham, who wrote metaphorically about her struggles on her upcoming album. “We’ve got a good looking 13-year-old son that we adopted once we was simply 14 months outdated. I used to be not hoping for this to occur, however I wanted to avoid wasting myself. I did not have the assist system that I used to be eager for. Plus, I used to be changing into a shell of myself, and I did not need my son to expertise that both.”

Right this moment, Bonham finds herself experiencing real love yet again within the arms of her boyfriend, skilled jazz musician Rene Hart. “He’s such a assist, and I’ve by no means actually had that earlier than,” she says. “It’s the relationship that I might see in others and go, ‘God, I want I had that. That is what I would like. It seems so snug.’ And now I’ve it, and I am so lucky.”

And with the assistance and assist of many, Bonham says she is able to conquer all that lies forward, together with continued radiation therapies and hormone therapies to make sure that the most cancers doesn’t come again. 

“There’s some concern of recurrence,” she says quietly. “There are at all times so many questions. ‘What did I do to trigger this? How do I not try this?’ There’s the concern that perhaps even this cup of espresso may result in recurrence, ?  I’m making an attempt to actually handle the concern.”

She is managing that concern in a couple of methods. 

“Fortunately I’ve remedy,” says Bonham. “And fortunately, I used to be given quite a lot of books to learn. I am surprisingly having fun with the give attention to myself and the therapeutic, as a result of I believe as girls, we’re at all times fascinated about others and even how others understand us, and that expends a lot vitality.”

She provides, “Proper now, there’s this chance to actually flip inward and make this right into a progress studying alternative. It is a reward.”

On Friday, PEOPLE is premiering the music video for “Whether or not You Fall,” which Bonham describes as a “deeply highly effective and uplifting tune about taking the hits in life and getting again up.”

Though it is a tune she wrote awhile in the past, Bonham says it has been an enormous fan favourite for years and one which she has had “extra individuals inform me that this helped them by way of powerful instances greater than every other tune in my repertoire.” She recorded the brand new album model in Woodstock, New York in December 2023, “precisely one month earlier than I obtained my most cancers prognosis.”

For the transferring music video, Bonham labored with choreographer Suzanne Haag and the Eugene Ballet of Oregon to carry her tune to life.

“Being on stage for this particular efficiency was such a singular expertise for me,” she tells PEOPLE. “If solely I may have been out entrance to truly see the sweetness because it occurred! This efficiency passed off solely 4 weeks after my breast surgical procedure and your entire piece depicts the resolve I’ve wanted to navigate my very own challenges with well being, relationship and setbacks. Once I see and listen to my band behind me, silhouetted to not take focus away from the dancers, I really feel the love and assist from them as they accompany me so superbly.”

Bonham will formally launch “Whether or not You Fall” as her subsequent single on June 21 and can play Milwaukee Summerfest on June 27. Info on extra upcoming reveals are accessible right here.