STONE SOUR drummer Roy Mayorga recently spoke to The Morning Call about his 2011 stroke and his recovery, which lasted nearly a year.

"It was pretty scary," he said. "I couldn't walk, I couldn't really move my left side really well. It was horrible. I basically was not playing or doing anything music [related] for a good seven, eight months. And then I got better, I got off the meds, and got the confidence again to play drums and got behind the kit and then started recording [the] new [STONE SOUR] album … Almost two years later, I'm pretty much back to normal, and it's a miracle, man, I gotta say. I thank God and the universe and lucky stars I'm still here today. I'm just glad that's over with and I'm able to still walk and play drums and still be here with my family."

Mayorga praised his bandmates, who canceled the rest of their tour and waited for him to get better.

"That's incredible," he said. "I mean, that's a lot to be said for them. Those guys are truly my brothers, for them to do something like that. … Most bands would have gotten somebody else to play drums. But they didn't."

Roy also spoke about the departure of STONE SOUR bassist Shawn Economaki, who left the band just a month before Mayorga's stroke. "That was pretty sudden — he basically wanted just to settle and just do his thing and not tour as much," Mayorga said. "He wanted to do more sound engineering and more studio work. I think, actually, he's working on building a recording studio in Des Moines right now."