Grammy Award-winning musician back on tour after beating lung cancer with UCI Health treatment

ORANGE, Calif. (KABC) -- After touring with Green Day for more than two decades, touring musician Jason Freese found himself stepping away from his passion to focus solely on beating lung cancer.

It led to a once-in-a-lifetime moment for Freese's thoracic surgeon, Dr. Ali Mahtabifard, and his daughters, backstage watching the band.

"This was their first concert ever, so he invited us back. I mean, SoFi Stadium, 80,000 people, dad looked like a hero because we got these passes," said Mahtabifard, who wasn't just a hero to his girls.

"Dr. Mahtabifard is my hero," Freese said during a follow-up visit at the UCI Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Freese remembers the day when he was simply cleaning out his gutters when he pulled a muscle.

"I told my wife, I said, 'I'm going to go to the ER, I think I'm having a heart attack," he recalled.

Then, on his birthday, doctors at UCI Health diagnosed Freese with Stage 3 cancer. It came as a shock for this non-smoker and avid runner.

"I was, like, offended when they said the C word ... that's a scary word," said Freese.

After more than two decades with Green Day, Freese stepped away from touring with the band.

He took his hands off the keyboard, saxophone, and mic and chemotherapy, surgery and radiation took over.

"My entire life since birth has been music," said Freese. "It was the first time in my life where I wasn't playing or writing or doing anything, but I wasn't aware of it because I was so hyper-focused on just health and getting healthy."

But Freese continued to be a loving father and husband.

"Unless I was having a really rough day, maybe like two days after chemo, I made it a point to drive the kids to school every day, to pick them up from school every day, just so they could see that everything is going be okay," said Freese.

Letting positivity take the wheel, with part of his lung removed, Freese got to ring the bell, celebrating being cancer-free.

Grateful to be back on stage with the help of his medical team, friends and family, Freese shared his talent and journey with Eyewitness News just weeks before his 50th birthday.

"It was incredible getting back out and going, 'Okay, I did it. I conquered it and I didn't let cancer beat me," he said.

At the end of 2024, Freese joked and laughed with Mahtabifard, thinking back to that heroic promise from his thoracic surgeon just 12 months earlier.

"You said, 'You're going to be fine and you're going to be out on tour,' and you said, 'I'm going to come to your show and I'll be in the front row,' and you did," Freese told Mahtabifard.

Over the next five years, Freese has to have CAT scans every six months, but he is cancer free.