Reports the singer/guitarist was hospitalized in Italy suffering exhaustion in the wake of the illness were confirmed by a rep for the band, who cautioned against reading too much into Lemmy’s hospital stay.

“When you’re on a world tour and you have the flu and you have dozens of people on staff and thousands of fans expecting you to come to their city, you take precautions above and beyond, like going to a hospital to see if a doctor can give you something – anything – to get you through it,” the rep told Pollstar.

Dates scheduled in Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and England bit the dust because of the bug. But disappointed fans need only be patient – Lemmy and Motorhead should be on the mend and back out on the road before long.

“Motorhead puts out a record, on average, every 1.3 years or something crazy like that, and they are always touring,” the band rep said. “The dates we are canceling are cities we played seven months ago and the same cities we will play in another five to seven months. So, to that extent, I am comfortable saying that, yes, [the missed gigs] will be rescheduled.”

Despite dire predictions for the future of the heavy metal monsters, Lemmy’s condition is not as grim as some in the British music press would have it

“Believe me, there is a side of Lemmy that wishes it was something more so that the cancellation of weeks of touring would seem justified. But sometimes the flu, and especially the one that’s going around, just kicks your ass.”