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Steve Hansgen, whose thundering bass guitar lines propelled Minor Threat’s “Out of Step” album, tells WTOP he’s hopeful he’ll soon get a transplant to deal with his Stage 4 kidney disease diagnosis.
“I actually have found someone who I’ve known almost my entire life who has been doing all the tests since I went into the hospital, trying to see if he could be a match,” Hansgen said Monday from his D.C. home.
Last week, Hansgen’s girlfriend and Poisonous H bandmate Holly Eney launched a GoFundMe page, announcing he had been put on a transplant waitlist at the end of last year, and had recently spent several weeks in the hospital when his kidney function decreased even further.
Chronic kidney disease affects more than 1 in 7 U.S. adults, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which functions under the National Institutes of Health. More than 808,000 people are living with advanced kidney disease, with 68% on dialysis and 32% with a kidney transplant.
After a Monday morning dialysis session, Hansgen (who was a former bandmate of mine in Modest Proposal in the mid-1980s) discussed what led to his kidney problems, and what lies ahead.
“I spent 18 years as a Type 2 diabetic,” said the 61-year-old Hansgen. “What no doctor in that period of time really told me was the damage that Type 2 diabetes does to your kidneys.”
Hansgen survived a heart attack in 2019.
“I managed to reverse my diabetes two and a half years ago,” Hansgen said. “I just started working out, started eating better, and reversed my heart issues and hypertension.”
However, when it came to his kidneys, “The damage was already done.”
“On my 60th birthday — May 6, 2024 — I was diagnosed with Stage 4 kidney disease, and my function had deteriorated to the point where I was gonna need a transplant,” Hansgen said.
Hansgen said in October 2024, “I was basically given the audition to be on the transplant list at Georgetown — I passed with flying colors because I’ve been taking such good care of myself for a couple of years that I was a good risk.”
Eney and Hansgen said a person in need of a kidney might wait five or six years to receive a kidney from a recently deceased donor.
“Or, you can actively search for a living donor, someone who is willing to do it,” Hansgen said.
Without disclosing the identity of the would-be and willing donor, “We’re going to know in the next 10 days or couple of weeks, but all the signs have pointed toward it’s a good possibility — he’s passed everything he needs to pass.”
‘The generosity involved is astonishing’
Hansgen marveled at the generosity of the man who is undergoing testing to ensure he would be a suitable donor: “Giving up one of your organs for your friend or a perfect stranger, I think there’s nothing more generous than that, as far as I’m concerned.”
In the past year, Hansgen learned “all these things about my kidneys, and I did not know you only need one to live a fully functioning life — you have two, but you only need one.”
Hansgen joined Minor Threat as bass guitarist and appeared on the 1983 “Out of Step” EP. He spent the next year touring with the band. Hansgen also played with several D.C. punk bands, and coproduced Tool’s “Opiate” EP.
Approximately 20 years ago, Hansgen said he made a number of bad decisions: “I just started drinking too much, eating too much, and not thinking about the future at all. And, I really wrecked my health doing that.”
Now, with Eney’s encouragement, “The thing in the last two years of working so hard to reverse all that has taught me that your life is a series of lessons, it’s a journey you go on.”
“You’re here to learn and become the best version of you that you can possibly be, and you’re not gonna do that at 21,” Hansgen said. “I would rather be 61 than 21 — I’d rather have faced all these challenges, beaten them, learned those lessons, and know that there’s more to come.”
Hansgen was initially opposed to Eney’s suggestion of launching the GoFundMe page.
“I’ve never been good at asking for help — I’ve always tried to be as self-sufficient as I can,” he said.
However, Hansgen eventually acknowledged, “This is bigger than us, this is life or death, we can’t mess around, I can’t be this person anymore.”
In approximately eight days, donors have contributed more than $8,100 toward the $24,000 goal.
“The amount of support and generosity that came in, in a single day stunned me — people who I’ve known for a long time, but haven’t necessarily been in close contact with recently,” Hansgen said. “And a lot of people I don’t know — people have just been incredibly generous.”
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