Six months after his death, the cause of Phil Campbell's passing has been made public. According to the UK's Mirror, an inquest held on Friday, October 2 at St Pancras Coroner's Court in north London found that the longtime MOTÖRHEAD guitarist died of multi-organ failure brought on by complications after several major operations.
Campbell died on March 13, 2026, at the age of 64. Earlier this year he had undergone two liver transplants and bowel surgery at London's Royal Free Hospital. The inquest heard that the second transplant was successful, but further complications followed; after the bowel surgery he was moved to intensive care, where his condition declined quickly.
Coroner Dr. Richard Brittain concluded that nothing in the case suggested the death could have been prevented. In the UK, inquests are held into sudden or unexplained deaths in the district where they occurred.
The ruling fills in what his family's statement in March only outlined, when they said he had died after a "long and courageous battle in intensive care following a complex major operation." The first sign of trouble came in February, when PHIL CAMPBELL AND THE BASTARD SONS — the band he fronted with his sons Todd, Dane and Tyla — called off their spring dates in Australia and Europe on medical advice.
Campbell joined MOTÖRHEAD in 1984 after answering Lemmy's call for a new guitarist and stayed until the band ended with Lemmy's death in December 2015. For the last two decades of that run he was the band's sole guitarist, and his playing runs through records such as Orgasmatron, 1916 and Bastards. Longtime drummer Mikkey Dee, who wrote twelve studio albums with him, called him "the best rock guitar player I have ever played with."
Read our obituary.