Dark Days: A Memoir

by D. Randall Blythe

  chapter nineteen

  I woke up before sunrise on February 4, 2013. As the sky outside our apartment turned from black to a dim gray, I meditated on the floor of the darkened living room. Then I prayed, asking God to give me the strength to carry myself with dignity, no matter what the day brought. Then I showered, shaved, and got dressed. I felt calm as Jeff and I walked to court.

  The Prague Municipal Court was a massive yellow four-story building. Built in 1883 in the Neo-Renaissance style, the building took up most of a city block. There was already a line outside, and as we walked up I saw people notice me and begin talking amongst themselves. I saw two cameramen unpacking their gear, preparing to send it through the x-ray machine before they walked through the metal detector just inside the entrance of the building. Jeff and I got in line, went through the screening process, and watched the camera men race to get their gear turned on and in place. As we retrieved our bags from the x-ray machine and began walking up the stairs that led to the second floor court room, the cameramen walked backwards in front of me, shining lights in my face and filming us. Upstairs there were many, many more cameras, and they all immediately turned my way as Jeff and I walked into the waiting room area and over to the rest of my waiting legal team. The reporters and cameramen rushed over to us, shouting questions, but one of my lawyers spoke to them in Czech, telling them that we would have no comments until a final verdict was delivered. They stopped asking questions, but the cameramen remained, filming and shining their lights on us. This would be their standard operating procedure every day that I appeared in court. I was used to having my picture taken, but as the bailiff announced that it was time to enter the courtroom, the cameramen crowded into the narrow hallway that led to the large wooden door of courtroom 101 so tightly that their lenses and lights were inches from my face. It was a tight squeeze, and as some of the cameramen bumped into me, jostling to get a shot, I began to understand why some celebrities flip out and assault paparazzi—it’s an incredibly invasive feeling to have twenty or so people shoving cameras in your face all at the same time. I’ve chastised fans before for filming me without asking; it’s inexcusably rude and pushy and it makes you feel like a monkey in a zoo. Just because I am in a band does not make me a monkey in a zoo—I am a human being—and I have absolutely no qualms about sternly reminding people of that fact. God forbid I ever become famous enough to have to deal with paparazzi exercising their legal right to shove cameras in my face on a regular basis as I go about my day-to-day business—I’ll be in court a lot more, and my bank account will be a lot thinner on account of all the shattered cameras I’ll be paying for after I exercise my right as a human being to maintain my privacy and break their shit.

  But at that moment I couldn’t afford to break any of these obnoxious cameramen’s equipment, neither in the financial sense nor in the damage it would do to my already shaky public image. So I calmly ran the video gauntlet, holding my temper as several of them stepped on my toes and one klutz bumped the side of my head with his lens. I walked into the high-ceilinged courtroom and took my place on the right side of the room with my attorneys, sitting in a row behind a long, low solid-fronted wooden table. On the opposite side of the courtroom sat the prosecuting attorney, beside him a neatly dressed man in his early forties, Daniel’s uncle, the family’s representative in court. The rear part of the courtroom was a gallery for any who wished to witness the trial, and on that first day it rapidly filled to capacity (trials are open to the public in the Czech Republic, and seating is on a first come, first served basis). At the front of the room was the tall judge’s bench. The presiding judge, a round-faced bespectacled man in his late forties, sat in the center, and on either side of him were the lay judges. To his right sat an elegant looking woman who appeared to be in her early sixties, to his left a solid looking goateed man in his forties. Placed on the floor in the center of the room, fifteen feet from the front of the judge’s bench, was a slender metal stand where anyone called to testify would stand. The proceedings began with the judge reading in Czech the charge laid against me—the entire trial, according to law, was conducted in the Czech language, whether or not any of the parties involved could speak English (several could). Everything I said would be translated into Czech, and anything anyone else said would be translated into English for me, with varying levels of accuracy. For the majority of my trial, my translator would be my tiny friend from my visit with the shrinks in the city jail. But on this very important first day (the day I had to do the most talking, the day I opened up the whole thing with my version of what had happened, the day I needed my words to be heard as clearly as possible), my Czech mouthpiece was a slender red headed woman, whom immediately before court I was told by one of my lawyers “isn’t the best translator.” Great.

  After the judge had read the charges, the prosecuting attorney stood up and said a few things, (from what I could tell from the halting translation provided) confirming to the judge that he was the one who had filed the charges against me or something along those lines. Taller than me, heavyset, and bearded, Vladimir Muzik, to employ a cliché, was a bear of a man. There’s really no other accurate way to describe him: the dude looked like a bear.

  A great-big-bearded-black-robe-wearing-hung-over bear.

  This contrasted greatly with the mental image of Muzik I had formed during the weeks leading up to trial. In my mind’s eye, I had seen a slick, well-groomed, muscular, ex-KGB-agent-sort-of-dude with penetrating icy gray eyes who would lean forward as he questioned me in his thickly Russian-accented English, using every Cold War mind control weapon in his arsenal to trick me into saying something that would incriminate myself, possibly allowing him to raise a new charge even more severe than the one already laid against me. I knew Muzik had been a former police interrogator, so I didn’t feel totally foolish in expecting someone who resembled my worst Iron Curtain cop fantasies, but the dude (to be perfectly frank) looked sloppy. His face was red and puffy, there were bags under his eyes, and he looked slightly queasy as he rose to speak. Unless Muzik was currently suffering from a terrible combination of the flu and a week’s worth of insomnia, he likely had a hangover that morning. Damn, I thought, that guy needs to eat something greasy and have a cup of coffee.

  After Muzik was done speaking, I was called to the center of the courtroom, and I gave my opening statement.

  “Doubry den,” I began, using the Czech phrase for good day, “My name is David Randall Blythe, known to most around the world as Randy. I sing for the international touring heavy metal band, lamb of god. I have returned to the Czech Republic to defend myself against the charge laid against me, that of manslaughter involving the death of a fan, one Mr. Daniel _, just as I vowed I would numerous times, publicly and to the press, both here, in my home country, and abroad . . .”

  I went on to repeat what I had told the police during my first interrogation, recounting what I could recall of our show in 2010, placing emphasis on the fact that the stage had been small and crowded and that from the beginning of the show, audience members had taken the stage with ease, as there appeared to be no barricade or interference from security. I explained that this had been an unacceptable situation, and strictly against lamb of god’s long standing policy, a policy written into the requisite signed contact we had with every single promoter of every single show we played, including the one we performed that evening at Club Abaton. I listed the reasons for this policy: 1) first and foremost, to ensure the safety of myself, my band, and our road crew. Someone could run into us, knocking us into a guitar headstock or cymbal stand, which could easily puncture an eyeball or knock out teeth. Or they could knock us from the stage, as has almost happened to me on more than one occasion. Or they could knock over any of the heavy equipment on stage, pushing it onto one of us or one of our techs standing behind our back line causing bodily injury (as happened in 2007 to our drum tech Mikey B when a PA stack fell on him, smashing his collar bone and ankle—he was lucky he wasn’t crus
hed), or even death. In short, the stage can be a dangerous place for band members, especially when someone who doesn’t belong goes running across it at top speed while we are concentrating on doing our jobs; 2) to ensure the safety of our fans, as any of the above things could happen to a fan on the stage just as easily as it could one of us, in fact easier because we as a band are used to the placement of our equipment—there are plenty of things to trip over on stage. Historically, we have had a great relationship with our fans, and do not wish to see them hurt, even if it is of their own doing. And we certainly don’t wish to be held liable for the results of poor choices made by others; 3) for the protection of our equipment. It’s very expensive, it’s set up specifically for each individual player, and it can be pretty hard to replace on tour, especially when we are overseas. We are professionals, we don’t play on cheap gear, and we don’t want our stuff getting broken; 4) our audience doesn’t pay their hard earned money to see a bunch of strangers jumping around onstage, interrupting our ability to do our jobs, then leaping into the audience and landing on their heads. They pay money to see lamb of god. Plus, once again, if we allowed strangers on the stage, we could be held legally liable to any damage they may do to audience members in the crowd below. No way, Jose. And finally, 5) I explained what had happened to Dimebag, and how that had resulted in tightened security across the board in our scene. Like it or not, things changed after he was killed. No one belongs on our stage but us and our crew, period. Anyone else, I view as a potential threat.

  Then I went on to explain my various encounters with the young blond-headed man who repeatedly took the stage, a young man we now knew to be named Milan. I went into detail about everything I remembered about subduing this young man, exactly as I had during my police interrogation. I stressed the fact that I did not punch, kick, or strangle the young man, despite what some witnesses had reported. I told the judges that I merely knelt on top of him, screaming in his face that he should not be on stage. This was entirely true, for I neither struck him in any manner nor choked him in the slightest. I told the judges what had happened that evening between Milan and me to the best of my memory, as any memories I had of any sort of physical altercation with anyone all involved him and him alone, and what I said was the truth.

  But I did not say some other things; things I wanted to say in order to make crystal clear the point that I never attempted to intentionally hurt Milan, or anyone else that night (which was, of course, the very nature of the crime I had been charged with). I did not say that I had experienced violence on more than one occasion in my life, and that if I had wanted to hurt the young man, I would have and very easily could have. I did not say that if I had wanted to hurt him, or anyone else for that matter, I wouldn’t roll around on the floor scolding them like a mother dog does a naughty puppy, nor would I push them (from the stage, or anywhere else). I did not say that I am not a tough guy, that I detest violence, and try to avoid it, but that I do not get into shoving matches like a fifth grade schoolboy. I did not say that when I am driven to the point where I feel that hurting someone is the only valid solution to a dangerous situation, I punch them in the face as hard as I can, as fast as I can, and as many times as I can. I did not say that I was, in fact, a model of restraint that evening, since I refrained from loosening a few of the teeth in Milan’s blond head as I very easily could have, even though he repeatedly endangered myself, my band, and himself, interrupting our ability to do our job and steadfastly refusing to take the less than subtle hint that he was not welcome on stage. I did not say that in my opinion (an opinion very firmly rooted in brutal, reality-based experience, not hypothetical situations), that I felt had I been a bit more brutal with the young man, then maybe none of this would have happened in the first place, as people tend to strenuously avoid getting anywhere near someone they feel might haul off and punch them in the face for encroaching on their space. I did not say that I had made a critical error in judgment by allowing Milan to drunkenly flail all over the stage without meting out some slightly painful repercussions, since in my hard-earned personal experience, such repercussions are the only thing pointed enough to penetrate into an alcohol-soaked brain, providing a little clarity.

  I did not say any of these things, even though I wanted to, and they were just as true as the things I did say. I couldn’t say them, even though they made perfect sense when viewed in the context of my job and the situation presented to me on that horrible evening in 2010. I couldn’t say them because then I would have sounded like a man prone to employ violent solutions to any problems that my job may present, a job so vastly different in circumstance and nature that it is beyond the comprehension of someone employed to sit on their ass behind a wooden desk. I could not expect the judge to understand my job in the slightest, or feel any real empathy for my situation—after all, drunken lunatics who happen to be rabid fans of a judge’s verdicts very rarely repeatedly come hauling ass across a court room and scramble onto his bench. The judge probably had never felt the impact of a juiced up judicial junkie smashing at full speed into his honor as he’s looking the other way while trying to concentrate on questioning a witness. The judge had never witnessed a completely plastered law-lover stomp all over his carefully prepared pile of evidence, then leap wildly into the air, landing on the prosecuting attorney with a boot to the head. And even if this sort of wildly unlikely scenario were to ever occur in his honor’s courtroom, in all probability the bailiffs (who were, after all, employed for the sole purpose of maintaining order in the court) would immediately remove the litigation loving lush from the premises. Or at the very least they would sternly send him back to the public seating gallery, and keep their eyes on him from thereon out, just to sure he didn’t run amuck on top of the bench again, kicking over the judge’s law books and smashing his expensive teak gavel. Yes, surely the bailiffs wouldn’t just stand there watching with their thumbs up their butts, leaving the judge with his ass hanging out in the wind until he finally had to handle the problem himself, since the people getting paid to handle such situations didn’t seem inclined in the slightest to do their jobs. The judge would simply never understand what my job was like, since it was unlikely he would ever imagine a scenario in which he showed up to the courtroom and was doing his thing, judging it up and all that, while simultaneously having to try to rid himself of a dangerous, repetitive, and highly intoxicated kinetic interruption—how could he? He was a judge raised during the highly repressive Communist-era of Czechoslovakia, not a professional wrestler. There was no way he was going be able to effectively place himself in my shoes and realize that I had actually displayed great restraint under extremely trying circumstances, so I just said, “I never tried to hurt Milan in any way, nor anyone else,” which was the truth.

  Then I described the rest of that day, just as I had in my interrogation, and finished my opening statement by expressing what a shock this whole thing had been to me when I was arrested at the airport. I expressed my dismay and utter disbelief that in this era of lightning-fast electronic communication, for two years not one single person could be bothered to get in touch with me or my band to let us know that someone had been injured, much less died. I expressed the fact that the death of a fan was tragic to me and my band members under any circumstances; but for me to be implicated in that death was mentally and emotionally devastating. I expressed my sincere desire to do the right and honorable thing, saying that I did not wish to avoid any responsibility that I may have had in the matter, hence my presence in the courtroom that day. I expressed my sympathy for the friends and family of the deceased, but maintained that I was an innocent man who never attempted to harm anyone, and as such did not wish to suffer the consequences for a malicious act that I simply did not commit.

  This whole process took perhaps an hour, as my translator was rather slow. I could only hope that she was able to convey my statement with some modicum of clarity. During this hour, something about the prosecuting attorney kept bugging me, caus
ing me to pause in speaking from time to time. Something about his posture just didn’t seem right to me. I kept my gaze firmly in front of me, looking the judges directly in their eyes, but in my peripheral vision, it almost looked like . . . No, he couldn’t be. No fucking way, I thought, and concentrated on the job at hand. But as I finished my statement and the judge began to ask me a series of questions, I stole a quick glance over to my left, and my suspicions were confirmed. Unreal, I thought, Un-fucking-real.

  Vladimir Muzik, the prosecuting attorney, the man who had done his best to keep me in prison despite my paying bail twice, the man who wanted me returned to prison for five to ten years, the man responsible for attempting to prove my guilt as pertaining to this very serious matter in this court of law . . . was asleep.

  Fast asleep.

  Mr. Muzik’s blatant courtroom napping during my testimony confirmed two things for me: 1) He was almost certainly hungover, and needed to sleep it off, and 2) He was not concerned in the least with anything I or anyone else had to say during this trial, as he was there to obtain a guilty verdict, and nothing less. He probably didn’t actually care if I was guilty or not, he just wanted a win. Might as well take a nap, eh?

  Muzik would fall asleep on several other occasions during the trial, on an almost daily basis. This infuriated me to no end—I was insulted, not only for myself, but for Daniel’s family, some of whom were present in the courtroom. This man was supposedly there to obtain justice for a lethal crime committed against a member of their family, and he couldn’t even be bothered to stay awake. After watching him nod out for the third day in a row, I took a chance and did something illegal in the courtroom. I took some surreptitious pictures of sleeping beauty with my cellphone—photos were prohibited in the courtroom unless the judge specifically allowed them, but why the hell not? If an attorney employed by the state could catch forty winks while court was in session, then I could take a few pictures of Rip Van Winkle. Muzik’s tendency to slumber in court was even reported in some of the newspaper articles about the case. I was completely astonished everyday when the judge made no effort to admonish the prosecutor for snoozing in his courtroom, much less any attempt to wake him up. Perhaps the phrase “contempt of court” had no entry in the Czech legal code?