Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe Details A Day In Czech Prison

August 12th, 2012

Grant Trimboli

Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe is back home safe in the United States after spending over a month in a Czech prison. In a brand new interview with Rolling Stone, Randy details a regular day in the system and what he did to stay alive and sane. Read an excerpt from the article below and comment with your thoughts.

What was a typical day like in Pankrác Prison?
Except for Saturday or Sunday, when you get to sleep in until 7, I’d wake up at 6 o’clock, make my bed, brush my teeth, drop and do some push-ups, meditate some and then talk with my cell mates until breakfast arrived. Ate some breakfast, which is just bread and some sort of meat spread or cheese. One time they had this cheese from Moravia, and it smelled like the bottom of a dumpster in an alleyway on a hot August day.

I’d divide my day into serious reading and writing, and relaxing reading. After breakfast I would start serious reading. At 10:30, they would bring us hot water for instant coffee, then read until lunch. Lunch is the big meal of the day in the Czech prison – it was always soup accompanied by stew. Not exactly the finest of cuisines, but it will keep you alive.

I’d work out with my cellmates after lunch – push-ups, knee bends, and we lifted our metal stools as dumbbells. Probably around 1 o’clock, we’d go outside to walk in the yard, and I would talk to whoever was there that spoke a smattering of English. We’d come back, and for about an hour, I would teach my roommates English – I had two Mongolian cellmates. It’s really hard to be in prison and not be able to talk to anyone.

Then we’d have more hot water for coffee, and then I’d write. I wrote from about 2:30 until dinner – letters, poetry, lyrics for songs. I wrote a song for my friend Hank Williams III – I’ve been wanting to write a song for him for years, and what better place to do it than prison? I started the outline of a novel set in Pankrác, and a journal, because I’m sure there’s going to be some sort of book out of this experience.

Then dinner would come, and that was a single bowl of some sort of stew. I got really sick of stew by the end of it. Then after dinner, I would write some more. Lights were out at 9, so by 8 o’clock, I tried to stop writing and reading serious stuff and let the brain take a break and read something light. At 9 o’clock, lights out.

I’d lay in my bed, and people around me in the cells would start yelling across the yard. There was a couple of Vietnamese guys who loved to yell, and some Ukranian guys. And they would yell back and forth for about an hour. When I was arrested, luckily I had some earplugs, so I shoved them in every night. Then I’d blow my wife a kiss goodnight into the air and listen to the Ukranians and the Vietnamese yell.