And he's convinced he would have died if he hadn't returned to face trial, even though he could have avoided the ordeal if he'd wanted to. Blythe was arrested and charged with manslaughter in June 2012, following the death of fan Daniel Nosek after a Lamb Of God show two years earlier. He spent six weeks in prison, then went back to Prague after being bailed for a court case in which he was acquitted.

In an audience interview recorded at last week's Housecore Horror Film Festival in Texas, Blythe says: "I was getting off the plane with my guys and I saw this woman checking passports. She takes our passports and I notice she's directing me to the right, and to the left all the people we don't know.

"John is already in there. There's five dudes - big motherf***ers in face masks with machine guns, big knives and all sorts of sh*t. They looked like they were there to get Bin Laden. And there were three huge Eastern bloc muscle dudes, and a woman who turned out to be the head detective.

"I'm like, 'F***, there must have been someone awful on that plane.' I look at my bass player and start singing Kool And The Gang, 'There's a party going on right here.' and he's like, 'No, dude, there's no party. This is something bad.'"

Blythe was handed some paperwork and told to collect any prescription medication he might need for the coming days - but he still didn't know what was going on. "All I could tell was that a kid had died and I was being blamed for it," he says.