In 2009, Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Zoltan Bathory caused a stir when he was reported to have been missing just days before the band was suppose to head out on tour. Loudwire had the chance to talk to Bathory about the incident when we caught up with him during this year’s Rock on the Range festival  in Columbus, Ohio.

Zoltan explains that one of the reasons the incident blew up is because he’s usually a very responsible person. “The funny thing is the reason that actually happened was because you know I’m the guy who’s the business guy in the band – every band has to have one guy that has a head on his shoulders, communicates with the label, the manager, merch company, everything so you have to sort of be a businessman in the same time I’m being a crazy musician, so I’m that guy.”

He continues, “If you text message me, you will get an answer in a minute or two; if you call me, I will ether answer or call you back in a minute or two. Now if I don’t answer my phone and you texted me seven text messages then something’s wrong so that’s what happened.”

Bathory goes on to say, “I just went off to a party and my phone went into the pool because it was in my pocket so it happens and it died. So people were calling me and I wasn’t answering so they panicked because I’m the responsible guy – they didn’t hear an answer so they thought, ‘Oh something must be wrong, he’s not answering his phone.’”

He finishes the story, “So by the time I went home, I was a missing person. It just got out of hand, the web guy who ran our website at the time got hold of it and posted it on our Youtube or Twitter or something and it just exploded from there.”

Check out our full interview with the very responsible Zoltan Bathory of Five Finger Death Punch here.

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