One of the big realizations that came while I was writing was that I now had a means to talk to people that I had admired. That I was a fan of. And there were definitely times that fandom drove what I did.
This was definitely one of them. I’ve been a fan of Ice T since The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech... Just Watch What You Say! And was all in on Body Count when the album dropped. Watching them deal with the controversy of “Cop Killer” and emerge from the other side was a fascinating time. There was a point when I thought the project had run its course…and then the band reformed in 2004.
Being in a position to cover that return, you’re damn right I took advantage of it. And this is the result of that. Two articles, two interviews – here, combined into one piece.
Originally published on 411Mania.com on March 4 & March 10, 2004.
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Interview With Ernie C Of Body Count
Posted By Michael Melchor on 03.04.04
The Return of Body Count, part 1
The name “Body Count” was on the tips of everyone’s tongues when they released
their first album 12 years ago. Unfortunately, none of it had to do with the
music – an abrasive brand of metal – nor did any of it have to do with the fact
that Ice T had become the first rap star to completely cross genre lines.
Most of the notoriety behind Body Count’s eponymous first album had
to do with “Cop Killer”, a song born out of frustration at how minorities were
treated by police in South Central Los Angeles. The controversy – including a
boycott of Warner Bros. Music by several police departments and conservative
groups, as well as public damnations from Charlton Heston and former President
George Bush – resulted in Ice T leaving the Warner Brothers label, and taking
Body Count with him.
After making a pit-stop on the Jimi Hendrix tribute Stone Free,
the band returned three years later with Born Dead. With the
firestorm over the first album behind them, Body Count chose to let their music
do the talking for them. The album included several blistering commentaries on
current issues, their reaction to the controversy, and the poignant cover of
“Hey Joe” that appeared on Stone Free.
The band then released Violent Demise: The Last Days in
1997, a release that was hailed by critics who had finally “gotten” Body Count.
Alas, shortly after, Body Count became a memory as no new material was
forthcoming and the surviving members had seemingly disappeared. To greatly
complicate matters, original drummer Beatmaster V passed away shortly before
the release of Last Days from leukemia, and original bass
player Mooseman was killed in a drive-by shooting in South Central Los Angeles
in 2001.
Seven years after the release of their last album, Body Count is poised to make
their return. Recently, we caught up with lead guitar player Ernie C to talk
about what we can expect in 2004 from one of the most controversial and hostile
metal bands ever and the reasons behind the hiatus.
There Goes The Neighborhood.
MM: The last time Body Count put out an album was 1997, so it’s
been 7 years since your last release. What was everybody doing during that
downtime?
EC: During that time, I produced a lot of bands. I went to London
and lived there a while and working with bands there. Nothing really big, just
doing that for a while.
MM: That’s cool; what were some of the bands you worked with there?
EC: Oh jeez, all kinds of bands. I was trying to produce different
kinds of music, you know what I mean?
MM: Right.
EC: And then everybody got divorced. It was like, once the new
millennium hit, EVERYbody got divorced. It was a couple of years, trying to
deal with that. Ice, myself, D-Roc, we all went through it. We knew we were
going to put the band back in 2001, like 3 years ago, and we were going to get
the original bass player [Mooseman], but he got killed in South Central in a
drive-by. So then the last 2 years we’ve been getting the band back together
and went on tour. We actually toured around the US and got a great reaction, so
we said, “okay, let’s do this.” So now we’re getting everything in order and
we’ll have a record out by the end of the year.
Michael Melchor: So you’re working on something new?
Ernie C: Yeah, right now we’re getting all the players in line and
trying to focus on the music and get everyone in to do it. Over the past year,
everyone from Kid Rock and Linkin Park, these people have been like, “we want
to be on your record” – and that’s definitely a good thing [chuckles].
MM: So after everyone’s been through all that, it’s been a matter
of getting everyone back together.
EC: Yeah. Ice is in New York [filming “Law And Order”], and the
band is in Los Angeles, so we decided Ice will fly back in, record, and go
back. So we’ve found a happy medium, basically.
MM: So who all is in the lineup now?
EC: It’s me, myself – I’m on lead guitars, publisher, publicist,
all that. Ice T, he’s on lead vocals; D-Roc, the original rhythm guitar player;
the new bass player is Vince, and OT is our drummer. He took over for [original
drummer] Beatmaster V back in ’96, so he played on all of [“Violent Demise: The
Last Days”] and he’s been with the band since then.
MM: Cool. So the record now is mainly in the writing stage?
EC: We’re writing – we’re going to do a song on the new Resident
Evil 2, and Ben Moody is going to co-produce the song with me. He’s going to
write a song with Body Count. It sounds weird, but it’s a great hard rock
record, so he’s writing us on [the] “Resident Evil” [soundtrack]. I met him,
he’s a really cool guy, he wants to work with us, so we’re going to do
“Resident Evil”, and that’ll be the first song. And I know that’s a big
achievement; that’ll be a big deal.
MM: Yeah, because I know—I have the first soundtrack, and that was
excellent.
EC: Yeah, the first one had Slipknot, Marilyn Manson, Fear Factory,
Mudvayne, Depeche Mode, Method Man, Saliva, Coal Chamber – that was a great
record, so we want to be just as good with that.
MM: Do you know if it’s going to be on the same label, Roadrunner?
EC: No, I think it’s going to be on Def Jam; they’re still getting
the record together and the movie should be out in the summer.
MM: So what attracted you to doing MetalFest? Are you looking to
get your name back out there?
EC: We’ve played MetalFest over the years, since back in the
early-90s. I don’t know if we’re metal – I don’t know what Body Count is. I’ve
produced a Black Sabbath album, so that makes me the king of metal, actually!
[laughs] I don’t think we’re a metal band, I don’t know if we’re a punk band,
because we’ve played with The Ramones; we’ve played with everyone from L.A.
Guns to Public Enemy. We’ve played at rap shows. I don’t know where Body Count
actually fits. We go to the MetalFest years ago, and they love us! I don’t know
if we’re that kind of band, but they invited us to play and we figured it’d be
a great thing to play because we al love metal. So it all works out fine. I
mean, Ice is a rapper; people there may listen to rap, but if here was there
rapping it wouldn’t be the same. So I don’t know where Body Count fits anymore.
MM: So are any of those concerns on the new album?
EC: I know we want to concentrate on the music. People think we
sold, like, 50 million records off the controversy [over “Cop Killer”], but
that wasn’t the case. Before all that, we sold maybe 300, 400k. After the fact,
maybe a million and a half, so we never sold as much as people think we did.
And now it’s a case of, you know, did people make it too late? Are they looking
for another song like that? We don’t know. But the new album, you know, we’ve
got people like Kid Rock wanting to be on it and all and we’re just looking to
make some good music. It probably will be a little heavier and a little darker;
we want to do things like work with the B-tuned guitars and the sludgy sound.
We want to make it a little grindy.
I know something I want to do, personally, is put some more guitar solos in
there. That’s something that’s missing from a lot of hard rock and metal
nowadays. You have some great players, but a lot of them do just rhythm, and
they’re great at it, but no one really does solos anymore. People don’t understand
that that’s how a guitar player expresses himself. Those are his emotions
coming out of that, and it’s been missing. So I think I want to bring the old
feeling of guitar playing back and combine it with the newer, heavier style.
MM: Is there a full-on tour we can look forward to after MetalFest?
Have any plans come about regarding going back on the road?
EC: That’s something we’ll probably figure out more of come
summertime. We may look at going to Europe and playing there. Tours in the US
are very specialized anymore; you have OzzFest, the Warped tour, and it’s all
just very genre-specific. Over in Europe we’ve opened for REM, Sheryl Crow, The
Black Crowes; we’ve covered it all there. And if you look at someone’s record
collection over there, they have everything! [laughs] It’s not as pigeonholed
as it seems to be over here; there’s a real big variety of music over there.
MM: Are there any bands or artists in particular you would like to
take out on the road with you?
EC: Well, we’ve always wanted to be the opening band. We’re a lot
more comfortable with that than being the headliner. It’s kind of easier to
chose who we want to tour with that way. Right now there’s no one in
particular; we do like to have a variety of bands to play with. We recently
played a show out in California, it was a festival show. It was us, Linkin
Park, DMX, Cypress Hill and Obie Trice. That was a GREAT show. We had a real
good time with that one.
MM: Good deal. And that looks like everything I have here.
EC: Cool.
MM: I want to thank you again very much for your time, Ernie.
EC: Not a problem.
MM: And I’ll catch up with you again at the MetalFest Pre-Party and
see at the show on Saturday.
EC: All right, looking forward to it.
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Interview With Ice T Of Body Count
Posted By Michael Melchor on 03.10.04
The Return of Body Count, part 2
Articulate. Intelligent. Driven. Controversial. Invisible.
All of the above could be easily used to describe Ice T, circa 2004. One of the
most influential rappers ever, Ice T came from one of the harshest backgrounds
possible. Born in Newark, New Jersey, Ice T moved to Los Angeles as a child
when both of his parents died in a car accident. While in California, Ice T was
caught up with a new family in the Crips street gang, and was a “shot caller”
by the age of 16. From that dead-end scenario, Ice worked his way to becoming a
platinum-selling rapper, movie and television actor.
Ice T was also the first MC to completely cross genre lines when he got
together with high school friends Ernie C, D-Roc, Beatmaster V, and Mooseman.
All five of them loved metal as much as they did rap and decided to play their
own hardcore music. Ice T brought the band with him on the inaugural
Lollapalooza tour in 1991, where the world got their first look at Body Count.
After three albums and more than their fair share of controversy, Body Count
had seemingly disappeared – and so had Ice T. Unless you’re a regular viewer of
NBC’s “Law And Order”, it seemed that Ice T has dropped off the face of the
earth.
Ice has been quiet, but not dead. Most of his business enterprises now start
and end with his own website, icet.com.
Joining many who have embraced the concept of online distribution, Ice T still
maintains a more-than-respectable life without the hounding and harassment that
comes with being directly in the spotlight.
That may change very soon, as Body Count is set to return this year. Before the
band’s performance at the 1st annual Sun & Steel Florida MetalFest on March
6 in Pinellas Park, Ice T had time for a short interview regarding his own
activities during the band’s downtime and what we can expect from Body Count
later on this year.
Michael Melchor: I asked Ernie [C, guitarist] this same question
when I talked to him, so I wanted to find out from you...the last Body Count
record came out in 1997; what have you been up ton since then?
Ice T: I left Los Angeles and moved to New York, so we split the
band up. We lost two members of the band – [original drummer] Beatmaster [V],
Moose[man, original bassist] got killed. So I had to let the band really decide
if they wanted to play again. I do so many other things that I almost had to
step away from them like, “Look, y’all, I’ll go make a fuckin’ movie.” And then
they got hungry, and we started recording again. So now - we’re working on a
new album.
MM: Cool. Let me say, too—
[At this point, Ernie C approaches the both of us]
MM: [to Ernie] While you’re here, I didn’t get the chance to tell
you...[to both] I’m real sorry to hear about Beatmaster and Moose.
Ernie C: [Nods]
Ice: Yeah, yeah. It’s hard because we were all childhood friends.
Putting new people in the band ain’t that easy.
MM: You’ve done quite a bit online since then – you’ve got your
website that has Final Level Entertainment and things like that...
Ice: Yeah, I like the internet; it’s direct to the people. I’ve
always been like an underground artist, I love the underground. It’s okay to
build big though, you know. I’ve got to do both. I came in contact with
everybody through the internet. If you get a big record, hey that’s great, but
I like to kinda keep my music raw, so I’m better off.
MM: So you’re better off keeping it that way.
Ice: Well, I like my music raw. But, that doesn’t mean—I won’t take
a job as a painter to buy a car, you know? So it’s like, I’m very real with
myself. So in order not to jeopardize my musical integrity – that’s why you see
me doing “Law And Order” and these movies. I like that too. But it’s not “Ice
T”. Now [points to the stage] you’ll see me. I’ll always do this.
MM: Let me ask also, how does what’s going on politically – has
that been a determining factor in the band wanting to get back together?
Ice: It’s hard to really be angry when Clinton’s in power. That
motherfucker gets high like we all do! [Laughs] But now we’ve got Bush, we’ve
got the Anti-Christ back. Motherfucker came right in killing motherfuckers.
Yeah, Body Count works better under pressure.
MM: And that’s where you’re at now.
Ice: Yeah. We’re going to play one new record [on stage], called
“Endgame” from the new Murder For Hire album. So, it may go,
it may not. It’ll either be cool, or it’ll go [makes frightening face] [Laughs]
MM: Cool. Very cool. I thank you very much and I am so looking
fucking forward to seeing the band up there [on stage] tonight.
Ice: No problem.
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