{"id":31584,"date":"2017-03-29T07:30:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T20:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=31584"},"modified":"2017-03-30T22:27:47","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T11:27:47","slug":"ernie-c-body-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2017\/03\/ernie-c-body-count\/","title":{"rendered":"Ernie C of Body Count"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\u201cTwenty five years ago we wrote \u2018Cop Killer\u2019 and we were young and thinking we were going to change the world, so twenty five years later we\u2019re basically writing the same stuff. Over the years musicians have lost their voice, their scream and put into the music the way the people really feel, the outrage of the people should be in the music. So we still try to put that in our music.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Release: The wait is finally over, as ICE-T’s\u00a0BODY COUNT\u00a0is back and more vicious than ever. Their highly-anticipated new, full-length album,\u00a0Bloodlust<\/em>, is set for a\u00a0March 31st\u00a0release via Century Media Records. BODY COUNT,\u00a0the gangster-metal collective that made music fearsome to mainstream America, their renegade track\u00a0Cop Killer<\/em>\u00a0sending politicians, parents and law enforcement officials into a proverbial tailspin when it was released unto the world a quarter-century ago. That’s not to say\u00a0Ice-T\u00a0and\u00a0BODY COUNT\u00a0have been silent over the past 25 years, but as Ice is quick to point out, you can’t start a movement if people aren’t willing to move.<\/p>\n

On a warm day at home in Los Angeles Ernie C gave us a call to talk about the new Body Count album \u2018Bloodlust\u2019, creating music, special guests, messages, touring, Law & Order, and much more\u2026<\/p>\n

Why was now the right time for a new Body Count album?<\/strong>
\nWell you know it\u2019s just timing, as a matter of fact in America it\u2019s twenty five years since the first record came out so twenty five years later we\u2019re coming out with a new record, so I thought that\u2019s kind of ironic that this record is coming out. It\u2019s just timing. We did \u2018Manslaughter\u2019 and before \u2018Manslaughter\u2019 we took eight years off before that to kind of grieve from losing members of the band and we did \u2018Manslaughter and after being gone eight years and coming back and being well received like that it was great. So then we toured the US and the next year we toured Europe and then last summer we had some time off so we just decided to write another record, it just felt like we wanted to write records, this band\u2019s been playing so we got together to write a record and this record kind of reflects upon the growth of the band.<\/p>\n

Did you set out to do anything differently this time around with ‘Bloodlust’?<\/strong>
\nNo not really we just wanted to play, like with \u2018Manslaughter\u2019 we added Juan on the guitar so the band was still kind of new, on this record we wanted to make it tighter and more musical than the last record, so that\u2019s always been the thing we try to do on purpose, just show musicianship on this record, that\u2019s why we covered a Slayer song just to show musicianship because they\u2019re good musicians.<\/p>\n

I was going to ask, what was it like shredding to some Slayer?<\/strong>
\nOh it was a lot of fun, we play the song that Ice and Slayer did in our live set so we just wanted it because they cover the Exploited song so we just wanted to cover a Slayer song itself, not Slayer covering a song so Slayer covering a song and we\u2019re covering Slayer covering a song, so we just decided to do our own cover of Slayer *laughs* so we picked the right song and \u2018Reign In Blood\u2019 and when you hear the notes at the beginning people automatically know what it is so that was an easy song to choose to do.<\/p>\n

So how do the tracks come together with Body Count, are you writing music over Ice’s lyrics or is it vice versa?<\/strong>
\nNo we always write the music first, you know I\u2019ve been writing music with Ice since 1982 and we always write the music first and he writes the lyrics onto the music, he may change things around or make the verses longer but it\u2019s always the music, he gets inspired from the music.<\/p>\n

What is a typical writing session like for a Body Count song?<\/strong>
\nWe all sit down and play, the way we did the last two records we rented a house because he might be in the city or in Arizona, we rented a house and we stayed together and then every morning around ten o\u2019clock we go to rehearsal and we\u2019re there all day long and he sits there and we have a mic set up and he tries some ideas, he might not have the lyrics but he\u2019ll just go through the melodies or what he wants and then we\u2019ll change it around, we\u2019ll slide back and forth take out guitars, add guitars, we\u2019ll do it right there. So we basically wrote the skeleton of the record in six weeks.<\/p>\n

So when you\u2019re sitting there and you come out with a song like \u2018No Lives Matter\u2019 that is so melodic and just ridiculously good, how do you feel when it comes out for the first time?<\/strong>
\nThat song came out really good, Will Putney is our record producer, we like that kid a lot he makes us sound really good. When I heard the song when we put it all together it sounded really cool, I thought it was a good sound for us and he captured it really well what we were trying to do.<\/p>\n

There are some kick ass special guests on the record like Max Cavalera, Randy Blythe and Dave Mustaine, do you approach these guys or do they come to you?<\/strong>
\nEveryone always asks about them and they think it\u2019s some big master scheme from the record company or the managers and all this kind of stuff and actually we\u2019ve known Dave from the eighties when I was a messenger delivering packages and had a 9-5 job, I met Dave\u2019s manager and met Dave later on and said \u201cI know this guy Ice-T who\u2019s a rapper he\u2019s my friend\u201d and he was going to put us on a Megadeth album but it just never happened so him and Ice were talking on Twitter back and forth and while we were in Arizona writing the record Ice says to Dave \u201cwould you like to be on the record?\u201d he said \u201csend over a track\u201d so we sent over \u2018Civil War\u2019 to Dave and we get it back with him putting those lyrics on it which is great the first person you hear when you turn on that record is Dave, he\u2019s the first voice you hear on a Body Count record and kinda set the tone for it and then he put a guitar solo on it and we were like \u2018wow this is really cool\u2019 so that\u2019s how Dave ended up on the record. Max we did a show in Arizona, he lives in Arizona so he came to the show and he\u2019s on stage singing with us and he\u2019s backstage with us and we said \u201cwe\u2019re here writing a record why don\u2019t you come down tomorrow and hang with us?\u201d So he came down and he had a cassette player with that song that he\u2019s on the record, he wrote that song and he brought a cassette to our rehearsal and we learnt it from the cassette *laughs* and he hopped on the song. Then Randy, Randy is my friend and what Randy and I have in common is we both quit drinking years ago and we get together and talk about that and I\u2019m taking to him on the phone and I said \u201cHey we\u2019re doing a record would you like to be on it?\u201d he said \u201cYeah sure, send over a track.\u201d So it was just that simple, no lawyers, no managers, no record company we just sent the track to people that were there when we were in the recording process because when we started the record we had no idea that we were going to get anyone on this record, we didn\u2019t go out and try to find Dave or find Max or anything like that.<\/p>\n

Body Count has never been backwards in coming forwards, how important to you is it to get these messages out through your songs?<\/strong>
\nTwenty five years ago we wrote \u2018Cop Killer\u2019 and we were young and thinking we were going to change the world, so twenty five years later we\u2019re basically writing the same stuff. Over the years musicians have lost their voice, their scream and put into the music the way the people really feel, the outrage of the people should be in the music. So we still try to put that in our music.<\/p>\n

What I’ve always loved about Body Count is that no one sounds like you, there have been imitators but Body Count will always be the original, how is it being an innovator in music?<\/strong>
\nYou know we just do what we do, it\u2019s a mixture of a lot of different stuff from Led Zeppelin, to punk music, to Hendrix, to R&B, so it\u2019s humbling when you get the young kids coming up and saying \u201cyou influence us\u201d and it\u2019s like \u201cReally?\u201d that\u2019s really cool, and we’re still trying to become a better band that\u2019s the catch about it, we\u2019re still striving to be better.<\/p>\n

You know I have to ask, any chance we’ll see you guys in Australia anytime soon?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019re trying to work that out so we can be there within the cycle of this record. Somewhere along this cycle we will be there because we\u2019re doing a lot of press for Australia and we haven\u2019t been there in a long while and people are excited to have us there so it\u2019s gonna happen.<\/p>\n

As you said it’s been a long time since you were here, what do you remember about that last tour here?<\/strong>
\nOh we played \u2018Big Day Out\u2019 and it was a long time ago, we did some smaller club dates after that but I remember the Big Day Out, we played with Lou Reed he played with us and it was a lot of fun, I remember we always have a great time coming there and we were drinking this drink called \u2018Illusion\u2019 and I don\u2019t remember what it was but we drank a whole lot of them *laughs*. We had a good time and drank and lot of Illusions *laughs*.<\/p>\n

You’ve been a part of Body Count since day one. Sure a lot has changed but let’s look at the other side, what’s the one thing you would say has stayed the same within your time in the band?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019ve lost three members, the members have always changed but the thing that\u2019s been consistent, Ice\u2019s voice, I mean he\u2019s always been consistent that\u2019s always been the one consistent thing he\u2019s always been able to write the right lyrics at the right time.<\/p>\n

As a player how do you feel you\u2019ve progressed as a player over the last twenty five years?<\/strong>
\nLet\u2019s see, I don\u2019t know, I still practise every day but it\u2019s a slow process, on the outside people notice looking at you you get better but I still practise. I guess I\u2019m better? I don\u2019t know\u2026 I still play \u2018Jungle Boogie\u2019 and there\u2019s so much I\u2019m still trying to learn.<\/p>\n

OK, so why wasn\u2019t there a cover of \u2018Jungle Boogie\u2019 on the album instead of Slayer?<\/strong>
\n*laughs* You don\u2019t even want to start on that one. We could do it. You know we used to have a band, and originals band and doing sound check we used to do funk songs, we used to do \u2018Rollercoaster\u2019, played all Isley Brothers songs, we played that in our sound check and people would walk in and say \u201cThis is Body Count?\u201d *laughs*. We played \u2018Who\u2019s That Lady?\u2019 during sound check you know? *laughs*<\/p>\n

It’s been 25 years since the release of your debut album, what do you remember from that time releasing it?<\/strong>
\nI just remember everything was like haywire like it is now, it was the same kind of haywiredness you know? Like nobody knows what\u2019s going on, and we put that song out because people were getting beat by the cops but we saw people getting beat by the cops all the time because we were from there, but when Rodney King got recorded doing it and then everyone was like \u2018oh no this can\u2019t go on\u2019 it\u2019s kind of like it is now, nobody knows what\u2019s going on and exactly what\u2019s up and what\u2019s down and just kind of similar stuff going on *laughs* it\u2019s just different now. We\u2019ve got the President of this country that\u2019s haywire, he\u2019s more haywire than anybody. He got in office and went off on your leader didn\u2019t he? *laughs* he called him and started cursing him out.<\/p>\n

What I remember is that they banned your album here with \u2018Cop Killer\u2019 on it and had to go to New Zealand to get a copy of it\u2026<\/strong>
\nYeah that has to do with politics itself one more time, it has nothing to do with the music because we played that song a year before anybody got it on the radar of the politicians, once it got on the radar of the politicians here in America and it was an election year I don\u2019t know why it was banned in other places it was basically a song about the LAPD and they took it across the words because at the beginning of the song Ice says \u201cThis goes out to some friends of mine, the LAPD\u201d you know? *laughs* So I don\u2019t know how everyone made it into their own personal song maybe all the cops around the world knew they were doing wrong so they banned it everywhere.<\/p>\n

Lastly let’s look ahead to the future, finish this sentence for me, by the end of 2017 Body Count want to…<\/strong>
\nTour and continue to play.<\/p>\n

And be in Australia\u2026<\/strong>
\nYes! We would love to be in Australia, it\u2019s just Ice\u2019s schedule right now with Law & Order and it\u2019s just hard to get there right now, but we will get there.<\/p>\n

I do find it amusing and always have that Ice Motherfuckin\u2019 T is the guy in Body Count and also on Law & Order, I don\u2019t know how he balances the two?<\/strong>
\nYeah because he\u2019s barely acting on there, he\u2019s just being himself on there and they just make it into the character. The funniest thing is that we toured with Avenged Sevenfold after we did \u2018Manslaughter\u2019 and some of the kids would come back stage and would do a meet and greet and with them and say \u201chey the guy from Law & Order he has a band now that\u2019s really cool\u201d and I\u2019m like \u201cno no no no\u201d *laughs*. Everyone thought he was that guy because he\u2019s been on there sixteen years and these kids were like twenty five, twenty seven and they just know him from Law & Order, they don\u2019t know the whole get down, they just know him from Law & Order.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what should be on the posters for the tours man \u2018Come and see Ice-T from TV\u2019s Law & Order\u2019\u2026<\/strong>
\n*laughs* It was kind of funny, they\u2019re saying \u2018That Cop Killer song, we like that song you should put it out\u201d *laughs* it\u2019s like \u201cWe have put it out\u2026 before you were born\u201d *laughs*. But, they knew every song from YouTube, so on this record we\u2019re doing a video for every song.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s true because back in 1992 there was no internet and technology is much different now, how is that going to help the band progress?<\/strong>
\nWell it helps people to see the visual of the band, the band is a lot of fun we don\u2019t stand around and stand in front of the mic and pose, we\u2019re running around and having a lot of fun and I think when you get into theatrics of a show you kind of lose that and you have to stand there at this exact time because explosions are going off and this and that, and it\u2019s good to have a spontaneous show once in a while. We like to play, we don\u2019t have any backing tracks we just play, so it\u2019s changed but we want to do the videos for every song just so people can see how visual the band is.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019ve had \u2018No Lives Matter\u2019, and \u2018Ski Mask Way\u2019, what\u2019s next?<\/strong>
\n\u2018Ski Mask Way\u2019 and then we have a video for \u2018Here I Go Again\u2019 it\u2019s about a psycho killer murderer and Ice is in it and it\u2019s really bloody and brutal, it\u2019s like a horror movie, we were going to use and we had Halloween recorded but John Carpenter wanted so much money it was like he was trying to do another film or something from how much he trying to license that song for *laughs* so we had to drop it. So that video is really good.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got four videos done already, we\u2019ve got an animation video which is good.<\/p>\n

Of course I\u2019ve heard the album start to finish and it just flows perfectly, it\u2019s like you put it together as a story and I think it\u2019s amazing\u2026<\/strong>
\nYou know what? I\u2019m glad you listened to it like that because our record is sequenced and it\u2019s exactly like you said \u201cYou put it together like a story\u201d I\u2019ll be using that because that is quite true because we put it together from beginning to end, Dave sets the warning at the beginning of \u2018Civil War\u2019 and it takes you through a ride, so you\u2019re exactly right, you noticed that. That\u2019s great.<\/p>\n

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Essential Information<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> Los Angeles, CA, USA<\/p>\n

Band members:<\/strong> Ice-T \u2013 vocals, Ernie C \u2013 lead guitar, backing vocals, Sean E Sean \u2013 sampler, backing vocals, Vincent Price \u2013 bass, backing vocals, Ill Will \u2013 drums, Juan of the Dead \u2013 rhythm guitar, backing vocals<\/p>\n

Forthcoming release:<\/strong> Bloodlust \u2013 (March 31 \u2013 Century Media \/ Sony Music Australia) – Check out our review HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

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Website:<\/strong>\u00a0 http:\/\/www.bodycountband.com<\/a><\/p>\n