Ice-T

How Body Count came out of South Central L.A. and cooked up an explosive sound informed by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, punk, Slayer and a burning sense of ...

“I like Bowels of the Devil. But I also like Cop Killer – that has a good energy to it. With the first record we put it all in the music and came out with something different.” “I like the beginning of that song. “We compare it to I Shot the Sheriff. Like, Eric Clapton shot the sheriff. “We were writing music and my drummer was coming up from South Central and he got pulled over by the cops. The lighting was dim, the song sounded good, the guitar almost sounded like it was crying. But I always liked the knobs up top; I liked not looking like I was left-handed.” “I heard Eddie [Van Halen] do something like it, and I made it into a whole segment of the song. “That was supposed to be like Stairway to Heaven, that, like that first chord on Stairway to Heaven and I just take it a whole step flatter. Body Count was a critical and commercial success, but the band ultimately couldn’t escape the Cop Killer backlash. It wasn’t a novelty like Run-DMC and Aerosmith; it was a real rock band.” Ice, Ernie C and the boys had an undeniable musical chemistry, but they quickly recognized that there was only so much guitar that could fit on a rap record.