Body Count's Ice-T Talks Broken Jaws, Booger-Eating and Water Balloons | Revolver

Body Count's Ice-T Talks Broken Jaws, Booger-Eating and Water Balloons

"Our audience really take pride in getting black eyes and getting their teeth knocked out"
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Over the last decade, Ice-T has been most widely recognized as Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and the star of his own reality show, Ice Loves Coco. His music career, as one of the most confrontational rappers and rockers of the '90s, has been largely overlooked. Ice wants to change that by resurrecting Body Count, his infamous metal band, which sent its former label Sire into a tizzy with the 1992 song "Cop Killer." In June, the group will release its new record Manslaughter, Body Count's first since 2006's Murder 4 Hire. "I'm not a big fan of my last album," the vocalist says. "But this one, we got 110 percent in." And this summer's Mayhem Fest will be the band's first full tour since the group played European festivals in 2006.

That hasn't allowed much opportunity for mayhem on the road. And actually, Ice points out, "I've seen more mayhem on the streets." "Mooseman" [Body Count's original bassist] got shot and killed [in a random shooting in 2001]," he says by way of example. "He ended up in his old neighborhood [in South Central L.A.] and violence jumped off. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time." Still, Ice-T remembers some crazy times on the road, and he's guessing Body Count fans are going to be going wild on the Mayhem tour when the band takes the stage.

REVOLVER Do you recall any crazy acts of mayhem from past tours?
ICE-T Most of the craziness comes from the audience. They really take pride in getting black eyes and getting their teeth knocked out. It's like they love it. I've seen motherfuckers bottom out in the pit, jumping off speakers and shit and just diving into the audience and the crowd just parts and they just hit fucking ground, like, splat! But these guys usually have so much adrenaline that somehow they get up and dance that shit off. I seen people try to get on the stage and get pushed off and hit the barricade face first and it takes out their jaw.

Is that the most disgusting thing you've seen in the crowd?
No, because it happened so fast. When I was out on the Warped tour in 1999, I saw something that was nasty as fuck. This guy pulled a big oyster-sized booger out of his nose and the other dude ate it for money.

Have you guys ever hurt anyone in the crowd?
One time we were fucking people up and we didn't know it. We had a slingshot that was flinging water balloons. We were launching them over the back of the stage into the audience. And they're coming in from 300 feet and hitting people like bricks and wiping them the fuck out. We just thought we were just cooling these guys off with water balloons, but from that distance, you can do some serious damage.