Q&A with "Body Count" book author Ben Apatoff

Music writer and author Ben Apatoff wrote about Body Count’s self-titled first album for Bloomsbury’s 33 ⅓ music series. The book officially drops in September.

Ben Apatoff was about 14 when he first heard Body Count, an all-Black Los Angeles-based heavy metal band formed by rapper Ice-T in 1990. Apatoff had just recently gotten interested in loud punk bands like the Dead Kennedys and The Misfits, and one day a friend said “You will not believe this band,” and played Body Count for him. He was instantly hooked by the band’s unique blend of thrash metal, punk, and funk and rap undertones.

Body Count has released seven albums and is currently producing their eighth. The band has performed on the Vans Warped Tour, and was nominated for a Grammy in 2017 and won in 2020 for Best Metal Performance. The band has gone through many lineup changes but still performs.

How would you describe the band Body Count? What makes them unique?

Their story is so great, and a lot of people don’t know it. Even today after all these years, people are like, wait, Ice-T is in a metal band? They got banned? The president hated them? What? Their music is so innovative, a blending of metal and punk. Very few can pull that off. 

When they were coming out, there was no big afropunk scene like there is now. [Current Body Count bassist] Vincent Price was telling me how it's fashionable now for POC to wear metal shirts, but [Body Count] pioneered it. They are a rock group with a rap mentality, a combination of being intellectual and also politically incorrect. They were progressive, but also sang about having sex with KKK bitches and chopping off heads.

When he formed Body Count, Ice-T was an established rapper and hip-hop artist. What made him different from his peers at the time?

Unlike most rappers, Ice-T wore his age and experience as a badge. He was about 30 when his first album came out. The author Iceberg Slim [Robert Beck, a former pimp whose novels were adapted into films] was a huge inspiration. Ice-T was like literature with beats to it. He’s storytelling-based, very poetic, very edgy. He didn’t want to release radio edits with the bad words taken out. 

He had a sense of humor but with a strong sense of reality. In his career he got increasingly political. He got brought on to shows like Oprah because he was so smart. People have told me they’ve never met anyone who can think on their feet as quickly as Ice-T. He’s straight edge. He gets up at 5 am, no drink or drugs. He lost both parents early on. He wants no moment wasted and has workaholic tendencies. He wears his age well.

Why did he form Body Count? And what were the initial reactions? 

He loves rock music. His cousin was a big [Jimi] Hendrix fan. He can go into depth talking about bands like X and the Circle Jerks and Cannibal Corpse. He makes his money from appearing as an actor on shows like “Law and Order,” but for him, nothing compares to being onstage as a rockstar, watching the mosh pit erupt, and getting that instant gratification. And the musicians in Body Count are his high school friends. 

At that first Lollapalooza tour [in 1991], he did half-rap, half Body Count. It blew people away. That was his way of crossing over out of rap, into something more like [Lollapalooza headliner] Jane’s Addiction.

Body Count launched into the fame spotlight fairly quickly. How and why?

Ice-T is an incredible hustler with great people skills. He can talk to artists and business people. They played Lollapalooza on the verge of the alternative 90s. Nirvana’s “Never Mind” came out that Fall, and there was this kind of breakthrough for alternative culture. [Guitarist] Vernon Reid from the band Living Colour told me you would never have seen people at professional jobs with tattoos until Lollapalooza changed all that.

They also rode some great hype from the Warner Brothers record label. Warner wanted to make Ice-T sort of like rap’s Madonna. He had a clothing company, a music video had gone viral, and he had movie acting roles and offers. He was a very popular guy, and was poised to be the next big thing. Body Count comes out, and they tour with Guns & Roses, and Sepultura. They were positioned for something big, and then the “Cop Killer” scandal happened and changed all that. 

“Cop Killer” came out in 1992 and the lyrics were about fighting against police brutality with violence. It had verses like this: “I got my twelve gauge sawed off. I got my headlights turned off. I'm 'bout to bust some shots off. I'm 'bout to dust some cops off.” Not surprisingly, the song angered many people but also earned them fans. Walk us through that scandal.

He said at the start of the scandal that it was poetry, not to be taken literally. He said, “If I’m a cop killer then David Bowie [Ziggy Stardust] is actually an astronaut.” The song comes out just days or weeks before the LA riots. It’s also an election year, so Dan Quayle and Charlton Heston and the NRA all used it as talking points. 

In 1991, many [fictional] cops were killed in the movie “Terminator,” and a law officer was killed in the movie “Unforgiven,” but a police union spokesperson at the time said music can’t advocate for killing people. But the song is also very well-performed and powerful. But it scared people.

Your book discusses a press conference at which Ice-T announced that “Cop Killer” would not appear on the album. Why did he pull it from the album?

He has said that he wanted it off because there were death threats and bomb threats for people at Warner Brothers, and threats on the kids of record label executives. He got bad publicity for it. A lot of people called him a sellout. They were disappointed, and called him a wimp.

He said he wanted to make videos that you would ban, but couldn't because they were too popular. It’s like Basquiat, who used to cross out words and phrases in his work purposely to draw attention to them. The fact that the album didn’t have the song on it only made people want to hear it more. Today, it’s still not available on streaming services like Spotify or Tidal but you can find it on YouTube.

Why did you want to write a book about Body Count? 

It was a combination of loving Body Count and also having something especially smart to say about him. I worship Bob Dylan, but don’t have something smart to say about him. Prince is the greatest musical genius artist of my lifetime, but I don’t have particularly unique to say about him. 

But I thought, why aren't people talking about Body Count? Today you can find articles in The New York Times about POC hardcore bands, or the Afropunk movement, but where’s Body Count in these discussions? They had such a big impact.  

What was Ice-T like in interviews you did for the book?

He is very very business-minded and a workaholic. You can see how he's gotten as far as he has. He is fascinating, very likable, very smart and witty and cool. And he drops great one-liners. He avoids any gotcha moments. He can give very quick answers. He shared some touching and moving responses. 

Your first book, “A Metal Fan’s Notes,” was a #1 Music History & Criticism ebook bestseller. You’ve also written a book about Metallica and written about the metal genre for publications like Metal Injection and MetalSucks. What is it about metal that you find so compelling?

I love everything, folk, jazz, rap, and all kinds of rock, but with metal I always think, why aren't more people talking about this? When I wrote the Metallica book, I thought they deserved the same type of analysis as Radiohead or Nirvana. It's like the horror movie genre. People say it's dumb but then it becomes canonized. It takes a while for metal to get attention and cultural appreciation. Look at Metallica. They are outsiders in the mainstream. They don't play the Super Bowl or get invited to the White House, but it’s great music for when you’re in a great mood or a bad mood, it's such a powerful form of music. In movies, it’s always the bad kid who listens to metal, but Metalheads are such nice people. 

What’s the key point you hope to get across to readers about Body Count?

I want them to know Body Count is a great band, not just a controversy or novelty. Ice-T will tell you they’ve had a comeback and their records still sell. But that first record will always be a classic. I'd love for people to check it out again. That first record is so scary and wild and amazing, it holds up. It's a punk metal masterpiece.