Body Count – Carnivore
Release Date; March 6, 2020 via Century Media
Interview with guitarist – Ernie C.
Body Count released their seventh full length studio album on March 6th. The album is filled with monster beats, killer guitar riffs and bass lines that sometimes go slow and low. There’s also that signature and fluid vocal delivery of Ice-T. Fans of the band have embraced this album as one of the hard rocking gems of 2020. We were also treated to a few surprises as well. The band has always paid homage to past legends with covers from a variety of artists. Billy Roberts, Hey Joe, that was famously recorded by Jimi Hendrix, for example. Raining Blood by Slayer has become an epic part to the band’s live performance. On Carnivore, we get a version of Ace Of Spades by Motorhead that would surely make Lemmy proud. For those Ice-T heads – Body Count’s spin on his classic song Colors is one of the highlights. On the deluxe version you will also hear a viscous version of 6 in Tha Morning. Seriously, man. It rules.
I was able to catch up with guitarist Ernie C. to talk about the album and some of the things that went into making it. Before we got there I really wanted to know more about Ernie. I was curious to know where he came from, what got him into playing guitar and who were some of his earliest influences. Ernie tells Sound Vapors, “I grew up in Detroit during the ’60’s. It was me and my father. The first time I got introduced to a guitar or saw a guitar player was a guy by the name of Dennis Coffey. He had a song called Scorpio. It was kind of a cult hit. I think they made a movie about him. I moved out to Los Angeles. Got out here.. Nothing but gang-bangers on the streets. I didn’t want to gang-bang so I picked up the guitar. That saved me from the streets of Los Angeles – learning to play the guitar.”
Ernie starts to break down some of his musical influences and how a certain left handed guitarist inspired him to keep playing his natural way. He says, “At the time I listened to A.M. radio in Los Angeles which used to be your Earth, Wind and Fire, Isley Brothers, basically R&B. Then someone came to me, a neighbor, and I played on the porch all of the time and he said, start listening to this. He gave me some Deep Purple, some Led Zeppelin and I’ve always listened to Hendrix. Not for the reason people think. I listened to him because he was a left handed guitar player. That’s the only reason I listened to him. Not because of any style of anything, because I was left handed. When I first started playing the guitar, the teacher tried to make me play right handed. His thought was, if you played the piano, you wouldn’t change all the keys around. You’d play the piano like this, so you’re going to play the guitar like this. So I played right handed for a while. Then I saw Hendrix play. I was like, he’s playing the guitar left handed, I can do it. That’s how I ended up playing the guitar left handed.” :laughs:
Ernie explains how him and Ice-T began making music together. Ernie says, “I met Ice-T in high school. I’ve known him since 1975 or ’76, somewhere around there. I’ve always played guitar and he was always the guy that could out-talk you. He was rapping before there was rap. He could out-talk you. He did the mama’s dozen and stuff like that. He could come up with every line. He was that guy. He went to the Army and I kept on playing guitar. He got out of the Army and we he first started coming back we did some early rap stuff together. We did Electric Boogaloo, we did those movies rapping, Breakin’ and all that stuff. It was just the natural progression.” Soon after, the band Body Count put out their first record in 1992. The eponymous album went mainstream with something that seemed different than anything we were hearing at the time. The song Body Count was everywhere. It was on the news. It was on the radio. I grew up on the westside where the basketball courts were filled with the sounds of ‘Easy, Geto Boys, Eric B & Rakim, Detroit’s Most Wanted, etc. But that song was there too. Ice-T put it on his monster album O.G. Original Gangster and that summer Body Count was one of the most played songs I heard off that album. Okay.. New Jack Hustler was probably first in order but you get what I mean. Everyone seemed to attach to this new sound. Beatmaster V’s snare drum served as a faux drive-by every time that part came on. All of us, just could not get enough of it.
Our conversation took us to many places. Ernie is such an interesting person I almost forgot to get into album specifics. We did get there eventually and Ernie tells me about some of the production aspects of Carnivore. He says, “We recorded in New York with Will Putney. This (version of the band) band has done three records. That’s more than the original band did. The first band only did two records together. This band has done three records together and they’ve all been really good. The next one gets better than the last one and Will Putney’s been a big cause of that, actually. It’s his studio and it works out well because Ice is in Jersey and he can go there after he does Law and Order. We fly out there and record and he can record.” I asked him about how long the band spent tracking the new album. He says, ” I think maybe about three months. We did some stuff. Vince was on tour, then he went there and did stuff. Ice was there, I flew in and out. I’d say about three months. It comes together pretty quick.”
We also talked about some of his favorite records, junk food and that wild time in Italy when the band came out of a near riot during one of their shows. It was amazing to hear Ernie’s perspective on those events. You can hear all of that and more by clicking on the link to your favorite place to listen to podcasts or by watching the video version on YouTube.
-Tommy Marz
You can follow Tommy on Twitter and Instagram let him know what you think.
For More On Body Count, Visit:
FACEBOOK | TWITTER |