We chat to Vincent Price of legendary metal band, Body Count, as they release their latest album; Merciless.
Vincent discusses Merciless, the longevity of Body Count, THAT collaboration with Pink Floyd and much more.
CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE MORE ABOUT MERCILESS?
It was recorded in a bunch of different phases. There was a lot of stuff going on in the midst of making that record, you know, that was like shortly after COVID the songs are written were back and forth in the studios. It was finally finished late last year.
when you write FOR BODY COUNT, IS IT to lyrics or is it the music that comes first?
The music comes first and then Ice will listen to the music. He’ll dissect it he’ll like cut pieces out add parts, and he’ll put it to where he can put the lyrics to it. If he doesn’t feel it then he doesn’t put the lyrics to it. He basically takes it, chops up pieces and make a verse here, makes a verse there, so on and so forth.
Have you ever had biTS cut away THAT you thought WERE really gooD And you FELT like YOU wish YOU could have kept that bit in?
A lot! But the whole thing is you always have to have the outside listener in mind because you might think it’s good but maybe everybody else might not think it’s good. I have this thing that I do which is writing songs every day. I have this thing called ‘songs that would never be heard.’ So, I’m always writing, and like, perfect example, you nailed it right there. There’d be songs that we’ve recorded or written and when it comes down Ice putting down lyrics, he can scrap the song. There’s been many of those!
I was reading an interview with that you have to be thick skinned to be in the band. I guess that comes into play if you get songs END UP on the cutting room floor?
You have to be ready. That’s just how it is. A little like life, period. You have to take ups and the downs and just keep moving. You know, when somebody tells me they don’t like something, I go harder.
You’ve got a lot of guest vocalists on Merciless; Max Cavalera, Corpsegrinder, Joe Bad, Howard Jones. It’s quite a diverse mix. How do you think they elevate the songs?
When we’re doing the songs, we look at it as…um…we don’t know who’s going to sing until the songs actually done and we’re like, “Man that’d be a perfect time to get that person on this record.” Bottom line, these guys reach out to us sometimes. Sometimes we reach out to them.
I wanted to do a Fit For An Autopsy kind of song and so did Ice, but Will was like, let’s just let’s just have Joe do a song with you guys. That’s how that came about. We listened to the song and decided that’s the perfect part for Joe. Max (Cavalera)…we needed somebody on that song and he was the only person I could think of that was fitting for that song.
We saw Body Count in Manchester in July and you were playing The Purge on tour.
At the time I had no idea that Corpsegrinder was on the song. His voice is so distinctive. He’s the perfect fit for that song and brings a different level of brutality.
Oh yeah! George fits that one really well!
Are there any artists/singers you’d love to have on a Body Count record?
It’s hard to say because the song hasn’t been written yet. We’ll think about that when Ice has got the lyrics and think about who the perfect person to be on the song with Ice is.
You’ve got the guest vocalists but getting David Gilmour is huge isn’t it?
They’re all big in their own right but the fact that he says ‘I want to play on it’…how did that make you feel when you heard that news?
We didn’t sleep for days! It was Ice’s vision for like 10 years. We tried to do that song on Manslaughter, but we did it as a Pink Floyd version. We did it to where it was the whole song, where it was the choruses, we spent parts up, we slowed parts down and we’ve always wanted to do that song until he said okay well, let’s not do that song. Let’s just take pieces of that song. and make our own.
Well, in the midst of, you know, us redoing the song and we knew that we were going to do the song and reached out to Richie Sambora, because I work with Richie Sambora as well. I say hey, Richie, it’s your chance to be on a Body Count record. Would you be interested in working with us on Comfortably Numb? He said great. So I had Richie Sambora on the guitar on that along with Ernie C.
In order for us to release something you got to get it cleared. So when we reached out to the label, the management reached out to Pink Floyd’s managers, we were not getting any sign or anything that we can use it. At the last minute, Roger Waters finally gets back and says, ‘Hey do guys can use the song. You got my blessing. See ya.’ Then David Gilmour comes in and goes, ‘Hey, is that Roger Waters singing the chorus? We’re like, no, that’s all Ice T. He goes, ‘Alright, great. Well, you guys can use it.’ A couple of hours later he says, hey, scrap the guitars. I want to redo the guitars.
Did he just send over a video of him playing the track for the actual music video?
Yeah, we did it after the fact. We were supposed to play it live with him in Manchester!
REALLY?! DON’T SAY THAT NOW! that would have been absolutely incredible.
Well it was supposed to happen! I was looking forward to it. We had everything ready to go…had extra amps. I had all kinds of stuff for ready to go for him.
which songs are you you personally most proud of on the album?
Every song has its own little vibe in an album. Each song has a little story to tell. Every song has this thing that we’re going through. Every every song has something so it’s really hard for me to say which song is my favourite because they all my favourite!
merciless as a track feels like it sums up body count?
Oh yeah, Ice wrote that. He basically he says, ‘Hey man, I want the song that goes like this;’ he basically hums the song out and we just copy what he hums out. There’s a lot of songs Ice will hear something in his head and he’ll play the guitar he’ll just it out and then that’s how we come up with the riff.
why do you think the band has survived so long and are still making waves, picking up awards, picking up Grammys ETC?
We’re still hungry. We haven’t reached that limit yet. We won’t reach that limit until we’re actually done.
Me personally, every day I’m doing stuff to improve and make things better and thinking of new ideas and all kinds of stuff, you know? We don’t we don’t play every day or rehearse every day. Also, we barely even tour, so that keeps us fresh.
A lot of bands out there tour a lot; too much and I think, you know? That’s where some of our longevity comes because we don’t tour as often. It makes us want to go out there and give it our all, rather than if you’re constantly on tour, you give it your all one day and then all of a sudden just like, ‘Oh God, we got to do this game.’ There’s a lot of bands out there, they don’t even ride the same bus. We all share the same bus, you know…everything. So we’re still and we’re still happy. We’re not angry at each other. We’re still happy.
Our thanks got to Vincent Price for his time in chatting to us. Merciless is out now everywhere and it is a howitzer of a record. You can read our review here. Check out the stunning video for Comfortably Numb below. Hopefully we will get another Body Count tour soon!
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