Ice-T's long-standing metal band Body Count has just put out their eighth studio album Merciless, and said record is chock-full of lyrical brutality, sociopolitical consciousness, and riffing that lives up to the LP's title. To promote the new release, the band appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, with Ice-T speaking to Fallon before playing the band's version of Pink Floyd's “Comfortably Numb,” albeit a shorter and less jam-laden iteration.
On the subject of the cover, Ice-T talks about getting the approval from David Gilmour and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. The ex-bandmates, Ice-T points out, “haven't agreed on anything in 20 years,” but after the song's publishers initially turned down the cover, pointing out that the band doesn't allow samples or covers, Gilmour and Waters both signed off on the track, with the former requesting to play guitar on the song, much to the band's surprise.
Further topics in the sit-down include the impending holiday season, the frontman's “Ice Cold Facts” on social media, and his work on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, which is entering its 26th season. The third of these topics gives a gutbuster of a line from Ice-T, who expresses his disbelief at the fact that the series has lasted as long as it has before asserting that “I'm black, I don't jump off of a boat while it's floating, and I can swim.”
Body Count's Merciless is out now via Century Media Records.
Check out the interview with Ice-T and the performance of “Comfortably Numb” below:
