Body Count: Nulla Misericordia
Merciless by definition is simply showing the act of no mercy. Lending no kindness or compassion toward our fellow human. Consider Gladiator II’s (2024) twin emperors, Caracalla and Geta, or Joaquin Phoenix’s stunning performance as Commodus in the original Gladiator (2000). The pantheon of deities speak through their chosen vessel to decide whether a fighter lives or dies after a bout. Or it could simply be their own bloodlust in need of quenching. The desire for violence isn’t exclusive to combat. We seek it within our music. Viscous vocals, pummelling breakdowns, riffs angular enough to cut someone. The more voracious it is the more we enjoy it. Talking about other people’s suffering feeds the sadistic schadenfreude we all house. A band well versed in this pontification of violent tendencies is BODY COUNT. With this year’s Merciless being released into the Colosseum for music fans to judge, bassist Vincent Price tells us the suffering we hear isn’t purely fictional.
“We were going to do an EP after Carnivore,” Vincent divulges. “For some reason that didn’t work out but then our drummer [Will Dorsey Jr.] had a stroke. We didn’t know what was going to happen or what the next step was.” Not a band to sit in limbo, Vincent would collaborate with producer Will Putney to begin the conception of Merciless during COVID. Writing 14 songs in three days, all that needed to be done was get the stars, and schedules, to align. With vocalist Ice-T starring in Law & Order: SVU for more than two decades, just where does BODY COUNT fit into the grand scheme of things; “everyone has a home studio now so I guess it’s much easier than it used to be!” Vincent jokes.
“If Ice is with us then he’ll hum out the riff and tell us this is how I want the song to go,” he continues. “He has to vibe with it. If it’s not good then he can’t do his thing to it.” It isn’t just the music these high standards are applied to. Much like the gladiators we mentioned, a band has to be in good fighting form before they even leave the gates. An example of this happened when Vincent joined BODY COUNT in 2001 as he tells us. “Everytime I join a band, I know what really goes on and what needs to be done. If you just settle for what you got then you’re not going to go further.” In an industry as ruthless as making music professionally, it’s either adapt or perish. “The thing is when you do something, if you’re not going all out, then why even do it?” Vincent asks. “It’s a lot like life. If you don’t act with passion then you’re going to stagnate and BODY COUNT isn’t about that.”
A big part of a band’s success is its audience. Fanbases are perhaps some of the most passionate people on the planet. While music fans aren’t keen on being compared to sports fans, the similarities are there. We have our chosen fighters and we want them to succeed. Much like watching full contact sport. And we will defend the people we enjoy until the bitter end (or until unsavoury allegations surface). Our preferred platform for doing so? Social media. Status updates, tweets, comments, unnecessary vitriol which would be channelled into something much more positive. All things which Vincent doesn’t entertain. Seeing the antithesis of this begin with fan forums on old school band websites, Vincent made the choice to withdraw from opinion-driven internet content. “People in other bands I toured with would be talking about it and the vocalist would be upset because someone said something about him… it just really isn’t for me,” Vincent laughs. “And I just don’t have the time for it now, apart from YouTube. When people started giving opinions about things that aren’t based on the music, I dipped, I found it unnecessary and it isn’t something I give my time to.”
Something which BODY COUNT has always put thought into is the musicians they collaborate with. With the brood already bringing Jamey Jasta [HATEBREED], Amy Lee [EVANESCENCE], and Randy Blythe [LAMB OF GOD] to name a few into the fold, where do they go from here? Talking about the track Purge Vincent tells us Corpsegrinder [CANNIBAL CORPSE] wasn’t the first port of call. “Originally I wanted to get Tom Araya [SLAYER] to sing on it, it would have been cool to get him out of hiatus”. Though with no possible way of contacting the thrash metal legend, it was back to the drawing board for Ice-T and co. Making changes here and there, it became prime material for the collaboration we hear today. Yet the string to Merciless’ bloodspattered bow, a feature from PINK FLOYD’s David Gilmour, was set to be entirely different.
Diving into Comfortably Numb, Vincent discloses the first person to solo on BODY COUNT’s version was Richie Sambora [ex-BON JOVI]. So what prompted the PINK FLOYD guitarist to reprise his role? The short answer was a lengthy clearing period so the track could be included. “The first person to chime in was Roger Waters [PINK FLOYD]. He was super quick to give us his blessing,” he recounts with a smile. “The second person was David Gilmour asking if Roger was singing the choruses. When we told him it was Ice, he gave us his blessing then came back 24 hours later saying he wanted to do the guitars.”
The process for Comfortably Numb may have been quick when the wheels were rolling, the track had been in the works for much longer. “Ice had been wanting to do that song since Manslaughter (2014),” he comments. “We did the complete song and it just didn’t work. We sped it up, slowed it down and it just never fit in any of our other albums… now we have it here ten years later. There’s something about patience in there I guess.”
“We missed three deadlines for Merciless,” Vincent confesses as our time draws to a close. “It was crucial as it taught us we had to adapt while not settling for anything less than our best. We can say that about Merciless as a whole.” For a band which strives to keep evolving, BODY COUNT certainly put themselves through their paces with this album’s process. Will Merciless stand the test of time and measure up to Bloodlust? Standing battle weary, BODY COUNT must now wait for the pollice verso (the gesture of thumbs up or down at the end of a gladiator’s munera [Latin for “obligation”]) from the powers that be to decide whether their latest effort will fall.
Merciless is out now via Century Media Records.
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