Body Count’s members — frontman Ice-T, lead guitarist Ernie C (Ernie Cunnigan), rhythm guitarist D-Roc (Dennis Miles), bassist Mooseman (Lloyd Roberts III), and drummer Beatmaster V (Victor Wilson) — all attended Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles around the same time in the mid-to-late ’70s. As Ice recalled in an interview with Revolver, Beatmaster V and Mooseman both sold drugs while in high school, with the former actually getting expelled from Crenshaw after getting caught selling marijuana by the school’s security guards. Ernie C, meanwhile, was a kid from a particularly rough neighborhood who was building a reputation as a flashy guitar player, and D-Roc was one of his proteges.
More than a decade later, Ice-T came back from a trip to Europe with an interesting discovery — over there, audiences would mosh to “fast rap” songs like Public Enemy’s “Bring The Noise.” Being that moshing was far more associated with punk and heavy metal, Ice decided that it was about time for him to form a rock band. Fortunately, he was still in touch with his old high school buddies, and with that, Body Count was born.
Originally, the plan was for Body Count to be a side project that made music “for fun” on weekends (via Louder), but as they played more gigs and eventually got a spot at Lollapalooza ’91, it became clear that this was going to be more than just a diversion for Ice-T when he wasn’t busy rapping.
