Over the past few years, David Gilmour and Roger Waters have beefed about everything from control of the Pink Floyd Facebook page to the war in Ukraine. They communicate primarily through lawyers and extremely caustic Tweets. But they finally found something they could agree on when Ice-T approached them this year about the possibility of his heavy-metal band Body Count cutting a version of “Comfortably Numb” with new lyrics for their upcoming LP Merciless.
“When we originally contacted their publisher, they said ‘no,’” Ice-T tells Rolling Stone via Zoom from his home in New Jersey during a day off from shooting Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. “It was not a diss, but kind of like ‘Pink Floyd doesn’t do samples. They don’t do ads, either.’ We were fucked. I wasn’t going to take the lyrics and put it on another track. I was just going to burn it.”
The situation changed once Ice-T’s team circumvented the publishers and took the proposed track directly to Waters and Gilmour via their managers. “Once we got to David, he was like, ‘Fuck, yeah. I love this song. I approve it,’” says Ice-T. “And then Roger listened to it and his only comment was, ‘Who’s singing?’ When he heard it was Ice-T, he approved it.’ To have two people who sit on two opposite sides of the fence agree on a song, that means it must be good.”
Ice-T wasn’t overly familiar with Pink Floyd’s catalog growing up, but he was always drawn to the power of “Comfortably Numb,” especially the haunting bassline, which reminded him of Giorgio Moroder’s score for Scarface. And after putting Body Count’s spin on everything from Slayer’s “Raining Blood” to Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” over the past few years, he started thinking about how he could redo “Comfortably Numb” and use it to reflect the numbness many feel when watching the world descend into chaos from the comfort of our living rooms.
“I can turn on and watch the war in Ukraine, or I can watch the Israel situation, and then click off and then start watching sports,” he says. “Or I could watch a kid get murdered by a cop or somebody come out and shoot their old lady, and then play my video game. We are just kind of numb to everything that’s going on, the starvation in the world, everything. It must have struck a nerve in both of those guys. I don’t think they would have approved it had I made a record like ‘Comfortable Buns’ or some shit.”
Editor’s picks
He was stunned when both sides of the Pink Floyd divide approved the cover, and even more stunned when Gilmour asked if he could play guitar on it. Body Count guitarist Ernie C had already tracked his own part since the thought of Gilmour doing it didn’t even seem like a vague possibility. “Ernie was like, ‘Fuck it,’” says Ice-T. “‘I can see that’s the god. Let him do it. It’s his song.’ And then it was really funny. We were like, ‘Does David need a studio?’ They were like, ‘David owns five studios.’ When the song came back to us, we were like, ‘Fuck. That’s dope!’”
The song will appear on Merciless, which drops Nov. 22, and they’ve been performing it in concert over the past few months. But Body Count had to decline a recent last-second offer to fly to England to play “Comfortably Numb” with Gilmour on U.K. television. “When we aren’t working, my guys are out working,” says Ice-T. “[Bassist] Vince [Price] is a roadie for Marilyn Manson, and Ill Will, my drummer, works for Adele [as a drum tech]. They were like, ‘Can you be in London next Thursday?’ I’m like, ‘Sure. I’ll just fire up our 747, pick everyone up, and get over there.’ It’s just not that simple for us, so we had to pass.”
The demanding Law & Order: SVU schedule means that Ice-T has to pass on many opportunities, but he’s always made time for his music career. “I do acting for the money,” he says. “I do music to stay sane. As an actor, I’m trying to find what the director imagined or what the writer imagined, but that’s not all me. With music, I walk in and I write the script, I write the whole thing. I think that everyone should do something in their life that’s 100 percent them. That could be cooking, that could be horticulture, that could be painting, that could be sports, but something that’s all you to remain sane.”
Trending
Related
Merciless is just the newest chapter of a musical journey for Ice-T that began near the dawn of the hip-hop age more than 40 years ago. Very few figures from that time are still active in the industry, but Ice-T feels his side gig gives him a big advantage.
“I’m on television and I’m making a substantial wage over here and I got money in the bank,” he says, “and so I could actually make an album like this album right here, Merciless. People think you lose your hunger when you get some money. But it can also make you more reckless. It can give you some balls. You can go, ‘Fuck It. I’m now going to say what I feel like saying.’”
