Amid fury around Knocked Loose’s performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last week, The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon is poking the bear and booking one of metal’s most outspoken bands: Ice-T’s Body Count.
The rap metal veterans, world-renowned for their incendiary single Cop Killer, will appear on the talk show on Wednesday, December 4. They’ll likely play a song from new album Merciless, released on November 22 via Century Media.
The performance will take place 15 days after hardcore sensations Knocked Loose played their Grammy-nominated song Suffocate on Kimmel, backed by blasts of pyro and a guest appearance from genre-smashing singer/songwriter Poppy.
The ferocious, breakdown-laden set aggravated Kimmel’s more pearl-clutching viewers. According to a now-viral report by UK newspaper The Mirror, one Facebook user claimed Knocked Loose reduced their teenage son to tears. Others took issue with frontman Bryan Garris’ harsh vocal style, with some going as far as to demand an apology from the talk show.
However, the backlash has made Knocked Loose’s set one of the most talked-about Kimmel performances in some time. Has the widespread discussion inspired The Tonight Show’s producers to put another metal band on nationwide TV? If so, great!
For now, the response to The Tonight Show announcing Body Count has been broadly positive. One user on X (formerly Twitter) writes, “I will be watching....Hope the masses are ready for the crushing you all are about to deliver! Horns up”
Historically, The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon has been slightly more metal-friendly than Kimmel. The programme booked thrash metal nasties Slayer to play their fearsome favourite Raining Blood in 2017. Coincidentally, Body Count covered that same song that same year on their Bloodlust album.
When they released Merciless, Body Count once again won critical acclaim, including a glowing four-star review from Metal Hammer’s Dom Lawson. Lawson wrote, “Thirty years after Cop Killer, Ice-T is still committed to making music that goes harder than the rest.”
Outside of the upcoming Tonight Show appearance, the rap metal band have one show scheduled for the remainder 2024. They’ll play the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey, on Thursday, December 5. Tickets are still available.
This article has been updated with corrections. Body Count will perform on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, not Jimmy Kimmel Live! as originally stated.
Catch us on the Tonight Show on December 4th 🔪👊 You don’t want to miss this. #FallonTonight@FINALLEVEL @FallonTonight @jimmyfallon pic.twitter.com/ViiDk0zbFyNovember 29, 2024
