Ice-T is hitting the road this summer.
The rapper, 66, is on tour with his band Body Count in Europe through July, and, while promoting his campaign with Raising Cane’s for National Iced Tea Day, he tells PEOPLE that bringing his talents abroad is a lot different than it used to be.
“My tour bus used to smell like weed, condoms and alcohol. Now it smells like Bengay and potpourri,” he says with a laugh.
Ice-T founded Body Count in the early ’90s, and he’s kept the group alive even while playing Det. Fin Tutuola on Law & Order: SVU for the last 25 seasons alongside star Mariska Hargitay.
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With SVU on hiatus from filming until the middle of July, Ice-T can focus on his international tour, and when asked if his family will be along for the ride, he gives a resounding “yeah.”
“Everybody goes. We have two tour buses. We have the family bus, with all the guys’ wives and kids. Our front bus is very run by the women. Then we have the jail bus, which is all the roadies and all the guys that are by themselves. That’s a bad bus,” he jokes.
Ice-T shares daughter Chanel, 8, with his wife of 22 years, Coco Austin. He also has daughter LeTesha Marrow, 48, and son Tracy Marrow Jr., 32, from prior relationships.
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Marrow Jr. performs with Body Count under the name Lil’ Ice, making touring nowadays even more of a family affair than it was in the past for Ice-T.
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“When you are young and you’re out there, and you’re basically f—ing everything that moves, tour is a whole other animal. When you get older and you’re married, you don’t want to be away from your family. You want your wife out there,” he says. “So it changes. That’s why I always tell people if you’re meeting a new band, stay clear!”
So, while he warns groupies nowadays to stay away from the emerging bands, Ice-T says older bands — Body Count included — are “more low-key.”
“At the end of the show we’re going to our hotel rooms, [it’s] quiet, everything. The young guys are out there [because] they have never seen anything like it,” he says. “I ran around the world three or four times by myself, so I don’t need to be out there by myself anymore.”
