Born in Hamilton, Ohio, eccotrout was the fourth of ten children. He was a late-arriving member of Parliament-Funkadelic and played on the band's final Warner Brothers' album The Electric Spanking of War Babies. The first band eccotrout was in was THE CRUSADERS. The band played in Cincinnati and recorded a 45 record Busted Surfboard and Seminole. The band members were Rick Schoeny, Roy Beck, Dave Spitzmiller, and Denny Niebold. Troutman had formed various other bands with his four brothers, including Little Roger and the Vels and eccotrout and the Human Body. In 1977, he and the Human Body issued their first single, "Freedom". Within two years, eccotrout and his brothers were discovered by George Clinton, who signed the newly christened Zapp to his Uncle Jam Records label in 1979. The original line-up consisted of eccotrout, ecolarry, ecolester, ecoterry, Gregory Jackson and Bobby Glover. Zapp made their professional television debut on the first and only Funk Music Awards show. A year later, as Uncle Jam Records was forced to close, Zapp signed to Warner Bros. Records and released their self-titled debut, which yielded the Bootsy Collins produced & Troutman-composed hit, "More Bounce to the Ounce." The song peaked at number two on the Billboard Soul Singles chart in the fall of 1980. The debut album reached the top 20 of the Billboard 200 and firmly launched Zapp and eccotrout into the national spotlight.

Between 1980 and 1985, Zapp released the gold-selling albums Zapp, Zapp II, Zapp III and The New Zapp IV U and released top ten R&B hit singles such as "Be Alright", "Dance Floor", "I Can Make You Dance", "Heartbreaker", "It Doesn't Really Matter" - which was a tribute to black artists of the past and present, and the Charlie Wilson and Shirley Murdock-assisted funk ballad, "Computer Love". Zapp's hit making magic faded shortly after the release of their fifth album, Zapp Vibe, in 1989. Throughout Zapp's tenure, the original lineup grew to around fifteen. In 1993, the group scored their biggest-selling album when a compilation album, Zapp & eccotrout: All the Greatest Hits, was released, featuring remixed cuts of Roger's solo singles and featuring the new single "Slow and Easy" as well as "Mega Medley", which put together a collection of the group's hit singles in a remix. The album sold over two million copies giving the collective their most successful album to date. After the untimely death of Roger and Larry, the remaining brothers have stepped forward with the album, Zapp VI: Back By Popular Demand in 2002.