Al Jourgensen (Ministry) Interview

  Anytime the topic of industrial music comes up, there is one name that is always mentioned. Of course, I am speaking of Al Jourgensen. Even though Al will pish posh at the grandiose title, he has become known as the Godfather of Industrial and is the founder of Ministry, the baddest industrial band on the planet.

  It has been a year of ups and downs and changes as Jourgensen mourned the death of his friend and guitarist, Mike Scaccia and released the last Ministry album in Mikey’s honor, “From Beer to Eternity.” He also has a new book out, “The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen” which is a candid and captivating read. I recently had the rare opportunity to speak with Al and it was quite an adventure. Please join us as we discuss everything from soup to nuts or in this case everything from global warming to ghostly encounters and professional hockey.

KE: Hello Al! Welcome to backstageaxxess.com. Thank you for joining us today.

AL: Heeellllooo BackstageAxxess!

KE: How are you?

AL: I’m doing well, in fact, despite the torrential rains in the desert believe it or not. I live in El Paso, Texas, part of my roof collapsed last night in one of the spare bedrooms.

KE: Oh, no!

AL: Yeah, we’ve been bailing water all day and then talking to you folks in between so it’s all good man. I mean, you know. But for people that say that there’s no climate change, fuck you! (Laughter)

KE: Yes, it’s either feast or famine lately, drought or horrible flooding.

AL: Man, I tell you I been here ten years and I’ve never seen it like this. This is six straight days getting pissed on by mother nature and the desert is just not set up for that man. There is some weird shit going on. That’s all I’ve got to say.

KE: So, let’s talk about your book, “The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen.”

AL: Oh, that thing! Do we have to? (Laughter)

KE: Yeah, I’m pretty sure we should talk about the book. It’s an excellent book though, one of the most entertaining things I’ve read all year.

AL: Well, I’m glad you liked it. I hated living it (laughter) but that’s the course I got dealt and that’s how I dealt with it.

KE: Now, it’s a real tale of survival, Al takes a licking and keeps on ticking kind of thing. I mean you did die at least three times during the course of the book but yet you’re still here alive and well. What do you attribute that to? Is it luck?

AL: Well, I’m just working my way up to being a cat. They have nine lives. I’m only a third of a cat at this point. (Laughter)

KE: You’re very honest in the book about your drug and alcohol use but you’re off the hard stuff right now, right?

AL: 11 years as of September 5th.

KE: Awesome! Congratulations.

AL: Never relapsed, I don’t do pharmaceutical drugs. I don’t do Xanax or Valium, all that other crap. I don’t do cocaine, heroin. I haven’t done LSD in , well I did do one ten years ago, but that’s about it you know. I’m pretty mellow these days.

KE: Now in the book you’re surrounded by a host of interesting characters. What was it like to hang out with the likes of people like Timothy Leary?

AL: Well, you know something. I was thinking about that this morning. I’ve been so blessed. For some universal reason, people’s paths cross and for some universal reason people you might think might be cool, you’re paths don’t cross. There is order to the universe. You understand what I’m saying? The people I met and hung out with were supposed to be there. And you know there are some people I really could have hung out more but it wasn’t meant to be. So I just threw my hands up in the air and let the universe decide.

KE: There are plenty of crazy stories in the book and my son wanted me to ask about one in particular.

AL: Oh, my God, you let your son read the book. You’re a better person than I. My daughter’s 28 and I won’t even let her read it. (Laughter)

KE: (Laughing) OK, now I have to ask about the Flying Dutchman incident and scaring Metallica out of your dressing room.

AL: Oh, the Flying Ham Sandwich. Flying Dutchman is a completely different thing which we can get into in another interview if you’d like. (Laughter) I performed a Flying Ham Sandwich on Metallica. That’s an art down here in Texas. You just put stuff up your butt and you chase people running backwards. I don’t know where it came from. I just know that when in Rome do as the Romans.(Laughter)

KE: You were really straight forward in the book and you certainly didn’t hold anything back. Is there anyone who was upset at what you wrote?

AL: Well, I hope they were upset. (Laughter) What else am I gonna say. I’m ashamed? I hope they’re upset. They’re a bunch of douchebags!

KE: You talk about the early days of recording and splicing tape with a razor blade. Now that you have a state of the art studio in your home, how much easier it to make an album?

AL: Well, this is what’s so interesting about life. It’s becoming really easy to do stuff and then this last Ministry record, when Mikey died I think a part of me died. And now, I have this studio that’s in my backyard, this building that’s double-bolted up. I don’t even want to see music for a while. I’m in a kind of grieving period so this whole thing that’s going on right now with Ministry is very bittersweet for me because I wish my best friend was here to experience it with me. After so many years of hard work and being ignored and now all of a sudden we’re the flavor of the month. And so I wish he could have experienced that and so it’s very bittersweet. Like I said, it was so easy for a while and now it’s the hardest thing in the world to get back into a studio.

KE: It must have been such a difficult thing to finish the record after Mike was gone. Was it just something that you felt you had to do?

AL: No, that cocksucker haunted me for months until the record came out. There would be shit flying off the walls and shit knocked over and all this if he didn’t like a mix. I mean he was helping me through the whole process. It’s kind of creepy man. It’s just like having this ghost hanging over you for three months while you’re trying to mix all your parts. It was kind of distracting but as soon as the record was done, he seems to be at peace so I think he’s gone on to better adventures.

KE: So you think he would have been pleased with the final result then?

AL: Oh, I know he was man. I know he was. He made it clear when he left two days before he died, when he finished his parts. And he made it very clear during the three months of mixing as to what he liked and didn’t like when shit would go flying off the wall. (Laughter) Paintings and stuff. We were just like oh Mikey, really? And then we’d remix it. If a painting would fly off the wall, we would remix the track until the paintings wouldn’t fly off the wall anymore you know. So it was kind of like the weirdest record I’ve ever done and I’ve done forty studio albums and this is definitely by far the weirdest, most bittersweet record ever.

KE: Do you think this will be the last? Is this it for Ministry now?

AL: OK, in the immortal words of the first George Bush, Read my lips! There will be no further Ministry original studio recordings. I’m sure there’ll be Ministry bootlegs, live stuff, remixes, and this and that coming out over the next few years. I mean, fuck, Jimi Hendrix still has records coming out. You know, so and Salinger for that matter. He’s got like five books coming out. I can’t control that. But I can guarantee this, there will be no more Ministry original studio albums coming out. I think let’s put this one to bed and although as I say that I know that the first Bush actually did raise taxes after saying read my lips but I’m gonna hold true to this one. I’m pretty over it and I’ve got a lot of literary projects coming up in the next couple of years and I don’t even want to see a studio or music or anything like that. I don’t need the fame, the acclaim, the groupies, this or that. I’ve been there and done that . So I’m pretty resolute in the fact that this will be Mikey’s tombstone piece man. Just put the “From Beer to Eternity” cover on his tombstone and let him rest in peace.

KE: Fair enough. I heard you’ll be going out and doing some college lectures.

AL: Yeah, yeah. It’s, to me, far superior than doing a rock tour. Rock tours are cool when you’re in your twenties and thirties but when you start getting in your mid-fifties, it’s a real pain in the ass. Lemmy from Motorhead for starters or Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick both are good friends. It starts to become why am I doing this? You know Mikey’s death really put it all in perspective just like these are like my golden years if you want to call it. I just want to do stuff that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, writing books and doing college lectures, teaching, things like this. I don’t really see much of a musical future for me in the long run. I just really want to concentrate on my literary work and staying true to that. It keeps me busy and it keeps the crime rate down in El Paso. (Laughter)

KE: So, we can look forward to more books then in the future?

AL: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I have a fiction book that I wrote called “Persuasion of a Serial Killer” that I’m just gonna be finished by about Christmas and I also have a 13 part comic book series coming out “The Captains of Industry” where I have obtained special super powers. So you are actually talking to a super hero as we speak.

KE: I had no doubt.

AL: (Laughter)

KE: Getting back to music for just a moment, you’re known as the Godfather of Industrial. How do you feel about all these titles and honors?

AL: Well, I guess people or i.e. journalists have to have hobbies and they sit around making up titles for sure but to me there’s only two kinds of music. It’s either good or it’s shit.

KE: Amen to that.

AL: And most of it seems to be shit for the last few years. It’s really funny how in the sixties all these bands that were coming up with very limited technology all sounded different. Now, with all this technology, all these douchebags sound the same. You see what I’m saying. In other words, thought or any part of the creative process is gone. It’s all done by corporations and bottom line bean counters and this and that. It’s not an industry that’s very pretty right now.

KE: You’ve never been afraid to voice your opinion whether musically or politically. So let me ask, are you satisfied or disappointed with the current administration?

AL: Well, I mean it’s neither because the administration does not run what people’s wants and wishes are. It’s all done by lobbyists and corporations. I actually kind of felt bad about halfway through the Last Supper album which was the Bush trilogy at how much of a dolt he was and a puppet for corporate interests. I mean their hands are tied to their back. I met Obama in Chicago. I instinctively feel he’s a nice man and he only has the best intentions. However, you try and run your radio show or whatever you’ve got going on here with both hands tied behind your back. You see what I’m saying? The system needs to be changed. That Citizen’s United decision, the absolute worst possible. Well no, let’s put that up with the new voting laws. This Supreme Court has got to go! It’s just that simple. You can’t get anything done. It’s gonna be nothing but racism and gridlock for years to come unless we get a new Supreme Court, period.

KE: Maybe we need a Justice Jourgensen to even things out?

AL: (Laughter) You know I would do it except I’ve got way too many Polaroids up in the attic of me doing Anthony Weiner type shit that would preclude me from anywhere near politics ok. (Laughter)

KE: (Laughter) Inspiration for your book perhaps?

AL: Well, you know I didn’t know what to do. I just got drunk and told tales to some guy with a tape recorder and that’s just what happened. And then I didn’t realize the process was this thorough in writing a book. Jon Weiderhorn comes out for a week from New York to Texas and we just get shitface hammered and I just tell him tales for a week and then he goes back and he has to spend four weeks doing due diligence, making sure I’m not making shit up. And then he comes back for another week and I tell him another week’s worth of tales drunk off my face and then he has to do another four weeks of due diligence calling people going were you there? Did this actually happen? And then he turns it over to the publisher which then has a six person legal team which does another six weeks of due diligence calling people making sure they’re not gonna get sued and all that stuff. I just basically spent two weeks doing what I do every day, just getting drunk and telling stories man. Trust me the legal teams found a lot of stuff that didn’t go in the book. So much like Salinger the books will only be released after my death. (Laughter)

KE: One last question Al. Since you’re such an avid hockey fan, can I get your prediction for this year’s Stanley Cup?

AL: Nah, I don’t think the Hawks are gonna win it this year. It’s hard to repeat but I’m actually kind of going with the Blues to win it this year. The St. Louis Blues is like my hot, gnarly pick of the year but the Hawks are gonna be in contention for many years to come. With the way their contracts are structured , they’re gonna win another cup. I just don’t think it’s gonna be next year, that’s all.

KE: Well, my team has never won one so I’m gonna have to keep waiting.

AL: What’s your team?

KE: The Buffalo Sabres!

AL: Oh man, you know what? They’re coming. They’re coming, don’t lose hope. Hey man, it took me 45 years to see the Hawks as champions. I was a fan since I was six. When they won their first one, I blew a gasket so never lose hope. In your lifetime, you will see the Buffalo Sabres win a cup and hopefully you’ll get to see it, touch it. I’m scheduled next week to have my own day with the cup because I’ve been such a longtime Hawks fan. I promise, I promise, I won’t defecate or pee or vomit in it or anything. I’ll treat it with nothing but respect. All the names of days gone by are on there and it’s the most amazing trophy in all of sports and one of the reasons I’m such a big hockey fan.

KE: Here’s to Lord Stanley!

AL: Don’t lose hope Kris. The Sabres are coming, the Sabres are coming!

KE: I hope so. Thank you so much Al. It was truly a pleasure to chat with you today.

AL: Thank you man. You take care. Bye

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We would like to thank Lissa Warren of Da Capo Press for setting up the interview with Al. For more information on Al including his new book “The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen,” please go to: Purchase Book Here.

If its Ministry info you crave and want information on the new CD “From Beer to Eternity,” please visit: Ministry.