Ministry |
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Thu. February 13.2003 4:33 PM EST |
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Ministry: A Little Less AggravationA drug-free Al Jourgensen is back in action. He talks strip-tease soundtracks, Gulf war fever, and Graceland weddings. by C. Bottomley |
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Ministry (Publicity) |
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Ministry, the industrial rock duo of Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker, are there for the pissy things in life. Boss bothering you? Partner berating you? Someone stole your parking space? Crank the volume on their new Animositisomina and the
Animositisomina is a cathartic experience for Jourgensen, too. The famed industrial music producer married metal and sampling into an MTV-friendly form of sonic terrorism that culminated in Ministry's Land of Rape and Honey, one of the '80s' defining albums. The group ran over Lollapalooza audiences, went platinum with their 1992 apogee Psalm 69, and continued to refine their sly humor and menacing sounds. Jourgensen then diversified, becoming a one-man army of bands, making MTV-unfriendly music with Revolting Cocks, teaming with fellow radical gadfly Jello Biafra as Lard, showing disciple Trent Reznor how it’s done with 1000 Homo DJs, and even starting a country spin-off act called Buck Satan & the 666 Shooters. This astounding productivity was unfortunately coupled with an appetite for drugs. Following 1999’s disappointing Dark Side of the Spoon, Jourgensen considered closing Ministry’s doors. A stay of execution came from unlikely savior Steven Spielberg, who asked Ministry to write a song and appear in his 2001 sci-fi film A.I. While movie audiences reached for the earplugs, a bemused Jourgensen went into detox, moved to El Paso and made the first chemical-free album of his career. The maestro again makes a mark with Animositisomina. Bouts of cold turkey begot the grim "Shove," while "Impossible" flails at a sober transcendence. Jourgensen's satirical edge is still as sharp as his riffs, too. His run-ins with the law are dissected on "Piss," and "Broken" takes aim at Texas’ punk rock strip joints. An artist with invective to spare, he's back in the studio with Biafra, working on another Lard album. With Bush in office and war on the way, it’s good to have them back. The just-married Jourgensen told us about strip-tease soundtracks, hearing music with a sober mind, and what he would do if he were put in charge of the DEA. VH1: Can you actually pronounce your own album title? Al Jourgensen: Of course. It’s a palindrome. It’s animosity spelled forwards and backwards dropping the "y." Pretend you’re speaking Italian. It’s animosi-tissa-meena! VH1: Is there something about the current climate that makes it the right time for Ministry's return? Jourgensen: A friend said to me the other day, "Do you guys only tour on Gulf Wars?" It seems that way! It’s a coincidence. We don’t sit around and think, "That f*cking Bush! We’re gonna write a record!" It’s more like "That f*cking Bush!" You can expect our next record when Jeb gets into office! [Laughs.] VH1: Your albums do seem to be taking longer to make. Why is that? Jourgensen: We took a lot of time off. There was a point in time after Dark Side when we didn't even know if we wanted to keep going, but after we got the A.I. gig, Paul and I started writing together and decided, "Wow! This is fun again!" We moved away from our Chicago studio with all its distractions and partying and hockey games and whatnot, came out to the middle of the desert in El Paso and wound up making the record in three months. It's the least amount of time for any album we've ever done! VH1: Is the music as exhausting to make as it is to listen to? Jourgensen: The exhausting part is all the f*cking distractions. If you like what you do and you're doing that and nothing else, you become one with the mixing board. It's a pretty cosmic experience. I haven't had as much fun since Land of Rape and Honey. VH1: The single "Piss" is about your experiences with the nation's drug laws. If they put you in charge of the DEA, what would you do? Jourgensen: Legalize drugs immediately, regulate them and have counseling for addicts. You need to be aware of what they can and what it cannot do. Imprisonment for drug addicts is the stupidest f*cking concept ever. You don't even have to be a drug addict! Just try drugs, get caught, and you go to jail? There are more drugs in jail than there are outside of it. VH1: Does music sound better when you're stoned? Jourgensen: It depends. This is my first record that I did clean and sober. It's a whole different way of listening. I can see the rut that some people fall in. They get clean and then they put out some pussy-ass record. We didn't take that route. By getting clean, music was like the last thing I had left in my life. There were no distractions. I didn't sit around waiting for a dealer all day. It was like, "Let's go record! Let's jam!" Like any sculptor or artist, you feel the joy as you're going along and seeing something getting built. It becomes profound and more heartfelt, but it isn't as immediate. When you're stoned and hearing a riff – whoa! – it just takes your body over. There's something to be said for it. VH1: The vocals on "Shove" are reminiscent of Joy Division's Ian Curtis. Were they a big influence? Jourgensen: That song came from a really dark place for me and I'm sure their songs came from a real dark place within Ian Curtis. Thus the similarity. It wasn't like we were gonna go out and try to sound like this. I had a lot of demons to exorcise while I was doing this record. I detoxed while I did the record. El Paso is out in the middle of nowhere, right? If I couldn't do it here, I couldn't do it anywhere. VH1: So was making the album a cathartic experience? Jourgensen: One of the reasons that Animositisomina is really angry is that I woke up every day f*cking sick when I recorded it. That's not a really fun thing to do. It forces you to concentrate on why you're sick and how to channel it into music, as opposed to destructive activity. VH1: The song "Broken" sounds like a cyberpunk square dance about S&M. Jourgensen: It's about the titty bars in Texas. The whole scene is mind-boggling to me. Some titty bars are like alternative music clubs and little punk rockers go to them. But that's everything punk should rail against – exploitation of women and all this sh*t. Then they play our music in these titty bars! My version of "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" with the Revolting Cocks was voted the titty bar anthem of the '90s! We don't set out to write it like that, but it hits a certain chord in certain people to do certain things. It's just incredible to me! I had to poke fun at that. VH1: Johnny Cash covers Nine Inch Nails' "Dirt" on his new album. Is there a song of yours that you would like the Man in Black to have a go at? Jourgensen: "Broken" would be awesome, but I don't think Johnny would be singing too much about S&M these days. He's pretty religious down to the bone and seems happy with that. Ministry are always called the kings of industrial music. I say, put that f*cking mantle on Johnny Cash's head! He's doing Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails sh*t now! Let him be the king! VH1: You got married at Graceland last year. How did you pull that off? Jourgensen: We eloped! I met my wife 13 years ago, but we took our life's paths and then hooked back up again. We were driving to New York and stopped off at Graceland because it was on the way. I got a wild hair up my ass and popped the question. They said, "There's a little chapel in the woods you can get married at." Elvis' only blood living relative aside from Lisa Marie stood up at our wedding, because we didn't have anybody else. He was like the Graceland groundskeeper. When we pulled up, he was blowing leaves. He took one look at my cowboy hat and said, "You guys look pretty cool. I'm gonna stand up at your wedding, okay?" I didn't know who he was at first, but we didn't had any witnesses, so I was like "Yeah, sure!" VH1: It's been 20 years since Ministry's debut, With Sympathy. When was the last time you listened to it? Jourgensen: The day I got out of the studio in 1983. I don't own a copy, and I don't want to own a copy. It's one thing to go back listen to our second album Everyday is Halloween, because I was part of the process from top to the bottom. But when you're excluded from the process like I was on that first record, yet your name is on it – you have to answer other people's mail, if you will – it's just not interesting to me. VH1: You never thought about going back and saying, "You know what? I'm going to re-do this my way." Jourgensen: F*ck no! Paul and I have a saying that "Our best songs are yet to be written." Look forward! |
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