Ministry – Riding Off Into The Sunset With George Bush
MTV.com reports: “Obviously, my muse for the past six years has been George W.,” MINISTRY frontman Al Jourgensen admitted recently, “and he’s going to be riding off into the sunset soon, so I figured I’d just go out with him.”
That’s right — MINISTRY’s September 18 disc, The Last Sucker, will indeed be their studio-album swan song.
“Everyone seems to think I make sh–ty records when there are Democrats in office,” he laughed. “Since I’m really on the top of my game right now, it would be nice to end on a high note instead of keep releasing sh–ty albums well into my 60s,” he added.
Of course, Jourgensen isn’t about to fade away without blasting a final cache of industrial-metal ammunition at the White House. The Last Sucker is venomous and brutal, filled with caustic riffs, political sound bites and ranting, distorted vocals. The new LP incorporates elements of MINISTRY’s finest albums, including the mechanized precision of 1988’s The Land of Rape and Honey; the blowtorch fury of 1992’s Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed & the Way to Suck Eggs; the hazy, lumbering fear and rage of 1996’s Filth Pig; and the shovel-to-the-skull thrash and anti-Bush bile presented on 2004’s Houses of the Molé and 2006’s Rio Grande Blood. However, while Jourgensen admits The Last Sucker provides a comprehensive closing chapter to the story of the band he formed in Chicago in 1981, he insists he wasn’t making a conscious effort to write the equivalent of an on-the-deathbed flashback.
“Me, [PRONG guitarist] Tommy Victor and [PRONG/KILLING JOKE bassist Paul] Raven just went in and jammed, and the only idea that we had going in was that we didn’t have any ideas,” Jourgensen said. “This is definitely a fitting end to it all, but that’s just the way it came out. There’s a couple songs left on a shelf somewhere in case I die in a plane crash and they want to release outtakes, but for the most part, we picked out the ones that made the record flow in a way that, as it turned out, encapsulated the MINISTRY sound.”
MINISTRY will support The Last Sucker with one final worldwide tour with a lineup including Jourgensen, Raven, Victor, guitarist Sin Quirin (Revolting Cocks), drummer Jimmy DeGrasso (ex-Megadeth) and keyboardist Bechdel. But while Jourgensen is looking forward to the tour, he also looks forward to putting the lid on the MINISTRY coffin.
“Man, I’m so looking forward to not being the front guy on a brand name,” he said. “When I was growing up, I loved LED ZEPPELIN, and I always wanted to be Jimmy Page. But I ended up being Robert Plant by default. I was the singer and the frontman when I always wanted to be — like in ‘Wizard of Oz,’ the guy behind the curtain. I get so much more done when I’m on the sidelines, and it’s more suited to my personality. I’m a studio rat. I always will be. And now I’ll be able to do, like, six projects a year, so it’s actually much better. You’ll actually get more sick of Al Jourgensen faster than if I was to keep doing MINISTRY. So I view this as my second career, not a retirement.”
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