Ministry

Ministry started out in 1981 as a new wave outfit. Having signed with Arista Records, they released their debut album, With Sympathy, in 1983. Front man, Al Jourgensen, severely dislikes this album. He told Mark Prindle: "That's the only album that I don't like, and that's basically because it was written by producers and by record company people. I just signed the contract and didn't know any better and did what everyone told me to do, and then after that I just kinda said, 'Well, fuck you. I'm gonna do it my way.'" Jourgensen continued: "To this day, I've never listened to it since I got it done. I was fed up with it. I almost quit music because of it." It was not until 1988, when they released their third album, The Land of Rape and Honey, that Ministry turned to the industrial metal they would become know for.

Al Jourgensen has formed and played in many side-projects including: The Revolting Cocks, alongside Belgian musicians Richard 23 and Luc Van Acker, Lard, alongside Dead Kennedys front man, Jello Biafra, 1000 Homo DJs, alongside Nine Inch Nails front man, Trent Reznor, and Pailhead, alongside Minor Threat and Fugazi's Ian MacKaye. Jourgensen also has a country side-project called Buck Satan & the 666 Shooters. Jourgensen spoke to us about his country influences: "George Jones, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ferlin Husky, Roger Miller, you name it, the list goes on and on and on and on. It's just these CDs that I collected when I was in my teen years and drove a truck for a job. I was driving an 18 wheeler. I had a Class D license. And they never had any decent music in these when you had to refuel at the truck stops. So I started buying country and I got addicted to it. That's the entire thing."

In 1992, Ministry released their fifth album, Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. The title of the album is taken from chapter 69 of The Book of Lies by the occultist, Aleister Crowley. Crowley used the expression "The way to succeed and the way to suck eggs" as a pun for the 69 sex position. Psalm 69 spawned the hit single, "Jesus Built My Hotrod," which featured guest vocals by Butthole Surfers front man, Gibby Haynes. Al Jourgensen spoke to us about the track: "That was insane. That was the most insane song ever. First of all, Warner Brothers gave us a $750,000 budget to do a record. We, of course shot it all up our arms and put it up our noses and didn't have a single song to show for it. They were freaking out. So on Lollapalooza 1, the Butthole Surfers played and Gibby (Haynes) was in town, and I've met Gibby before on my trips to Texas from Chicago. I brought him into the studio because I had this song - for $750,000 I had one song done. It was ridiculous. And not only that, I didn't have vocals on it. I didn't know what to do with this song. Because it was a crazy 5-4-7-4 beat. So Gibby came down completely drunk off his ass to the studio we're at in Chicago. He couldn't even sit on a stool, let alone sing. I mean, he was wasted. He fell off the stool about 10 times during the recording of that vocal. He made no sense and it was just gibberish. So I spent two weeks editing tape of what he did, thinking it still was better than what I was thinking of doing with the song. And then we sent Warner Brothers that and they had to figure out if they wanted to double down and give us another $750,000 bucks or whether they wanted to cancel the whole project." Jourgensen said Warner Brothers disliked the song, but changed their minds once it started to sell: "They were like, 'What is this? This is stupid. I thought we hired Ministry, instead we get this bing a bang a bong bing bing bing bing, you know, this hillbilly stuff.' And they hated it. But it started selling, surprisingly."