The upcoming disbandment of industrial metal legends Ministry may seem suspicious to some. After all, vocalist Al Jourgensen previously put the band to bed back in 2008, only to return a few years after in 2011. He’s also in recent years relented on decades of distancing himself from his earlier works, after his current Ministry bandmates secretly revamped those early cuts in a more modern fashion.
That collection of newly tweaked and re-recorded songs from the band’s infancy arrived late last month under the banner of “The Squirrely Years Revisited“. However, as Jourgensen has indicated in the past, he’s preparing to put an end to Ministry once and for all following the release of the band’s next album.
That effort will notably reunite him with a key member of Ministry‘s history in bassist, keyboardist, etc., Paul Barker. The latter musician was in the trenches with Ministry amid the height of their commercial success, appearing on their acclaimed string of late 80s and early 90s releases before exiting back in 2003.
Despite his past struggles with finality, Jourgensen seems intent to cap off Ministry‘s career. In a newly published chat with Full Metal Jackie, Jourgensen spoke of what are set to be the final of the band. Addressing how he’s about to embark upon a tour celebrating the reworked early cuts mentioned above, Jourgensen also stated that fans shouldn’t expect him to pull a move from the KISS playbook:
“As far as the bands that are with us now, of course, I signed Nitzer Ebb to Wax Trap, so they’re on my label. So I’ve known about them for many, many years and Thrill Kill Cult, I used to be in a band with their lead singer Frankie Fun before Ministry. So it all kind of ties in.
It’s all this whole thing that I’m doing with putting a bow on a whole career because I’m doing this tour, I’m getting this cathartically out of me, this early stuff.
And then we’re going to do one final album and one final tour and it’s not going to be like KISS. I’m not going to be coming back every week or month or playing all the casinos and all this other stuff. It’s just like one final album and tour, putting a bow on it and having Paul Barker come back into the band.
That’s who I’m recording with right now from all of the ’90s years and late ’80s and ’90s. Paul Barker was an integral part of that and he’s part of these recordings now as well. So, yeah, I’m just putting a nice little bow on a nice little career.”
Further addressing the reasoning behind his decision to bring the band to an end, he relayed:
“My ears are tired from music. The reason I say that, and that’s the reason I’m ending Ministry, it’s not so much for any health reasons or any kind of band conflicts or anything like that. It’s just that my ears are tired. I’m starting to find myself really slapping myself on the wrist, not repeating stuff that I’ve done before and trying to keep going further. It gets harder as you keep going.
That’s not to say the next album won’t be great, because it already is. We’re halfway done, and it sounds amazing. Amazing. But just saying that it’s a different kind of vibe. It’s more like a job now as opposed to having youthful enthusiasm.
So I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s do this.’ Let’s get Barker back in, which is a nice twist because both he and I have grown since we worked together in the ’90s. So it makes for an interesting twist on our combination of our taste and talents.
I just think everything is wrapping up perfectly. But at that point, when I’m done, I am done. I’m done. You can catch me by the pool.”
Outside of his Ministry-related ventures, Jourgensen went on to reveal that he has some new music set for an upcoming documentary titled ‘Long Knife‘. He shared of it:
“I have some new music coming out on a documentary on how the Koch brothers ripped off the indigenous people in the Osage in Oklahoma. I did the whole score and also a song or two that’s coming out from the record, so. And that should come out next year, I believe. And it’s called Long Knife.”
With Nitzer Ebb & Die Krupps:
04/29 Phoenix, AZ – Van Buren
04/30 Albuquerque, NM – Revel
05/02 Austin, TX – Emo’s
05/03 Houston, TX – House of Blues
05/04 Dallas, TX – Factory
05/06 Atlanta, GA – The Eastern
05/08 Columbus, OH – Sonic Temple Art & Music Festival (no Die Krupps)
05/09 Chicago, IL – Riviera
05/10 Detroit, MI – Masonic Cathedral
05/12 Baltimore, MD – Soundstage
With My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult & Die Krupps:
05/13 Philadelphia, PA – Franklin Music Hall
05/14 Boston, MA – Roadrunner
05/16 Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount
05/17 Montreal, QC – MTelus
05/18 Toronto, ON – History
05/20 Minneapolis, MN – Palace
05/21 Winnipeg, MB – Burton Cummings Theatre
05/23 Edmonton, AB – Midway Music Hall
05/24 Calgary, AB – Palace Theatre
05/26 Vancouver, BC – Commodore
05/28 Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo
05/29 Spokane, WA – Spokane Live Casino
05/31 Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
06/01 Salt Lake City, UT – Union
06/03 San Francisco, CA – Warfield
06/04 Los Angeles, CA – Palladium
06/05 Las Vegas, NV – House of Blues
