Ministry‘s final studio album “Hate To Go – Take Out Or Delivery” received its official release this past Friday, October 30th. As Al Jourgensen, frontman for the pioneering industrial metal band, has repeatedly communicated in recent years, he is ready to once again put the band on ice — this time apparently for good.
Before that happens, Jourgensen intends to conclude a relatively brief farewell tour. That trek is already underway and currently has an end date in mind: October 30th, 2027 at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, CA. While that date has yet to be officially announced, Jourgensen has openly mused about it.
While all this has already been effectively communicated in recent years and months, “Hate To Go – Take Out Or Delivery” did offer up one very prevalent surprise. In the leadup to the record, it was heavily promoted that Paul Barker would be involved.
Barker last served as the bassist/keyboardist/programmer for the group during their 1986 to 2003 commercial heyday, leaving many fans of the older material excited at the reunited duo of recapturing some of that old magic. However, as it turned out, Barker‘s involvement was limited to one song: “We’re Still Here“.
In a recently published interview with Revolver, Jourgensen went on to state that he and Barker struggled to find common creative ground, leading Jourgensen to pull the plug and narrow the scope of their collaboration. Jourgensen stated:
“When we decided that this was it, one of the things that was pre-planned was that I wanted to get Barker back involved, and I also wanted to get Josh Bradford — a singer from RevCo — doing the videos. I wanted to give the fans a package of what we feel Ministry sounds like. Wrap it up with a bow, and then the cherries on top are bringing back some old mates to let people know there’s still hope [for the world].
There was talk about me and Barker doing the whole album together, but [we] realized that our musical paths are so different at this point. What worked in the Nineties doesn’t work now. We tried to bash around, but then I said, ‘Let’s stop doing this,’ in the view of doing an entire album. ‘Let’s concentrate on one song where both of our abilities and aesthetics come into play.’ That became ‘We’re Still Here.’
The message is the same. We’ve all said we’re gonna be extinct before, but we’re still here. Nobody thought me and Barker would ever get back together either, but we’re still here! Matter of fact, not only are we still here, he lives down the road and we’re buddies now, which we never were when we were in the band. Now we hang out! There’s always hope.
I wanted to leave that last song with that message, considering the maelstrom that we live in — the chaos and anarchy. There’s still hope.”
