In 1983, we were opening Depeche Mode's first tour of America. HOW ROUGH DID TOURING GET FOR MINISTRY IN THE EARLY DAYS? You're out there slogging it, and it's like Naked and Afraid - except that you have clothes on sometimes. Just getting our first bus was like, "Whoa!" Before that, we were driving around in a van with 11 stinky people and equipment. They don't understand the nuts and bolts of it. WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT NAKED AND AFRAID?ĪL JOURGENSEN It hits home with me because when most people think about touring, they think about bands like the Rolling Stones or something, where it's private jets - you fly in, do your gig and get out. WE'RE HERE TO TALK ABOUT SURVIVAL, WHICH DOVETAILS NICELY WITH THE SHOW YOU WERE WATCHING WHEN WE ARRIVED. "Nine Inch Nails and Rammstein are the hare, and we're the tortoise. "Ministry is like that old parable about the tortoise and the hare," Jourgensen muses. It's also a massive coincidence, seeing as how this is the "Survival Issue" of Revolver. Given that he's managed to survive the ever-shifting whims of the music industry for nearly 40 years - not to mention the perils of rock & roll decadence and the often-bewildering political realities of modern America - his choice of programming is more than fitting. When we first arrive, Jourgensen is watching the long-running "reality" show Naked and Afraid on a ginormous flat-screen in his living room. "Apparently, a few owners had bad experiences with it, but it's now somehow worth a shitload." "Some guy found it in a dumpster and put it on eBay years ago," he explains. In fact, he's got a print of the creepy canvas propped up next to his mixing desk. Uncle Al has also been working on the soundtrack for a forthcoming documentary called The Haunted Painting. Jourgensen and his girlfriend-manager Liz usher us into his home studio, where he's been writing material with Ministry's newest member, original Tool bassist Paul D'Amour. But I'll be dead before the real shit hits the fan." "We're all gonna fuckin' die - right wing and left - so it's time for someone to have the courage to address that. "We can keep dicking around with our political drama, but we're in a literal ecological crisis right now," the Cuban-born, Chicago-bred musician says. Of course, Jourgensen has a long history of political protest songs - perhaps the most prominent example being "N.W.O" from Ministry's 1992 breakthrough album, Psalm 69 - but today, at age 60, he's looking at the bigger picture. Bush on an album cover (Ministry's Rio Grande Blood) and who cheated death by misadventure on more than one occasion. Burroughs, who put an image of a crucified George W. The combination of sinister and psychedelic imagery is an apt reflection of the man who put out records with titles like The Land of Rape and Honey, Filth Pig and AmeriKKKant, who took drugs with narcotic legends Timothy Leary and William S. But behind a Leave It to Beaver façade on the outskirts of Los Angeles, the man who brought you Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Pailhead and Lard (among others) is surrounded by accouterments more indicative of his dark music and punk-rock sense of humor: a caged cross studded with working lightbulbs, a pitch-black mannequin with an equally black ram skull for a head, a colorful kitchen mural of the Dalai Lama with a Mohawk, a fish tank populated by plastic Day-Glo dinosaurs. Driving by Al Jourgensen's house, you'd have no idea that one of the godfathers of industrial music lived here.
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