Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with Full Metal Jackie, Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen discussed his plans to lay the band to rest. According to him, the group are “going to do one final album and one final tour and it’s not going to be like KISS.”

Jourgensen said the following about revisiting the band’s early material on “The Squirrely Years Revisited” and the upcoming tour in support of it:

“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.”

He continued when asked about his decision to retire:

“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.”

On another note, Jourgensen also revealed that he has recorded new music for a documentary titled “Long Knife”:

“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.”

[via Loudwire]