Ministry continued
“It was really important to us that we didn’t go out just Bush-bashing. So we started jamming with a bunch of different people who live around us [in Texas]: Burton [C. Bell] from Fear Factory, Wayne [Static] from Static-X. Just had a bunch of people dropping in and out. It wasn’t like we sat down and did an album; this was going on over a period of a couple years. Finally we had enough covers so I said, ‘You know what? We’re a pretty good fuckin’ rock band. I would like for people to remember us like that instead of just Bush Bush Bush Bush Bush Bush — grumbling malcontents. This is a pretty kick-ass rock album.’ So we wanted to go out with a party album instead of fist-shaking. I’m glad we did that.”
And more or less, he’s right. Ministry not only Bush-bashed, but did so at a blistering pace. Houses Of The Molé, Rio Grande Blood, and The Last Sucker were borderline thrash metal, dangling on an industrial thread by soundbytes and blast beats. Ministry’s landmark 1992 album Psalm 69 moved glacially in comparison. Cover Up is loose, and a bit frisky. Interpretations range from the semi-typical (T. Rex, Rolling Stones) to an outlandishly celebratory “What A Wonderful World.”
The party is also moving on for Jourgensen’s most-frequently-visited side project, Revolting Cocks. Founded in the mid ’80s, RevCo’s most constant attribute was their inconstancy, a revolving cast involving friends as near (Ministry’s Paul Raven) and far (Bill Rieflin, now of R.E.M.) as the members had — that and the deviant sexuality in the lyrics. Much won’t have changed when the next album bows in October 2009, but a certain aesthetic will begin to.
“The interesting thing about the Cocks is I’m giving [it] to three new guys,” he says. “It started out with me, Richard 23, and Luc Van Acker — we found three knuckleheads who remind us exactly of us when we started it. So I’m giving them this. I may produce it, maybe not: It’s up to them. I’m handing over the title and the name under the condition that in five years they can do as many albums as they want but they’ve got to find three new knuckleheads. The Cocks will live in perpetuity, like Menudo. I’m out of the picture after this last album. But wait ’til you hear this shit — I’m kind of on a roll these days. A lot of the stuff I’m doing is probably the best I’ve ever done in my life. I’m gonna play you a couple of them so you can say ‘O.K., I heard it. It’s actually done.’ A lot of people they don’t believe in the last year we’ve actually done all this stuff.”
It won’t be difficult to convince them the new Revolting Cocks are up to snuff. Josh Bradford, whom the Jourgensens seem to love for all the wrong reasons, Sin Quirin, and Clayton Worbeck inherit the mantle with a distinct distaste. Of the songs Jourgensen previews, his favorite concerns a closeted individual who denies his homosexuality, passing it off as “I only pretend I am when I’m drunk.” Jourgensen’s demeanor during the playback is that of what he might have been like as a teenager listening to Richard Pryor records in the basement. When he rocks back in laughter, his knees remain locked and his back upright, as if he has been tipped over.
If he can’t continue bashing his adopted state’s native son, he’ll take mawkish pleasure riling its mores and then shoot out the back. “Texans don’t think we’re Texans. As a matter of fact we’re moving next year right across the border in New Mexico, so I’m actually going to be a New Mexican. Texans don’t like El Paso. They spit,” he says, readying a nasal drawl: “‘That ain’t Texas. Bunch of hippies and Mexicans live there. Buncha shit. That ain’t Texas.’ Whatever. I love it down there. The only way I could do [in Chicagoland] what I’m doing down there with our compound and our studio is in Wisconsin. That’s the only place you can get land. You can’t really buy land here. So, why not? The weather’s nice. We have land. The bands come stay, record, live there, there’s four/five bedrooms for that, big studio, swimming pool year ’round. Surrounded by mountains, quick escape route to Mexico,” Jourgensen laughs.
Of all his projects, he seems most reluctant to set the Cocks to sail — not out of fear for the name’s fate, but because it fills him with mirth. “I helped write the music on this one,” he beams, “but Josh does all the words. I’m all over the place on this one. After [it’s released] I’m just a consultant. Cock consultant. It’s like when you walk into an old bank and they have pictures of the founding fathers, all their photo shoots will have me, Luc, and Richard like old bank portraits behind them. Then they have to do the same thing in five years: They go on the hall of shame and three new knuckleheads [enter].”
How many albums does he think the new Cocks will deliver during their half decade? “Three or four — these guys are fast,” he says, almost like a coach or proud father. “I can’t believe we got [the new album] done after doing all this stuff last year. I’m trying to put my ducks in a row, and they’re like, ‘No, we got time. We got time.’ Shit. And we did. We did it in a month and a half, the whole thing. Top to bottom. It was a lot of fun to do with these guys.”
But as Jay-Z said, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” His label, 13th Planet, and production duties have his thoughts amply occupied, and the mention of them sends Jourgensen into a pronounced lean, a finger-ticking accomplishments stance.
“It’s amazing,” he enthuses. “Everyone else’s sales are down 35 percent last year, we’re going up like 30 or 35 percent. We’re having fun and it shows. We’re not worried about product, selling records, this and that, and it’s going great.”
It is strange, however, that someone who almost frittered his life away should be feasting during a famine. Isn’t it? “Obviously there’s interest in the last Ministry stuff and all that. [But] the Prong record came out amazing — it’s [frontman] Tommy [Victor]’s best record in years. A lot of people are interested in what Burton from Fear Factory’s doing.
“I’m trying to make up for lost time — I don’t know if you’ve noticed. The ’90s was a blur. The late ’80s . . .” he rapidly shakes his head with a pppbbbt noise. “I feel like I’m doing something constructive and it’s good, quality stuff. It’s not a bunch of crap product and “American Idol” rejects. There aren’t a lot of labels doing that who aren’t genre specific. You have metal labels who do good stuff, but then they sign a lot of crappy metal bands, too. We’re taking the crème de la crème and doing basically what Wax Trax did in the ’80s.”
Chicago-based industrial rock powerhouse Wax Trax was Jourgensen’s label-of-choice when it came to his side projects, and also where he worked for a short time. “It’s an updated, modern, Internet version of Wax Trax. That’s what I know, so of course it has to be my template. It wasn’t a conscious model, but I see now, in the scope of things, that it turned out to be that way.” (When asked if we’ll see a Lincoln Park 13th Planet store, he rolls his eyes: “Please. Let’s not get carried away.”)
