Cover Story: Ministry • Uncle Al says Adios

Uncle Al is retiring.

However, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard those words from Mr. Jourgensen, but this time seems different.

Ministry’s final album, Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery), released on Oct. 30 through Cleopatra Records, is Ministry’s swan song that lays to rest an incredible 45-year career that is responsible for shaping an entire genre of music.

Led by the charismatic Al Jourgensen, Chicago-born Ministry has been a beloved musical institution in these parts for decades. Jourgensen initially thought the band would end after the 2007 The Last Sucker tour, when he suffered a serious stomach ulcer. “I was bleeding out of every orifice, and I didn’t know why,” Jourgensen explains during a recent Zoom interview. “I couldn’t get a straight answer, and I didn’t think I was going to live. So, The Last Sucker, the last tour, was strictly for health reasons. I’d lost a third of my blood; I’d been bleeding for months. It still took me a few years to do another Ministry album after that. So I thought I was done for health reasons.”

Jourgensen resurrected the band after his stomach surgery but then respectfully disbanded after the death of his friend and longstanding guitarist Mike Scaccia’s death in 2012 and his posthumous album, 2013’s **From Beer to Eternity*. “That was another reason that we wanted to stop,” he continues. “First of all, when (Mike) dies—and if I would release that stuff we were doing as a Ministry album—everyone’s saying I’m cashing in on his death. And I ain’t doing that at all. So I released a Surgical Meth Machine record and took my time. And not only that, I was starting to get healthy again from the stomach surgery I had and was starting to feel okay. Then Trump got elected, and I guess I felt like Al Pacino and Godfather III – the worst movie ever—but still the best line ever is, ‘Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.’ ”

After From Beer to Eternity, Ministry released 2018’s AmeriKKKant, 2021’s Moral Hygiene*, and 2024’s Hopiumforthemasses. However, Ministry’s final resting place lies with its Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery).

According to Jourgensen, Ministry is fini, finito, terminado, kaput! “I’m telling you right now—just so you know how serious I am—to boycott me if I ever try and decide to do another Ministry record,” Jourgensen exclaims. “We’re leaving at the apex. This is the last Ministry album; this is the last Ministry tour. For this one, it’s not for health reasons. It’s because we’ve done everything we wanted to do. This album is about wrapping a Christmas present. We put everything in this record. It’s got everything: the revolting sense of humor, the intensity of 1000 Homo DJs, the political-ness of Ministry; it’s got all this stuff. We even brought back Paul Barker (ex-Ministry, ex-Revolting Cocks) to wrap the box with a bow. We’ve been planning this for a couple of years.”

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Originally formed in Chicago as a synth-pop outfit, Ministry became a pioneer of industrial metal as the genre exploded in the late 1980s/early ’90s. Tracks such as “Burning Inside” and “Thieves” from 1989’s The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste became so influential that DJs cranked them up at dance clubs and raves in the late ’80s. Ministry’s third full-length album, 1988’s The Land of Rape and Honey, played a massive part in launching the industrial metal revolution. Bands such as KDFDM, Frontline Assembly, Pig Face, Skinny Puppy, NIN, and several others followed Ministry’s initial lead and became leaders of the genre themselves.

According to Jourgensen, the beauty of the album was that he didn’t know what it would lead to, and he didn’t really care. “I certainly didn’t go into The Land of Rape and Honey recording sessions with illusions of grandeur or any grandiose plans. I just went in there and did something I thought was really fun to do at the time.” Once the 1990s hit, Ministry rode the industrial craze and broke into the mainstream with 1992’s Psalm 69*: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. The breakthrough record that featured the all-consuming industrial anthems such as “N.W.O.,” “Just One Fix,” and “Jesus Built My Hotrod,” made Ministry a household name

HATE IS REALITY

**Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery)*—Ministry’s 17th release—features 10 defiant tracks. By now, every Ministry fan should know Jourgensen hates the orange man-baby currently inhabiting the White House. Jourgensen has previously sung songs chastising his bloated, corrupt soul and portraying humorous effigies of him.

The album’s first single, “We Hate,” features a familiar Ministry marching, militaristic rhythm, highlighted by piercing guitar/keyboard melodies. The condemning yet true lyrics are injected with a bit of humor, with some call-and-response German phrases bellowed on the infectious and chantable chorus—simulating a Nazi propaganda rally. I can almost envision Ministry fans excitedly chanting the chorus in unison live.

According to Jourgensen, the song’s structure began with a simple riff. “Monty Pittman came up with the initial riff, and to me, that signified something that came up in my past,” Jourgensen remembers. “It sounded like something from a 1950s or ’60s cop show in black and white, just like *Dragnet* or the FBI or something like that. So I thought that was funny. Then we added another layer of humor with this authoritarian takeover of Hair Mussolini, set in ’30s Germany. So we incorporated visions of lederhosen, dancers, and Oktoberfest beer halls.”

According to Jourgensen, the accompanying video is purposefully littered with AI slop to show the hypocrisy and utter silliness of our current POTUS. Directed by Joshua Bradford (ex-Revolting Cocks), the entire video is a parody that is terrifyingly real at the same time. “You’ve got to make fun of it,” Jourgensen states. “Nobody listens to what you say, and not that if they did, I wouldn’t want to be in a position to be the ruler of whatever… I don’t want to be Gandhi, Jesus, Trump, Hitler, Stalin. I don’t want to be any of those people.”

With accurate, dead-on social commentary, Jourgensen’s lyrics are metaphorically precise. He’s describing something blatantly specific, but with a veiled technique. On the album opener “Crickets,” Jourgensen and crew inject a bit of comedy from an old adage: if you bomb on stage after a joke, it feels like you hear crickets—just nothing. The song tries to say the band follows nothing.

The album’s next track, “Voices of Hate,” features innovative use of a Speak & Spell electronic toy, while the dystopian third single, “Singularity,” is a prophetic warning of Artificial Intelligence’s impending doom and a robotic takeover of humanity. “I can’t believe that came out when it did,” Jourgensen exclaims. “When Sam Altman and Elon Musk and the rest of these tech bros came out and said, ‘We’re all gonna die,’ we didn’t just release it; this was already on the release schedule months before. That single came out, and we’re using AI to show how fucked up it can be—it doesn’t have to be. It’s the same thing as I remember when social media came out: Facebook, MySpace. But you had the entire encyclopedia at your fingertips, and you could look stuff up, and it was called The Age of Information. That swiftly became the Age of Disinformation. Now AI is that on steroids.”

Album closer, “We’re Still Here,” caps a full-circle moment in Ministry’s long career. The haunting composition features one final collaboration with legacy member bassist Paul Barker. “We wanted to have him part of it from the start,” Jourgensen admits. “We just felt it was the final cherry on the Sunday, or the ribbon on the present. So we started working together and realized we hadn’t been in the studio together for 30 years. It was just heartwarming. We decided to concentrate on one song that will really be poignant, as poignant as it is for him and me to be back together in the studio after all these years. And it was like riding a bike; it was beautiful. “We’re Still Here” means that despite all of the Trump chaos and this entire societal collapse and the oncoming AI onslaught and all that, it’s kind of like a message of hope. Like, if we can do it—we’re still here—then you can do it, too. And that was always meant to be the last song on the record from the start.”

Joining Jourgensen on the current Ministry roster are guitarists Monte Pittman and Cesar Soto, bassist Paul D’Amour, sampler/synth player John Bechdel, and drummer Pepe Clarke Magaña. According to Jourgensen, the overall camaraderie and musical chemistry of the band fits perfectly into Ministry’s DNA. “John Bechdel has been in the band for 18 years. Monte has been in and out for 12 years. Cesar Soto’s been there for 10 years. Paul D’ Amour is going on eight years. And Pepe Clarke for two years—who replaced Roy Mayorga—but actually Roy recommended Pepe. This band—personnel-wise—has lasted longer than the bands everyone immortalizes from the ’90s. So, the camaraderie is obviously there because I’m too old to just take a bunch of drama. Your show is an hour, two hours long. Your bus ride is 10 hours long. So that’s more important to me than the shows. This is like a real band. This isn’t Alice Cooper and a bunch of 24-year-olds!”

SWEET HOME CHICAGO

For Jorgensen, there’s nothing like playing a hometown show, and last month’s date at the Salt Shed was no exception. “I lived there for 35 years and the first 25 years of Ministry was in Chicago,” Jorgensen says. “I miss everything about living in Chicago except the weather. It’s always special coming back; I’m a Chicagoan. Playing Chicago is always a special show in my heart; you can’t take Chicago out of me.”

Jourgensen has also been a die-hard Chicago Blackhawks fan for 51 years, and even the team’s owner Danny Wirtz was the best man at his wedding. Ministry paid homage to the team by recording their own version of the Blackhawks’ theme song, “Keys to the City,” released in 2008.

Jourgensen fondly remembers going to games with his father as a kid at the old Chicago Stadium. Jourgensen says he’s been to almost every NHL arena, but nothing beats seeing a game in Chicago. Over the years, he has never missed a Chicago home opener, and this year (Oct. 6 vs. St. Louis Blues) was no different.

Jourgensen’s predictions on the 2026-27 season? “I think there’s two names that really stand out to me,” he explains. “(Roman) Kantserov and (Anton) Frondell. Their potential is in the top 20 NHL stars, both those guys. But they’re like 20 years old. They’ve got all these talented young D-men, but they just do boneheaded stuff. (Goalie) Spencer Knight can only hold them off for so long. (Patrick) Kane coming back is great; that’s the cherry on the Sunday. We need to keep (Connor) Bedard healthy. (Tyler) Bertuzzi has to have another year like he had last year. We have so much talent, and I think they got the right coach, and I’m kind of glass half full on this year. I think we’ll be in the top 10 worst teams, but at least not the top five.”

FARE THEE WELL

Everyone from Judas Priest to Scorpions to Ozzy Osbourne to Mötley Crüe has declared farewell tours, only to return a couple of years later. Even Slayer has returned to the stage recently after declaring they were through in 2019. However, Jourgensen insists that this is the final album and tour of Ministry’s long career.

Ministry will embark on its International ‘The Goodbye Europe Tour’ with special guest Die Krupps in April of 2027.  “First, we’re doing our final tour in Australia in December, and that’s it,” Jourgensen states. “And then we do Europe in April, and then that’s it. Then we do the first leg of the North American tour, including Canada. We do that in June or July. And then in August and September, we do the second half. The final show is October 30th of 2027 at the (KIA) Forum, with a lot of guest stars who have been fans of ours over the years. To hammer the point home even more, it’s going to be us, KMFDM, and Pig Face—all of which are declaring it our last tour. It’s the passing-the-torch tour. It’s time for a younger generation to take over because with the upcoming challenges that we have, I’m not prepared to deal with them.”

-Kelley Simms

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