By Joshua Rotter
After 10 albums and almost three decades, Ministry unleashes their final album, Cover Up, a collection of rocking remakes of party songs for which the band feels a school-day sentimentality: the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb," the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues," and Golden Earring’s “Radar Love."
In keeping with the festive vibe, the disc also contains additional feel-good songs from classic artists such as Deep Purple, T-Rex, and ZZ Top. "“This is a case of people drinking bottles of Jack Daniels, and thinking, 'Hey man, I knew this in high school,'’” founding frontman Al Jourgensen said in a recent interview from his tour bus. “It wasn't like I thought of the bands as influences. It was more like ‘If you know the riff, let's play it, and get it on CD.’ It was totally random and fueled with Jack Daniels.”
For die-hard fans, Ministry’s last album, due today, April 1, and current farewell tour, cheekily titled “C U LaTouR,” are no joking matters. But according to Jourgensen, who will soon focus on other endeavors including production duties for other bands on his 13th Planet label and movie soundtracks, there’s no need to get all choked up. He’s not. He simply has no time to.
“It doesn't change anything,” he said. “I still have to rehearse, practice, and sound decent. There is no nostalgia, because I have five other projects going on at the same time. I just wanna get it over with so people quit asking me about it. It might kick in with the Chicago shows, where I grew up. But just like any other tour, it’s just a bunch of drunk knuckleheads on a tour bus.”
Jourgensen’s look - eye makeup, long dreads and headband; part-industrial rocker and part-Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribean - befits his current touring experience. “We’re trying to get Ben Hur oars put on our tour bus, because it’s more like a pirate ship,” he said. “There are always like six to seven drunk, crusty pirates on this boat bitching about CNN, FOX, and MSNBC being biased.”
Ministry's touring line-up includes Jourgensen, guitarists Tommy Victor (Prong) and Sin Quirin (Revolting Cocks), keyboardist John Bechdel (Fear Factory, False Icons), bassist Tony Campos (Static X), and drummer AAron Rossi (Prong/John 5). Fans can expect a two-and-a-half hour, visual-heavy show, concentrating on tracks from Cover Up and their anti-Bush trilogy Houses of the Mole (2004), Rio Grande Blood (2006), and The Last Sucker (2007), among older material.
“We’ll be doing a little bit of old and new,” Jourgensen said. “We’re bringing back the fence that we had on the ‘A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste’ tour, new visuals, and a kick-ass tight band. This is the best lineup you’ve ever heard, because we wanted to go out with a bang, not a whimper.
"We’ll be doing a lot of stuff from the cover album and the last three albums now that Georgie is out of office," he continued. "It’s important for me to do these, because I didn't know I’d have to do a trilogy about him, since I thought he would have been impeached or beheaded after his first term.”
But don’t expect any nostalgic revisiting of any of the classic tracks off Ministry’s debut, the synth-pop-driven Arista release With Sympathy (1983), which Jourgensen continues to feel no sympathy for.
“No, and fuck no, and mother-fucking no!” he said. “We were doing what we did in ‘80 and ‘81, and we got signed for being different with our own style, personality, and sound, but then they appointed producers and made us sound like everything else. I really didn't have input on the writing. It was written by Clive Davis and his cronies with me as a white Milli Vanilli, so it would be like doing bad covers.”
MINISTRY
With Meshuggah
Tues/1-Wed/2, 8 p.m., $38.50
Fillmore
1805 Geary Blvd, SF
(415) 346-6000
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