Ministry : Evil’s not dead...

-Al : In reality, it’s a Mexican brown chocolate sauce, a goopy mess, it looks like oil, and the reason why we named it like that is what's going on with Bush, and blood for oil, it makes sense.

-You recorded it at the same place as before ?

-AL : Yes, in the ranch, in Texas, where I have all my stuff. There’s no distraction, you get your work done, not too much partying ! This place is really great for work, but it’s fun too : Mexico is right around the corner, Mexican border comes right to the property, so we go to Mexico every week end, and we have fun getting in trouble there !

-Have you been already to the ancien Inca’s pyramids in Mexico ?

-AL : Yes, and it’s pretty cool : this Christmas, I’m going to South America with Franz, from the Young Gods, and, if your know the book ‘Cosmic serpent’, by Jeremy Narby, we’re gonna be doing the whole ayahuasca ritual, with the shaman, down there, doing the whole ‘altered state’ thing. I’ve been as far south as the pyramids and Mexico city, but this Christmas, we’ll go further South. We’ll see what’s there !

-Will it be a simple holiday trip ?

-Al : Yes, just a holiday, but I will sample everything I’ll do there, and there will be a lot of samples that I probably will use a couple on records.

-What has been the general feeling for this Lp : I understand that Georges W. Bush is a great source of inspiration ?

-AL : That's THE big influence on this record : we have a president right now who has the world in the toilet and the hands on the flusher. We need to get rid of him and that's our little statement to that effect. But another big part of this is Paul leaving, and me and Mike Scaccia, our guitar player, are really rocking out : we haven’t really played on a record together since ‘Psalm 69’, and this is ‘Psalm 70’ !

-Paul is out for good ?

-AL : Yes.

-So did you write all the material, music and lyrics for this album, by yourself ?

-A : Yes : that’s my baby !

-I’ve heard that you worked with Richard Haines for T-shirts ?

-Al : Yes, he made our tour T-shirts, which are very anti Bush, and the tour itself is called : ‘Evildoer tour’, because Bush is always going on about evildoers, and inside the record, on the booklet, there's a picture of Bush with double horns and things like that !

-Why this choice of ‘Carmina burana’, opening ‘House of the molé’ ?

-Al : If you’ve seen the movie ‘The Omen’ (‘la malédiction’, ndlr) I’m convinced that Bush is Damian Thorne, and as they had that music in ‘The Omen’, I thought it was perfect ! EEEEEEEvil !

-The first song reminds me of ‘Ace of spade’ by Motorhead...

-Al : Yes, perfectly right !

-So you wanted to have this raw punk sound and spirit this time ? It’s a punk record !

-Al : Yes, I’m convinced of it because of the way we wrote, it was not on computers but jamming like a band, so it lends itself more towards that.

-Talking about those lyrics, do you have any involvement in politics, apart from your artistic engagement ?

-Al : Yes, absolutely, Ministry's main goal is a tour coming up, we’re gonna tour in America right up

until the elections and our goal is to register as many young voters as we can : we've set a hundred thousand but we would like to go beyond that, I would like to register at least a hundred thousand voters to make sure we get this fuck out of office, man, before he tortures the world.

-And would you like to have a kind of responsibility, be elected yourself, at any level, as mayor or deputy ?

-Al : I don’t think I have the right hairstyle ! Or the right past ! They always look into your past ! I have a fucked up past, long hair, and I don’t think I’d get voted into office, but I’d do everything I can to make my little corner of the world okay. Right now, with the administration that we have, everyone’s affected, there’s no way you can’t be politically involved, these days. There’s corruption in Washington, all the industrialists around the world that prop up the governments and blah blah blah, let them have their fun, let them make their money, but this administration here is affecting every single person, with civil liberties, with the economy, people dying for profit, it affects everyone, so it’s time to do something.

-What do you think about Michael Moore ?

-AL : Perfect ! ‘Fahrenheit 911‘ : His new movie debuts in Cannes today. In America, of course, the way that the climate is now, with censorship and everything, they’re not showing it in America yet. They have to get a new distribution deal, because Disney didn’t want to release it. It’s crazy but I’m sure I’ll be going through the same thing with this record !

-I’ve heard yesterday that Disney changed their mind ?

-Al : No, they sold it back to Miramax, which is good : so it will be seen. It should be seen.

-I heard there’s a new Revolting Cocks Lp on the way ?

-Al : Yes, we've just started working on it : it’s called ‘Purple head’ ; we have a new singer, Groovy Man, from The Thrill Kill Cult, and, if I wasn’t talking to you, I would be working on it right now ! (laughs)

-Sorry ! Who’s in Revolting Cocks today ?

-Al : It’s the Ministry bunch with Groovy man.

-No more Chris Connelly, or Richard from Front 242, or Luc Van Acker ?

-Al : If he can arrange his schedule, it’s alright : Rev Cocks are open to anybody. Texas is not that far from Belgium. By plane !

-It will be released on an Internet based label ?

-Al : Yes, and the first song is for free, for the kids, on July 4th. It’s important. We wanted to do it ourselves, in a punk spirit, and show that you could do it !

-You’ll have a video for this ? I remember the video for ‘Da ya think I’m sexy’, which was great !

-Al : Yes, lot of tits ! Well, we hope so, we will see. Actually, I’m directing the new Ministry video, I wanted to direct it myself and we’ll see how that goes. If I’m any good, I’ll do a Cocks video : if not, fuck it, I suck !

-You’re a married man, now : what does it change to your way of composing and writing, and for yourself in general ?

-Al : I’ve been married for almost two years now. Artistically, it changed nothing, I’ve always done what I wanted to do, so it doesn’t matter if I was married or not, the art doesn’t overlap with that. But it does take care of a lot of stress for me, it’s great, we’ve been friends for sixteen years, it’s a good partner in life, and, away from the studio, my life is great. Once I’m in a studio, it doesn’t matter. I have this kind of tunnel vision.

-You had an experience in the movie world with Steven Spielberg, for A.I : do you have any new project in that respect ?

-Al : Like I said, I’m gonna be directing the new video, so we’ll see how that goes. I learned a lot from working on that set, and it was really cool, so I’ll do it again a second video, and I’m very interested because directing is the same as producing a record, it’s the same mindset, it’s being a conductor, it’s the overall picture, the minutiae, the details, so it’s important : I like doing that, it’s my favorite part of my job, this kind of crazy conductor thing !

-Would you like to direct a whole film yourself ?

-Al : Yes, some day, sure !

-Did you see the Rob Zombie movie ?

-AL : I didn’t see it but I’ve heard it’s great : I like Rob Zombie. A lot of people think I don’t, but I do, he’s great. His illustrating work and art is very good : his music is ok too, but his art is better !

-If Ministry was a movie, what movie could it be ?

-AL : If it was a movie, it would be ‘Doctor Strangelove’ : it’s perfect, that guy with a cowboy hat riding the atom bomb and yelling ‘Hee hah’ ! I love Kubrick.

-Could you give some records which changed your life at one time ?

-AL : Let’s see. Not a record but an artist, Hank Williams Sr, and the first Wire album, ‘Pink flag’, the first Ramones album, and also Gram Parsons. Of course, I have to add Johnny Cash. One of the best compliment I’ve ever gotten was from a guitarist who was listening to our record when we where in the studio, for the song ‘Warp city‘ : he said that that was modern Johnny Cash. And my heart exploded.

-Do you feel close, lyrically speaking, to band such as Amen or SOAD ?

-AL : The really funny is that I really don’t know their music but I have read about them, and even met them, but I only listen to jazz and country at home, and so I don’t know what those bands do and I can’t speak for them. I wish I could, I feel embarrassed that I don’t know, because, from what I understand, they’re really spot-on, but I don’t know.

-What do you think of the Internet ?

-Al : It’s a perfect media, really cool : as I said, we’ll release the new Revolting Cocks with a free song for the kids, and our website (ministry music. org) is like a political forum for kids around the world, and we make it that way so it’s not just like the basic website. I try to do live chats with the kids once a month, and keep up on it, because it’s the punk rock of today.

-To finish, after many years in music, how do you judge your career and are you satisfied with the way things turned out ? Is it close to what you expected when you started playing music ?

-Al : No, I didn’t want to be in music, I wanted to be a teacher, and I even went to a teachers college, so this rock thing has gotten in the way of my teaching, somaybe in a way I try to teach a little through the music ! But I was certainly not expecting this. But I’m absolutely satisfied, it’s a good job. The thing about Ministry is that obviously we don’t care about what people think of us : we do it anyways ! And it’s a real band in that sense, not a band that's gonna go away, and if we don’t sell records, we still wanna make music, I’m still gonna make music, you don’t have to buy it, because it’s fun for us, and that’s what is great about the Internet too : I envision the day where I don’t need to make a living anymore, I can just do it in my studio one day, put it on the Internet the next and it’s here, take it : this is fun !

-Something to say to the French fans ?

-Al : Yes, get an American citizenship, and vote against Bush !

Interview made in Paris in May 2004.

Thanks to Roger for his help.

Ministry's official site : Ministrymusic.org.